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FT Alphaville —
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Wednesday’s FT, Martin Wolf: Choices made in 2009 will shape the globe’s destiny This is a year in which the fate of the world economy will be determined, maybe for generations. Some entertain hopes that we can restore the globally unbalanced economic growth of the middle years of this decade. They are wrong. Our choice is only over what will replace it. It is between a better balanced world economy and disintegration. That choice cannot be postponed. It must be made this year. ...
Borrowing is borrowing
SCSUScholars —
... may as well say the lockbox on Social Security was spent on TARP; the Social Security fund is being stocked with Treasury bonds anyway at this point. What actually will pay for the funds to be given to households as grants -- Ed's right here, too: The money isn't a tax rebate, since there are no taxes paid by many of its recipients -- will be additional borrowings from whomever we can borrow from. That's most likely going to be international countries such as BRIC -- Martin Wolf concludes as much yesterday -- though Russia's part of that will be small for the ...
Savings glut vs income shortage
European Tribune —
Martin Wolf is still pushing the savings glut theory in his column yesterday and, predictably, calls for countries with large surpluses (China and Germany first and foremost) to increase their spending to save the world economy, as the debtor nations can no longer increase their debt to sustain activity, as they used to until the crisis. and he promises (should this be worth a Godwin alert?) 1930s turmoil if this does not happen: think what will happen if, after two or more years of monstrous fiscal deficits, the US is still mired in unemployment and slow growth. People will ...
A New Meme: Blame It on Beijing (and Seoul, and Riyadh...)
Econbrowser —
Perhaps I'm overstating it, but I think this is the abridged version of the Bush Administration's perspective on how we got into the financial mess we find ourselves in. You might ask why I focus on the ideas of the outgoing government. Well, it's because I'm confident that this will be a thesis pushed by some commentators eager to absolve previous policymakers of blame [0] [1]. And indeed (as Mish points out), this view has apparently adherents in high places.
But let me let the the Economic Report of the President [large pdf] ...
