Daily Archives: July 18, 2015

Opinion – President Obama Takes On the Prison Crisis – Editorial – The New York Times – John Gelmini

July 18, 2015 By in Defense Policy, Democracy, Foreign Policy, People, Politics Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Dr Alf is right to flag this NYT editorial but there’s another view.

President Obama is a lame duck President who did nothing to reduce the prison population in the first 4 years of his presidency, nothing to close down Guantanamo Bay, and nothing during the 3 years of this presidency in this regard.

As Dr Alf may know, President Obama has spent a fortune of American taxpayers money on stopping lawyers and others who dispute the authenticity of his birth certificate from impeaching him and removing him from office.

He dithers on Foreign affairs and refuses to take effective action against ISIS against the advice of his own generals. He is at best a disappointment and matters he failed to address will have to be dealt with by others.

He and those who support him need to weigh the future consequences when considering his so called “legacy” and people will need to choose a leader of the “Free World” to succeed him who is actually up to the job.

John Gelmini

Greece and Europe: Is Europe holding up its end of the bargain? | Ben Bernacke – Brookings Institution

July 18, 2015 By in Austerity, Business Administration, Economics, Euro Crisis, Fiscal Policy, Foreign Policy, People, Politics Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

This is a really interesting article, by Ben Bernancke, former chairman of the Fed, published by think-tank Brookings Institution. Check it out!

via Greece and Europe: Is Europe holding up its end of the bargain? | Brookings Institution.

Bernancke contrasts the Eurozone’s recovery with the US since the financial crisis of 2008. He shows graphically that Europe has been very disappointing in contrast to the US. He highlights three factors:

  1. Political constraints on the ECB (largely from Germany in my view)
  2. Excessively conservative fiscal policy, especially in Germany; and
  3. Delays in introducing effective stress tests for European banks (the most exposed banks were in France & Germany).

In his view, structural reform is of limited value, especially with so much unemployment and weak demand.

He offers two excellent proposals:

1. Linking Greece’s fiscal constraints to overall European growth, and

2. Broadening the scope of the Stability Growth Pact (which deals with fiscal deficits) to include sustained trade imbalances/

On balance, the article questions Germany’s economic policy and effectively holds Germany responsible for the current state of the Eurozone.

The article is very easy to read and makes a lot of sense.

Thoughts?