Leestips - Zaterdagbijlage DDSFI 11 mei 2013

U vindt hier de titel (wat direct ook de link is), en de eerste alinea's.

1. Welk land wordt als eerste door de euro opgeblazen?
Which euro-zone country is most deeply in debt? The profligate Greeks, with their generous state-funded pensions? The Cypriots and their banks stuffed with dodgy Russian money? The recession-hit Spaniards or the boom-and-bust Irish?

None of the above. Actually, it is the sober, responsible Dutch.

2. The EU’s Out-Of-Control Intelligence Services (That Don’t Exist)
Brussels, the center of gravity of the European Union and seat of NATO Headquarters, not only teems with lobbyists, diplomats, military personnel, bureaucrats, politicians, Americans, and other weird characters from around the world, but also with spies.

“Brussels is one of the largest spy capitals in the world,” said Alain Winants, head of the Belgian State Security Service VSSE. He guesstimated that there’d be “several hundred” plying their trade at any one time, chasing after a broad array of topics, from trade issues to security policies.

3. Loose Money: Stop Us* Before We Kill Again
You see there have already been several programs written that help you to arrive at decisions by properly ordering and analysing all the relevant facts so that they then point naturally towards the right decision. The drawback with these is that the decision which all the properly ordered and analysed facts point to is not necessarily the one you want.”

4. The lessons of the North Atlantic crisis for economic theory and policy
The world has seen a hundred financial crises in the past three decades. In this column, Nobelist Joe Stiglitz argues that we could have done much more to prevent this crisis and to mitigate its effects. Looking ahead, we can do much more to prevent the next one. This is a chance to revolutionise flawed economic models, and perhaps exit from an interminable cycle of crises.

5. Debt without drowning
Since the 1970’s, economists have warned that a monetary union could not be sustained without a fiscal union. But the eurozone’s leaders have not heeded their advice – and the consequences are becoming increasingly apparent. Europe now faces a difficult choice: either fix this fundamental design flaw and move toward fiscal union, or abandon the common currency.

6. The austerity debate is beside the point for Europe (Pdf)
In surveying the heated debate in the eurozone about austerity and the cost of high public debt, this CEPS Commentary suggests that the influential paper by Carmen Reinhard and Kenneth Rogoff misses the key point that public debt owed to foreigners is different from debt owed to residents.

Local currency defaults in the recent era include: Venezuela (1998), Russia (1998), Ukraine (1998), Ecuador (1999), Argentina (2001) and Jamaica (2010 and 2013). Nonetheless, we recognise that local currency defaults are less frequent than foreign currency defaults and are unlikely for countries with debt mainly denominated in local currency at long maturity.

8. Een speciaal programma voor Zuid-Europa?
Europas Notenbank arbeitet an einem Programm, um kleine und mittelgroße Unternehmen in den Krisenländern leichter zu Krediten zu verhelfen. Dabei könnte die EZB selbst Kreditverbriefungen kaufen.

9. Is a 'Virtuous Circle' Beginning in Southern Europe?
Two of Europe’s problem children are getting their acts together, at least in the opinion of global investors. Yields are back below 10 percent on both Greek and Portuguese 10-year government bonds. That means investors are willing to accept less compensation for taking the risk that the countries will default on their obligations.

10. Fiscal adjustment in an uncertain world
IMF-rapport april 2013