1
Movies
Which Vision for Oscar?
Will Alfonso Cuarón’s deep dive into space, David O. Russell’s ’70s nostalgia or Steve McQueen’s history capture the Academy Award?
2
N.Y. / Region
Nassau County District Attorney Upends Race for House Seat
Kathleen M. Rice, who has won national attention with crackdowns on drunken driving, said on Wednesday that she would seek the seat being vacated by Carolyn McCarthy.
3
U.S.
Influx of Snowy Owls Thrills and Baffles Birders
A large, charismatic white bird has been seen far from its usual wintering zones, even as far south as Florida. But what does it mean?
6
Education
Intensive Small-Group Tutoring and Counseling Helps Struggling Students
A study of struggling African-American high school students in Chicago found that providing focused guidance sharply improved learning, but the approach is a costly one to replicate.
8
Opinion
A New Day for New Yorkers
Mayor Bill de Blasio acted on his promise to reform the abusive and illegal stop-and-frisk program.
9
N.Y. / Region
Mayor Says New York City Will Settle Suits on Stop-and-Frisk Tactics
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Thursday that the city would ends its battle over the Police Department’s aggressive practice by agreeing to reforms.
10
11
World
Rethinking the Indian War Memorial
The author asks whether a Civil War monument in the United States could teach India something about remembering its soldiers.
12
World
German Leader Criticizes U.S. Over Pervasive Surveillance
In a speech to the German Parliament, Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday said that Washington had undermined its international standing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/31/opinion/krugman-talking-troubled-turkey.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
"O.K.,
who ordered that?
With everything else going on, the last thing we
needed was a new economic crisis in a country already racked by
political turmoil. True, the direct global spillovers from Turkey, with its Los Angeles-sized economy,
won’t be large. But we’re hearing that dreaded word “contagion” — the
kind of contagion that once caused a crisis in Thailand to spread across
Asia, more recently caused a crisis in Greece to spread across Europe,
and now, everyone worries, might cause Turkey’s troubles to spread
across the world’s emerging markets.
It
is, in many ways, a familiar story. But that’s part of what makes it so
disturbing: Why do we keep having these crises? And here’s the thing:
The intervals between crises seem to be getting shorter, and the fallout
from each crisis seems to be worse than the last. What’s going on?
Before I get to Turkey, a brief history of global financial crises.
For
a generation after World War II, the world financial system was, by
modern standards, remarkably crisis-free — probably because most
countries placed restrictions on cross-border capital flows, so that
international borrowing and lending were limited. In the late 1970s,
however, deregulation and rising banker aggressiveness led to a surge of
funds into Latin America, followed by what’s known in the trade as a
“sudden stop” in 1982 — and a crisis that led to a decade of economic
stagnation.
Latin
America eventually returned to growth (although Mexico had a nasty
relapse in 1994), but, in the 1990s, a bigger version of the same story unfolded in Asia:
Huge money inflows followed by a sudden stop and economic implosion.
Some of the Asian economies bounced back quickly, but investment never
fully recovered, and neither did growth.
Most
recently, yet another version of the story has played out within
Europe, with a rush of money into Greece, Spain and Portugal, followed
by a sudden stop and immense economic pain.
As I said, although the outline of the story remains the same, the effects keep getting worse. Real output fell
4 percent during Mexico’s crisis of 1981-83; it fell 14 percent in
Indonesia from 1997 to 1998; it has fallen more than 23 percent in
Greece.
So
is an even worse crisis brewing? The fundamentals are slightly
reassuring; Turkey, in particular, has low government debt, and while
businesses have borrowed a lot from abroad, the overall financial situation doesn’t look that bad.
But each previous crisis defied sanguine expectations. And the same
forces that sent money sloshing into Turkey also make the world economy
as a whole highly vulnerable.
You may or may not have heard that there’s a big debate among economists about whether we face “secular stagnation.”
What’s that? Well, one way to describe it is as a situation in which
the amount people want to save exceeds the volume of investments worth
making.
When
that’s true, you have one of two outcomes. If investors are being
cautious and prudent, we are collectively, in effect, trying to spend
less than our income, and since my spending is your income and your
spending is my income, the result is a persistent slump.
Alternatively,
flailing investors — frustrated by low returns and desperate for yield —
can delude themselves, pouring money into ill-conceived projects, be
they subprime lending or capital flows to emerging markets. This can
boost the economy for a while, but eventually investors face reality,
the money dries up and pain follows.
If
this is a good description of our situation, and I believe it is, we
now have a world economy destined to seesaw between bubbles and
depression. And that’s not an encouraging thought as we watch what looks
like an emerging-markets bubble burst.
The
larger point is that Turkey isn’t really the problem; neither are South
Africa, Russia, Hungary, India, and whoever else is getting hit right
now. The real problem is that the world’s wealthy economies — the United
States, the euro area, and smaller players, too — have failed to deal
with their own underlying weaknesses. Most obviously, faced with a
private sector that wants to save too much and invest too little, we
have pursued austerity policies that deepen the forces of depression.
Worse yet, all indications are that, by allowing unemployment to fester,
we’re depressing our long-run as well as short-run growth prospects,
which will depress private investment even more.
Oh, and much of Europe is already at risk of a Japanese-style deflationary trap. An emerging-markets crisis could, all too plausibly, turn that risk into reality.
13
World
South Sudanese Rebels Accuse Government of Ignoring Day-Old Cease-Fire
A government spokesman denies the claims that opposition positions were attacked, while analysts say that enforcing the cease-fire will prove more difficult than signing it.
14
Sports
U.S. Olympian Rebecca Soni Retires From Swimming
Soni, 26, a six-time Olympic medalist, plans to start a new lifestyle company and blog instead of making an attempt at her third Olympics.
15
U.S.
Frigid Blast Disrupts Life in South and Midwest as Emergencies Are Declared
In Alabama, snow made roads impassable and forced some schools to prepare to keep students overnight. Even in the Midwest, the coldest stretch in decades started to wear some families down.
16
Science
Beings Not Made for Space
Swelled heads, atrophied legs, radiation threats — space takes a toll on the human body, and some health problems still elude doctors more than 50 years after the first spaceflight.
17
Sports
In Search of Drama, Nascar Alters Playoff Race Again
The new process ends with a winner-take-all final race among four drivers who survive a series of eliminations.
18
World
How Rahul Gandhi Did in His First TV Interview
Political analysts weighed in on the Congress Party vice president’s handling of pointed questions by Arnab Goswami of Times Now.
19
Business Day
Accidents Surge as Oil Industry Takes the Train
Residents of Casselton, N.D., are concerned about the crude-oil convoys that roll through their town, as what was once a stopgap becomes commonplace and safety standards lag.
20
N.Y. / Region
Metro-North Grinds to Halt for 2 Hours
The trains were stopped around 7:45 p.m. on the Hudson, Harlem and New Haven lines, stranding thousands of commuters.
1
U.S.
Amid Drought, California Agency Will Withhold Water Deliveries
The announcement, taken to conserve the little water that remains behind dams, was the first time in the 54-year history of the State Water Project that such an action has been taken.
2
Sports
Uncertainty Over Whether N.F.L. Settlement’s Money Will Last
Because the N.F.L.’s recent settlement promises payments to an unknown number of players, the $765 million called for in the deal could run out faster than expected.
3
Business Day
Southwest and JetBlue Buy Washington Airport Rights
The airlines acquired the takeoff and landing rights that the Justice Department required American and US Airways to sell before they completed their merger.Regulation is not an enemy to competition.
4
U.S.
Fissures in G.O.P. as Some Conservatives Embrace Renewable Energy
Solar power is dividing conservatives who support utilities and libertarians who see them as regulated monopolies whose rates are set by bureaucrats — the opposite of a free-market economy.
13
Opinion
Avoiding Faux Pas With the Grieving
Readers react to a column by David Brooks about a family that is dealing with two tragedies.
14
Automobiles
Wheelies: The Retooling for the F-150 Edition
Ford announces a factory shutdown for aluminum F-150 retooling; a chance to drive the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile.
15
N.Y. / Region
U.S. Will Finance Devices to Track Children With Autism
The move by the Justice Department comes after the death of Avonte Oquendo, who walked away from his Queens school.
16
N.Y. / Region
Four Airlines Are Told to Raise Some Wages by $1 an Hour
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey sent a letter to American, Delta, JetBlue and United to raise the pay of workers who made less than $9 an hour.
17
18
U.S.
Some Republicans Departing From State of Union Response Script
The response, a once careful attempt at stagecraft, has given way to political free agency, a shift that speaks volumes about the way technology has torn down barriers to fame and influence.
19
20
Real Estate
No comments:
Post a Comment