Yesterday’s blog entry was entitled: ‘The so-called bail-out: The EU and Ireland in a sado-masochistic relationship’. In fact the support being provided is a mixture of EU, national government and IMF support, and I used ‘EU’ as a short-cut. However, as more details of the deal emerge, it seems that the short-cut was more literally [...]
Chile after the Social Democratic Decade
30/11/2010 by
After long periods of power in Chile and many other parts of the world, disappointing progress on inequality and poverty pose stark questions of the social democratic model. In January 2010 the Concertación, the four-party coalition which won four consecutive presidential elections and governed Chile since the return to democracy in 1990, left office, to [...]
Spending Cuts Will Hit the Vulnerable Hardest – So Find Another Way!
30/11/2010 by
A banner unfurled on the Leaning Tower of Pisa reads No alla riforma (of education). Portugal virtually comes to a halt as a result of a general strike that has united the bitterly divided union movement against austerity measures. British students trash the headquarters of the ruling Conservative Party in protest at budget cuts. In [...]
Rushing Enlargement was a Mistake
30/11/2010 by
A couple of years ago I wrote a report on the Polish elections of 2005. With characters and parties such as the (since then fortunately marginalised) extremist political loony Andrzej Lepper, the racist and homophobic League of Polish Families, and the populist Kaczynski twins taking over government, I mused in a private message how such [...]
The so-called bail-out: Europe and Ireland in a sado-masochistic relationship
29/11/2010 by
After weeks of speculation and debate the deed has now been done. Ireland has received an overdraft facility of just under €70 bn provided jointly by the EU and the IMF in exchange for a tough austerity package. This is a bad deal for Ireland and a bad deal for Europe. It is misguided in [...]
Expansionary Fiscal Contraction and the Emperor’s Clothes
29/11/2010 by
Various eminent economists – amongst them, Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz and Robert Skidelsky[i] – have attacked ‘deficit hysteria’ as based on weak economic evidence and poor theory; i.e. as being ‘economically illiterate’. The right-wing of the profession – not just in Britain but in Frankfurt and Washington – has struck back, digging hard into the [...]
On Why Americans see no Light at the End of the Tunnel
29/11/2010 by
Frank Rich wrote in yesterday’s NYT, in an article under the telling-it-all title “Still the Best Congress Money Can Buy”: The Great Depression ended the last comparable Gilded Age, of the 1920s, and brought about major reforms in American government and business. Not so the Great Recession. Last week, as the Fed’s new growth projections [...]
Ed Miliband launches Policy Review with the Right Priorities
29/11/2010 by
After his paternity leave, Ed Miliband is now getting serious about reforming the British Labour Party. And I have to say that he is addressing exactly the right issues. The vast majority of what has been discussed on this website for over a year is reflected in the renewal process now starting to take shape. [...]
Cancun Must be a Major Step Forward in Climate Negotiations
29/11/2010 by
In a few days the next Climate Change Conference will start in Cancun, Mexico, and even if a comprehensive global agreement will not be signed, a package of decisions for climate protection must be delivered. After the setback in Copenhagen last year, it is of great importance to reach substantial progress to keep the climate [...]
Ireland, Bond Markets and Democracy
29/11/2010 by
In the wake of the Irish crisis, Timothy Garton Ash passed a damning judgment on the government of Angela Merkel: “If the eurozone falls apart, it will be because Germany did not do enough to save it” (Guardian 25 November 2010). This has a certain superficial appeal, because German inflexibility on debt management and its [...]
Towards a New European Political Economy
28/11/2010 by
Watch Carmen de Paz Nieves, IDEAS Foundation, Spain, discuss issues of European political economy. [vsw id="17027019" source="vimeo" width="425" height="344" autoplay="no"] This speech was recorded at the “A Political Economy for the Good Society Conference” organised by the FES London and Compass on 18/19 November 2010.
The Big Society and Deficit Reduction – Austerity Politics in the UK
26/11/2010 by
‘The British government’s plan is bold, say the pundits – and so it is. But it boldly goes in exactly the wrong direction. Why is the British government doing this? The real reason has a lot to do with ideology: the Tories are using the deficit as an excuse to downsize the welfare state.’ So [...]
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