|
by Jerome a Paris
It's been a while since we had some bridge blogging, so I took the opportunity of a visit to Strasbourg last month to take a few pictures of the passerelle des deux rives, pedestrian bridge over the Rhine which links Strasbourg in France to Kehl in Germany.
Read more... (4 comments, 300 words in story) by Jerome a Paris
Part of the irregular Countdown to $200 oil series.
Since hitting $100 in early January, the oil is up 26% in 4 months. Coincidentally, another 2 increases of 26% in 4 months will bring us to mid-January 2009 and almost exactly to $200 oil. Read more... (9 comments, 761 words in story) by Jerome a Paris
The eagerness over the past few days by pundits and financiers to call the financial crisis essentially over has been quite remarkable. I've been collecting articles all saying the same thing and have selected a few here.
A LOT of heavy-hitters have spoken in almost identical terms on the topic:
Read more... (52 comments, 1095 words in story) by Jerome a Paris
As in previous years, I got my ass whupped in my latest diary on DailyKos on gas taxes. Some commenters kindly called me a "rich elitist fuck" (guilty on all counts, of course) for wanting to bankrupt poor Americans who cannot do without gas, preferably cheap, and are already struggling mightily.
Well, here's the news:
Read more... (74 comments, 870 words in story) by Jerome a Paris
The above is self-explanatory: the rich are getting richer, at the expense of everybody else.
Which makes it funny to read this: Read more... (20 comments, 998 words in story) by Jerome a Paris
Read more... (91 comments, 970 words in story) by Jerome a Paris
The FT is inching ever closer to adopting my concept of the Anglo Disease, this time under the byline of John Plender, one of its regular editorialists. In a pretty long and detailed article about rising inequality, he has this to say, among other things:
The name - Anglo Disease - fits like a glove to these repeated descriptions of the Anglo- American financial capitalism model. But, more interestingly, the article provides explicitly, for the first time as far as I can ascertain, the explication that I've been using as to why this model was tolerated for so long: Read more... (48 comments, 538 words in story) by Jerome a Paris
A few articles on the housing bubble (or the end thereof), as found over the past week.
Read more... (25 comments, 548 words in story) by Jerome a Paris Oil futures are contracts whereby parties commit to buy or sell oil at a pre-agreed price at a given date in the future. The graph shows at what price levels futures traded last Friday, on the first day of this year and a year ago (ie, the most recent futures indicate that markets expect prices to slowly go down from their current level above $100 per barrel to stable prices in the high 90s - and stay there for the next several years: in effect, market are betting on almost constant $100 oil over the foreseeable future).The most striking thing about these graphs is that markets have no clue whatsoever as to where prices will be in the future. In the past, it used to be simple: whatever the short term price, future prices would be around $20, ie markets expected prices to be stable in the long run, whetever the short term variations. Today, they are in effect still clinging to the same formula, ie that prices will go back to some stable level from where they are today - but given that prices keep on increasing, that target can obviously no longer be $20, and given that they have not been stable at any level in the recent past, they are just taking last month's prices as a "safe" bet.
Which simply means that they have no clue. As I've been promising for a while to create a new target for the successor of the "Countdown to $100 oil" series, this has left me in a quandary as to what new target to select - if the markets have no idea, it's not that controversial to say anything (well, except if I did end up with a $1000 target, but that would probably be a bet on US hyperinflation than on the oil market, today). So what are the factors driving oil prices in the near and medium term?
Brought across by afew Read more... (41 comments, 1193 words in story) by Jerome a Paris ![]() Yep, the financial meltdown underway is such that Spitzer's story barely makes it to Bloomberg's headlines. Every single one of these stories would be the main headline in all the financial press on any normal day. These days, you have so many unusual news that people shrug and move on. Oh, Fannie Mae dropped 10% again? Shrug... It's only the 5th time or so this happens since the beginning of the year... Here's a tour of the financial panic underway. But first, go read Krugman's column this morning for the optimist view... Read more... (74 comments, 1384 words in story) by Jerome a Paris
Bernard pointed us to an article in Businessweek that explicitly makes that assertion, with a pretty unambiguous title: More Fodder for the Yank-Haters: The spreading U.S. credit crisis is turning up the heat on Europe's simmering anti-Americanism.
This is worth deconstructing in detail: Read more... (52 comments, 1943 words in story) by Jerome a Paris
One of the most extraordinary things today is that we are facing two simultaneous crises at the same time. To some extent, they are linked, as the growth in China or elsewehre that pushes commodity prices up by making obvious the resource constraints we are beginning to face was to a large extent fuelled by the financial capitalism-driven globalisation. But they are now having completely opposed consequences, as far as inflation is concerned, with emerging markets demand continuing to push prices up, while the credit crunch is savagely cutting into economic activity and causing across the board asset price drops. What we are really seeing is a quite brutal change in the relative values of goods and assets. For years, we had debt-bubble-fuelled increase in asset prices (mostly real estate and financial assets) and stagnation in goods prices, caused by the downwards pressure from China and the wage stagnation engineered by financial capitalism's requirements. Now that process is partly going into reverse. Oil and commodity prices are feeding into goods price inflation, while the credit crunch signals the end of the the dizzying valuations of assets. One category is inflating, and another is deflating. And wages and pensions (ie living standards for most people) are caught in the middle. Read more... (46 comments, 1504 words in story) by Jerome a Paris An argument often heard against wind is that it costs a lot in public subsidies for a solution that will always have a limited impact (because it still produces only a small fraction of overall needs, and because of its unreliability linked to its intermitten nature). This is an argument worth addressing in detail, especially when it is pointed out, as the graph shows, that wind is already almost competitive with the other main sources of electricity, which suggests that it might not even need the subsidies then (and the increase in commodity prices since that graph was prepared using 2004 data, only reinforces that argument).
The above, from an article by Fatih Birol, the increasingly strident chief economist of the International Energy Agency, suggests that we need to develop all non-carbon based energy sources as quickly as we can to avoid the coming energy crunch from oil depletion. He suggests to push nuclear energy, but that may not be enough - and, as I will show below, the best way to push nuclear is also the best way to promote wind power... Read more... (77 comments, 2261 words in story) by Jerome a Paris
My worst fears about Obama's foreign policy ideas are confirmed by his recent declarations on Afghanistan:
Sounds like the usual "give and take": Europe gives and the US takes. How about actually thinking about the underlying policies, and put an end to the pointless - and now irredeemably lost - war in Afghanistan? Read more... (139 comments, 1287 words in story) by Jerome a Paris
"Bubbles" Greenspan, the man who did more than anyone on the planet to ensure that there would be inflation on a global scale by bringing interest rates down to insanely low levels and flooding the markets with cheap credit is now trying to con Americans one last time by engineering a de facto default by the US on its foreign obligations, via devaluation. Read more... (54 comments, 733 words in story) by Jerome a Paris
This thread regroups all known media coverage of our Stop Blair campaign (sign the petition here!).
Feel free to add more links as you see them, following simple rules:
Comments >> (97 comments) by Jerome a Paris
Read more... (93 comments, 1534 words in story) by Jerome a Paris
Yet another day of astonishing volatility on the markets today, with the Dow Jones jumping from -1% to +1% in a few minutes after it emerged that a bailout for monoline insurer Ambac was apparently imminent. Financial stocks, which had been sharply down on news of downgrades of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae by analysts, brutally shot up.
What this makes clear is that the markets no longer know how to value stocks, in particular financial ones, and fluctuate wildly as new "input" becomes available, whether hard news like financial statements or corporate decisions, or soft news like analyst recommendations or expectations of decisions... And as hard news are coming out in random blobs over time, this uncertainty is unlikely to change. This might make market watching a lot more exciting, but it is also beginning to have an impact on the real economy, as the logical reaction of the financial world in the face of this uncertainty is to batten hatches, tighten lending criteria, and reduce down credit and investment activity. Euphoria is followed by revulsion, and boom by bust. Read more... (24 comments, 1461 words in story) by Jerome a Paris
Just a quick diary to flag a poll by HarrisInteractive (PDF!), which includes two questions that you may find of interest.
Read more... (116 comments, 589 words in story) by Jerome a Paris
Le texte ci-dessous (colonne de droite) est une adaptation d'un essai initialement rédigé en anglais et reproduit ci-dessous (colonne de gauche). Il s'agit d'une tentative de synthèse d'un certain nombre de discussions menées au cours des derniers mois pour tenter d'éclaircir la génese de la crise financière en cours. Les liens vers ces discussions (qui sont essentiellement en anglais) est en bas de ce texte. Ce texte est dans la lignée de l'article Non, la France n'est pas en déclin et n'a pas besoin de "réformes" écrit avec John Evans (afew) et publié dans le Monde daté du 11 septembre 2007.
Read more... (9 comments, 2507 words in story)
|
Recommended Diaries
Women in Politics: The Swiss Government
by Fran - May 17 13 comments Democracy Incorporated by geezer in Paris - May 16 24 comments Odds & Ends: All Russia Lovefest All The Time, Vol.37 by poemless - May 16 19 comments Bridge Blogging - Der Garten Der Zwei Ufer by Jerome a Paris - May 17 4 comments Salon socialism on ET. A provocation by Martin - May 15 188 comments Adventures in Self Publishing by rdf - May 16 5 comments LQD: World Congress of Agronomists by Migeru - May 16 6 comments A Jouney into Sound Part IX -- :Language by rg - May 17 47 comments Recent Diaries
An Estonian Kosovo
by NordicStorm - May 17 53 comments Bridge Blogging - Der Garten Der Zwei Ufer by Jerome a Paris - May 17 4 comments Women in Politics: The Swiss Government by Fran - May 17 13 comments Euro Trends: Music (2) by Metatone - May 17 2 comments Eating Close to Home: the Locavore and Other Challenges by Asinus Asinum Fricat - May 17 1 comment A Jouney into Sound Part IX -- :Language by rg - May 17 47 comments Water: the Incoming Apocalypse by Asinus Asinum Fricat - May 17 6 comments How Actual Journalism Works, Part 2 by danps - May 17 Adventures in Self Publishing by rdf - May 16 5 comments LQD: World Congress of Agronomists by Migeru - May 16 6 comments Odds & Ends: All Russia Lovefest All The Time, Vol.37 by poemless - May 16 19 comments Democracy Incorporated by geezer in Paris - May 16 24 comments Humanitarian Warfare by rdf - May 16 1 comment Gemeinschaftslage r Neheim by DoDo - May 16 21 comments News You Won't Read in the MSM by Asinus Asinum Fricat - May 16 1 comment LQD: Green movement forgets its politics by Sassafras - May 16 8 comments Photography Blog No. 35 by In Wales - May 16 67 comments Salon socialism on ET. A provocation by Martin - May 15 188 comments They've gotta be kidding... by JakeS - May 15 7 comments A needed place for "anti-Americ anism" by euamerican - May 15 49 comments More Diaries... Debates
Meta - ET
by In Wales - May 10 250 comments Can The World Feed Its Population? by afew - May 8 82 comments Campaigns
Occasional Series
Most Commented threads ever
by Migeru - May 17 8 comments Agriculture by afew - May 14 TOC: Being Deaf by Migeru - May 13 Photoblogging by Migeru - May 13 3 comments Europe. Is. Doomed. by DoDo - May 10 Countdown to $200 oil by Migeru - May 9 Anglo Disease by Migeru - May 7 TOC: Socratic Economics by Migeru - May 6 Biofuels by Migeru - May 6 A Journey Into Sound by In Wales - May 3 Train Blogging by DoDo - May 2 Germany by DoDo - Apr 26 Blogroll
ASSOCIATED SITES
BooMan The Oil Drum Energize America L'Etoile de Martin
THE TRAIL BLAZERS
THE FRONT PAGERS
OUR COUSINS FROM AMERICA
EUROPEANS
EUROTRIB USER BLOGS OR RECOMMENDATIONS
Inside the USA (FR)
ENERGY
ECON
Recent Comments
|
|||||||||
| ||||||||||