Osama bin Laden is still at large. The best work of art about September 11, 2001 is still John M. Ford’s poem, “110 Stories.â€
Author Archives: Doug Merrill
Why Should the UK have All the Fun?
North Rhine-Wesphalia had state elections yesterday and returned a local parliament that shows no clear majority coalition. NRW, as it is often known in Germany, is the country’s most populous state, with roughly 18 million inhabitants (about 10 percent more than the Netherlands).
Initial returns showed dramatic losses for the Christian Democrats (CDU), less dramatic losses for the Social Democrats (SPD), comparatively big gains for the Greens and the Left, along with losses for the FDP that were minor compared with the last state elections but major compared with 2009’s national elections. These same returns projected a one-seat majority for an SPD-Green coalition. Difficult, but workable.
And then the counting continued.
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Alternative to the ECB
A.K.A. The Bundesbank
Just a quick note for Matthew Yglesias and the three of our readers who read both his blog and ours.
He’s rightly exercised about Greece and its implications for the eurozone. The positions of the ECB and the anti-inflationary approach of the ECB come in for particular criticism. He writes,
Rather than try to run monetary policy that would be suitable for the median European economy, the European Central Bank has insisted on trying to run monetary policy that would be suitable for Germany. And not even suitable for Germany in general, but “suitable for Germany according to hard money fanatics.†That’s probably bad for Germany, but there’s certainly no reason to think it’s appropriate for southern Europe.
The ECB is a Frankfurt-based central bank that is extremely cautious about inflation, in which all members of the eurozone have a seat at the decision-making table. The alternative to the ECB is a Frankfurt-based central bank that is extremely cautious about inflation, in which only German central bankers have a seat at the decision-making table: the Bundesbank.
In the years before the introduction of the euro, only the UK and Sweden managed marginally independent monetary policies, as they do today. (Indeed, German supremacy within European monetary policy dates as far back as 1983 with Mitterrand’s turn away from nationalizations.) Whether Greece weathers this crisis, leaves the euro, or some larger mechanism brings monetary union to an end (unlikely in the extreme), monetary policy will still be made in Frankfurt. The ECB may not be all that good for some eurozone members, but if that is true, then surely a return to the Bundesbank as Europe’s de-facto central bank would be worse.
As Reported in Social Media
â€The last wish of the Icelandic economy was to have its ashes scattered over Europe…â€
Govern Different
Our friends at Foreign Policy (among others) report that the Prime Minister of Norway, stranded in the US by volcanic events in Iceland, is working with his new iPad to make sure things don’t get out of hand back home. No word on what kind of mobile he uses, though maybe he’s saving on roaming charges by using Skype?
Anybody else out there stuck? (Chancellor Merkel, for example, is in Lisbon at least through Saturday. Not sure if that qualifies as stuck.)
Buy Me Some Peanuts and Cracker Jacks
Once upon a time, before it became the Paris edition of the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune published its late sports editor Dick Roraback’s ode to baseball’s opening day each year. I’m a little bit late this time around
Under the fold, “The Crack of the Bat.â€
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Dear Socar
Dear Socar, Socar Public Relations and Socar of Georgia (if your website is working),
Normally when I put 50 lari worth of gasoline into my car, I get about half a tank. Earlier this week, I visited one of your affiliates in Tbilisi, paid for 50 lari of gas (the price per liter did not seem significantly different from the other filling stations nearby) and drove off. The needle eventually showed that I had gotten about a quarter of a tank of gas.
If I could remember exactly which affiliate I had this experience at, I would be able to avoid it. But it may just be easier to avoid Socar stations entirely. And to share my experience.
Sincerely,
Doug Merrill
The Discovery of France by Graham Robb
Mostly in lieu of a proper review, excerpts from The Discovery of France by Graham Robb, the best non-fiction book I read in 2009. (Tough competition, too: In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century by Geert Mak, Gold and Iron by Fritz Stern and To the Castle and Back by Vaclav Havel were all top notch.)
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Taking Stock of 2009: Books
Instead of a straight-up best-of list, a slightly more eclectic look back at what I read in 2009. Best large Russian book, Tolstoy’s big one; best small Russian book (and most scurrilous of any nationality) Moscow to the End of the Line by Venedikt Erofeev. Best fantasy, parts two through four of the Princess of Roumania series. Most overrated, The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Best SF, Brasyl by Ian McDonald. Best non-fiction, The Discovery of France by Graham Robb. Most off-putting but finished anyway, Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming. Best surprises, The Final Reflection by John M. Ford (along with his How Much for Just the Planet, the first two Star Trek novels I’ve read in a quarter century) and Bleachers by John Grisham. Best look behind the scenes of history (also best dissection of a fellow national leader), To the Castle and Back by Vaclav Havel.
Complete list (in order read) is below the fold. Links are to previous writing about the book or author on AFOE. See also 2006 and 2007.
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A Fistful of Umlauts
In which the Frankfurter Allgemeine, the German newspaper whose website has meanwhile gotten much better, interviews Edward. He says things such as
“Um das zu erreichen müssen Preise und Löhne für Jahre um 6,5 Prozent fallen.”
and
“Denn die Unverantwortlichkeit der spanischen Regierung gefährdet andere Europäer. Gefragt ist Führungsverhalten in Europa, vor allem von Frankreich und Deutschland.”
The bits with fewer umlauts are also very good.