Negotiations are on going in Europe.
The immediate pain of resolution is personal to the powerful.
We will not see a resolution to the crisis until something large breaks.
I expect things to continue as they are until after November sixth.
The polling data are negative for Democrats right now. That can be fixed.
The campaigns are working on it.
The Greek prime
minister, Antonis Samaras, who highlighted the rise of the neo-Nazi
Golden Dawn party. Photograph: Yorgos Karahalis/Reuters
"Greece
is teetering on the edge of collapse with its society at risk of
disintegrating unless the country's near-empty public coffers are shored
up with urgent financial aid, the country's prime minister has warned.
Almost three years after the eruption of Europe's debt drama in Athens, the economic crisis engulfing the nation has become so severe that democracy itself is now imperiled, Antonis Samaras said.
"Greek democracy stands before what is perhaps its greatest challenge," Samaras told the German business daily Handelsblatt in an interview published hours before the announcement in Berlin that Angela Merkel will fly to Athens next week for the first time since the outbreak of the crisis.
Resorting to highly unusual language for a man who weighs his words carefully, the 61-year-old politician evoked the rise of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party to highlight the threat that Greece faces, explaining that society "is threatened by growing unemployment, as happened to Germany at the end of the Weimar Republic".
"Citizens know that this government is Greece's last chance," said Samaras, who has repeatedly appealed for international lenders at the EU and IMF to relax the onerous conditions of the bailout accords propping up the Greek economy.
Mounting anti-austerity rage before a new round of sweeping EU-IMF-mandated austerity measures appears to have caught the government off-guard, with officials voicing fears over the ability of Samaras's fragile coalition to survive.
The unprecedented storming of Greece's defence ministry by hundreds of protesting dockworkers on Thursday – a breach of security not seen in modern times – has especially unnerved officials. On Friday, Samaras lashed out at "those who don't understand the meaning of law and order".
"The government is waging a battle on all fronts for the nation's credibility and its future so that the sacrifices made by Greeks aren't lost," he said, referring to the spending cuts and tax increases that have sparked record levels of poverty and unemployment. "I will not allow the country to become a free-for-all."
Many officials fear the conservative-led alliance is being pushed too far in negotiations that have dragged on for weeks over the latest €13.5bn package of austerity measures that is the price of further aid. Growing speculation that Greece will be kept waiting until after the US elections in November before it receives its next disbursement of aid has added to the pressure. On Friday EU officials made clear it was highly unlikely a decision would be made on the payment – vital to kickstarting the cash-starved economy – at an upcoming EU summit on 18 October. The Athens government is also appealing for a two-year extension of the debt-choked country's fiscal adjustment programme in an effort to ameliorate the impact of further punishing austerity.
In the interview Samaras emphasised that Greek cash reserves would run dry by the end of November. "The key is liquidity," said the leader. "That is why the next credit tranche is so important for us."
The high-wire act of placating international lenders while keeping social unrest at bay will be tested as never before when Merkel, the German chancellor, flies into Athens next Tuesday. With anti-EU sentiment at an all-time high, opposition parties and trade unions vowed a baptism of fire.
"She should expect demonstrations. Greek society will welcome her with mass protests," said Panos Skourletis, a spokesman for the radical left main opposition Syriza party.
The Independent Greeks party, also vehemently anti-bailout, has said it will make war reparations a major part of its own protest when it stages a "symbolic blockade" outside the German embassy in Athens during Merkel's visit."
Almost three years after the eruption of Europe's debt drama in Athens, the economic crisis engulfing the nation has become so severe that democracy itself is now imperiled, Antonis Samaras said.
"Greek democracy stands before what is perhaps its greatest challenge," Samaras told the German business daily Handelsblatt in an interview published hours before the announcement in Berlin that Angela Merkel will fly to Athens next week for the first time since the outbreak of the crisis.
Resorting to highly unusual language for a man who weighs his words carefully, the 61-year-old politician evoked the rise of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party to highlight the threat that Greece faces, explaining that society "is threatened by growing unemployment, as happened to Germany at the end of the Weimar Republic".
"Citizens know that this government is Greece's last chance," said Samaras, who has repeatedly appealed for international lenders at the EU and IMF to relax the onerous conditions of the bailout accords propping up the Greek economy.
Mounting anti-austerity rage before a new round of sweeping EU-IMF-mandated austerity measures appears to have caught the government off-guard, with officials voicing fears over the ability of Samaras's fragile coalition to survive.
The unprecedented storming of Greece's defence ministry by hundreds of protesting dockworkers on Thursday – a breach of security not seen in modern times – has especially unnerved officials. On Friday, Samaras lashed out at "those who don't understand the meaning of law and order".
"The government is waging a battle on all fronts for the nation's credibility and its future so that the sacrifices made by Greeks aren't lost," he said, referring to the spending cuts and tax increases that have sparked record levels of poverty and unemployment. "I will not allow the country to become a free-for-all."
Many officials fear the conservative-led alliance is being pushed too far in negotiations that have dragged on for weeks over the latest €13.5bn package of austerity measures that is the price of further aid. Growing speculation that Greece will be kept waiting until after the US elections in November before it receives its next disbursement of aid has added to the pressure. On Friday EU officials made clear it was highly unlikely a decision would be made on the payment – vital to kickstarting the cash-starved economy – at an upcoming EU summit on 18 October. The Athens government is also appealing for a two-year extension of the debt-choked country's fiscal adjustment programme in an effort to ameliorate the impact of further punishing austerity.
In the interview Samaras emphasised that Greek cash reserves would run dry by the end of November. "The key is liquidity," said the leader. "That is why the next credit tranche is so important for us."
The high-wire act of placating international lenders while keeping social unrest at bay will be tested as never before when Merkel, the German chancellor, flies into Athens next Tuesday. With anti-EU sentiment at an all-time high, opposition parties and trade unions vowed a baptism of fire.
"She should expect demonstrations. Greek society will welcome her with mass protests," said Panos Skourletis, a spokesman for the radical left main opposition Syriza party.
The Independent Greeks party, also vehemently anti-bailout, has said it will make war reparations a major part of its own protest when it stages a "symbolic blockade" outside the German embassy in Athens during Merkel's visit."
Greek crisis is 'like the Weimar Republic’
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Debt crisis: as it happened - October 5, 2012
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Gold outperforms London mansions - Knight Frank
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Boost for Barack Obama as US jobless rate falls to four-year low
05 Oct 2012
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The Politics of the Jobs Report
Friday, October 5, 2012
"The White House is
breathing easier this morning. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports
the unemployment rate dropped to 7.8 percent – the first time it’s been
under 8 percent in 43 months.
In political terms, headlines are everything – and most major media are leading with the drop in the unemployment rate.
Look more closely, though, and the picture is
murkier. According to the separate payroll survey undertaken by the
BLS, just 114,000 new jobs were added in September. At least 125,000 are
needed per month just to keep up with population growth. Yet August’s
job number was revised upward to 142,000, and July’s to 181,000.
In other words, we’re still crawling out of
the deep crater we fell into in 2008 and 2009. The percent of the
working-age population now working or actively looking for work is
higher than it was, but still near a thirty-year low.
But at least we’re crawling out.
Romney says we’re not doing well enough, and
he’s right. But the prescriptions he’s offering – more tax cuts for the
rich and for big companies – won’t do anything except enlarge the budget
deficit. And the cuts he proposes in public investments like education
and infrastructure, and safety nets like Medicare and Medicaid, will
take money out of the pockets of people who not only desperately need it
but whose spending is necessary to keep the tepid recovery going.
Romney promises if elected the economy will
create 12 million new jobs in his first term. If we were back in a
normal economy, that number wouldn’t be hard to reach. Bill Clinton
presided over an economy that generated 22 million new jobs in eight
years – and that was more than a decade ago when the economy and
working-age population were smaller than now.
Both Obama and Romney assume the recovery
will continue, even at a slow pace, and that we’ll be back to normal at
some point. But I’m not at all sure. “Normal” is what got us into this
mess in the first place. The concentration of income and wealth at the
top has robbed the vast middle class of the purchasing power it needs to
generate a full recovery – something that was masked by borrowing
against rising home values, but can no longer be denied. Unless or until
this structural problem is dealt with, we won’t be back to normal."
Probably foreclosure will not restart in the U.S. until after the election.
There is enough pain there to get policy fixed.http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/britains-gap-trap/
Britain’s Gap Trap
"And now for something completely different — actually just a quick note. The always interesting Izabella Kaminska points us to a study suggesting that Britain’s output gap — the difference between real GDP and the economy’s capacity — is much bigger than the official estimates. This is actually a theme I’ve heard from a number of people.Why might we think this? The official estimates assume that Britain’s productive capacity — not just the actual level of output, but the economy’s potential — took a huge hit from the financial crisis. It’s never been clear why this should be so.
And here’s the thing: if British capacity is a lot bigger than estimated, everything people say about fiscal policy, in particular, is wrong. The structural budget deficit is much smaller than claimed, as is the need for adjustment. The case for austerity is also weaker, and the costs of austerity in keeping the economy depressed are much larger.
More about this when I have time, maybe later today"
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/wages-prices-depressions-deficits-wonkish/
Wages, Prices, Depressions, Deficits (Wonkish)
I mentioned the piece by Capital Economics
arguing that policy makers in Britain are greatly understating the
output gap, the amount of excess capacity in the economy, which is
leading to badly skewed policies. This actually raises a whole set of
related issues, with bearing on the US as well. So here’s a longish,
wonkish discussion.
So: the starting point here is the official estimate by the Office of Budget Responsibility that Britain right now has an output gap of less than 3 percent. This is a remarkable assertion, when you bear in mind that real GDP remains well below its level pre-crisis, and that we used to think that Britain’s long-run growth rate was around 2.5 percent. As the CE guys say, simple trend projection would indicate a shortfall of 14 percent; how did that become less than 3?
Part of the answer is the assertion that the UK economy was operating well above sustainable levels in 2007, even though there were none of the usual signs of overheating. Beyond that, however, is the claim that the financial crisis somehow reduced potential output by a huge amount. As CE says, there is no plausible story about how that might have happened.
But, say the small-gap people, if Britain is deeply depressed relative to potential, we should be seeing deflation, whereas there’s actually inflation. Is this a decisive argument?
Well, the great bulk of UK inflation these past few years reflects one-off factors: VAT increases, commodity prices, and import prices. Domestically generated inflation is low, and headline inflation is declining too.
But that’s not deflation; shouldn’t we be seeing that right now? Indeed, standard textbook Phillips curves do say that if you’re below the natural rate of output, you should have falling inflation eventually turning into accelerating deflation.
Yet there are very good reasons to believe that these standard Phillips curves break down at low inflation, because nominal wage cuts are always and everywhere very hard to demand or accept.
A side observation: I’ve always wondered about the numbers one often sees for U.S. average wages in the 1930s, which show a sharp decline in the early part of the Depression. Has wage stickiness been exaggerated? My thought was always that this might be a misleading number, because average earnings might have fallen due to greatly reduced overtime and such rather than through big cuts in basic wages. And it turns out that there is a really early NBER study on just that question; sure enough, the fall in basic wage rates was much less than the fall in average earnings. (Advocates of internal devaluation take heed: even in the Great Depression, US wages fell only about 7 percent before rising again):
Oh, by the way: the failure of wages to fall more was a good thing, not a bad thing.
Back to the main argument: as the CE report says, if you have a false view that excess capacity necessarily leads to accelerating deflation, you can all too easily come to believe that a deeply depressed economy represents a “new normal” that must be adjusted to:
But it’s not just British policy that gets messed up. In America, monetary hawks like James Bullard look at stable inflation and conclude that the Fed is doing fine, failing to appreciate the likely possibility that we have depression-type stability with a massive output gap.
And the preponderance of evidence is that we do indeed have massive output gaps, on both sides of the pond. It’s a huge failure of both intellect and will that we allow these gaps to persist."
So: the starting point here is the official estimate by the Office of Budget Responsibility that Britain right now has an output gap of less than 3 percent. This is a remarkable assertion, when you bear in mind that real GDP remains well below its level pre-crisis, and that we used to think that Britain’s long-run growth rate was around 2.5 percent. As the CE guys say, simple trend projection would indicate a shortfall of 14 percent; how did that become less than 3?
Part of the answer is the assertion that the UK economy was operating well above sustainable levels in 2007, even though there were none of the usual signs of overheating. Beyond that, however, is the claim that the financial crisis somehow reduced potential output by a huge amount. As CE says, there is no plausible story about how that might have happened.
But, say the small-gap people, if Britain is deeply depressed relative to potential, we should be seeing deflation, whereas there’s actually inflation. Is this a decisive argument?
Well, the great bulk of UK inflation these past few years reflects one-off factors: VAT increases, commodity prices, and import prices. Domestically generated inflation is low, and headline inflation is declining too.
But that’s not deflation; shouldn’t we be seeing that right now? Indeed, standard textbook Phillips curves do say that if you’re below the natural rate of output, you should have falling inflation eventually turning into accelerating deflation.
Yet there are very good reasons to believe that these standard Phillips curves break down at low inflation, because nominal wage cuts are always and everywhere very hard to demand or accept.
A side observation: I’ve always wondered about the numbers one often sees for U.S. average wages in the 1930s, which show a sharp decline in the early part of the Depression. Has wage stickiness been exaggerated? My thought was always that this might be a misleading number, because average earnings might have fallen due to greatly reduced overtime and such rather than through big cuts in basic wages. And it turns out that there is a really early NBER study on just that question; sure enough, the fall in basic wage rates was much less than the fall in average earnings. (Advocates of internal devaluation take heed: even in the Great Depression, US wages fell only about 7 percent before rising again):
Back to the main argument: as the CE report says, if you have a false view that excess capacity necessarily leads to accelerating deflation, you can all too easily come to believe that a deeply depressed economy represents a “new normal” that must be adjusted to:
If the Phillips Curve is horizontal over wide ranges of the inflation/unemployment/spare capacity relationship, but policymakers believe that a stable inflation rate means that the economy is operating at its potential, this raises the risk that they will persistently allow the economy to operate below its potential. After all, the conventional signal that this is the case – falling inflation – will not be flashing.In Britain, this translates both into complacency about monetary and fiscal policy in the short run, and into excessive alarm about the long-run fiscal picture. If you like, Cameron/Osborne are imposing harsh cuts to deal with a fiscal crisis that exists only in their minds, while failing to address a current crisis of inadequate demand that falls into their statistical blind spot.
But it’s not just British policy that gets messed up. In America, monetary hawks like James Bullard look at stable inflation and conclude that the Fed is doing fine, failing to appreciate the likely possibility that we have depression-type stability with a massive output gap.
And the preponderance of evidence is that we do indeed have massive output gaps, on both sides of the pond. It’s a huge failure of both intellect and will that we allow these gaps to persist."
She is not that disabled.
Her balance and stamina are not what they should be but she is anchored in time and space.
She no longer gets out to the markets.
She is not ambitious in the kitchen.
She bathes herself. Gets herself up in the morning and down at night.
I keep taking off weight a bit at a time. Physical activity is what I need.
The difference between a snap shot and art are subtle and dramatic.
Think about the craft of acting.
An actors presentation is not inherent, it is skill. It can be learned. Perhaps it can be taught.
The presentation is designed and experienced.
Sometimes I can get that into a picture.
Very rarely do I see it in others pictures.
Home repair is learned.
One never stops learning.
I have been learning for a long time.
.
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