Garten on a Global Monetary Authority.

FT.com / Comment & analysis – Global authority can fill financial vacuum
The current global institutional apparatus is woefully incapable of overseeing the financial system that is evolving. The International Monetary Fund is irrelevant to this crisis, the Group of Seven leading industrial countries lacks legitimacy in a world where China, Brazil and others are big [...]

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FT on the beneficial impact of US crisis on Brazil

FT.com / World – Brazil’s confidence stores up future problems
In spite of the threat of global recession and the dent it might make in Brazil’s recent prosperity, Mr Lula da Silva is riding a wave of acclaim. An opinion poll this week put his personal popularity rating at 78 per cent.
FT.com / World – Brazil’s [...]

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Mishkin on (flexible) inflation targets

FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment – Do not abandon inflation targets
The modern science of monetary policy argues that it should not try to get inflation to within a tight range over short time horizons. To do so would only result in excessive fluctuations in economic activity. It argues, instead, that when shocks to [...]

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Wyplosz on European reactions to the financial crisis

FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment – French and German anger misses the fact
With people angry and scared at what may happen next, political leaders find it more difficult than usual to resist populist tendencies and seek to distance themselves from a possibly serious downturn. With market failures crudely in the limelight, they feel [...]

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Dreary careerism

YAM March 1997 – The Yale of My Day 1968
Vietnam didn’t just transform our years at Yale; our guilty secret was that it made them better. Temporarily at least, the war steered us away from dreary careerism, and set us on a kind of quest.
YAM March 1997 – The Yale of My Day 1968
A couple [...]

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Krugman says Paulson’s plan is unacceptable

Op-Ed Columnist – Cash for Trash – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com
But Mr. Paulson insists that he wants a “clean” plan. “Clean,” in this context, means a taxpayer-financed bailout with no strings attached — no quid pro quo on the part of those being bailed out. Why is that a good thing? Add to this the fact [...]

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Shiller on new mortgages

Economic View – The Mortgages of the Future – NYTimes.com
The government did not finish the job of improving mortgages in the 1930s, even though some had begun to see what should be done then. In a 1931 article, for example, Professor Irving Fisher of Yale argued that more flexible instruments should be substituted for conventional [...]

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On short selling

FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment – French and German anger misses the fact
Short selling is like cars. Drivers can be reckless; disciplining them seems more reasonable than banning cars.
Bloomberg.com: Worldwide
Morgan Stanley’s chief executive officer, John Mack, said short sellers may be spreading false information and using abusive tactics to attack companies.
Bloomberg.com: [...]

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South American Integration

The American import tax on ethanol induces Brazilian producers to seek new routes. Closer cooperation with Peru will enable Brazil to access the American and Asian markets while improving South American relations. It is quite interesting to see how much Brazilian companies are investing abroad.
Peru’s platform for Brazil’s exports | Connecting to the [...]

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What not to do about global warming

Bjorn Lomborg makes a very interesting point about CO2 emission reduction programs.
Project Syndicate
In other words, if Barroso fears costs of 20% of GDP in the year 2100, the 0.5% payment every year of this century will do virtually nothing to change that cost. We would still have to pay by the end of the [...]

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