I can’t believe it: “Belle de Jour” is still making waves in the conventional press. And in the Sunday Times Womens Section at that.
And Italy Heading For A 4% Deficit
That’s the current estimate of Morgan Stanley economist Vincenzo Guzzo. And even this he suggests can only be achieved at the price of a series of one-off measures which make the longer term outlook even worse. Just one of the problems:” Labor productivity growth averaged an appalling -0.4% over the past four years”.
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Portugal’s Deficit To Reach 6.8%: It’s Official
A special commission on the deficit set up by the government of Prime Minister Jose Socrates has just reported that the deficit this year will reach 6.83 % of GDP, that’s more than twice the European Union’s 3 percent limit. Over to you Almunia.
Portugal will have the highest budget deficit of any country using the euro since the common currency was introduced in 1999, the government said today. The announcement will prompt a package of spending control measures that may include freezes on wages of civil servants.
Schr?der Strikes Back
What better way to bury the news of your party’s ouster from power in a state it’s ruled for nearly 40 years than to up the ante?
Give this to Chancellor Gerhard Schr?der, he still knows how to dominate the news cycle like no one else in Germany. Angela Merkel didn’t hear the news until she was walking into the TV studios. I just saw Edmund Stoiber hem and haw about who would actually be the opposition candidate for chancellor. Squirming on the end of the moderator’s pointed questions, he was. Could not bring himself to say, “Yes, I support Angela Merkel.” Just couldn’t do it.
And there’s this:
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Schr?der: early elections in Autumn.
I suppose German politics aren’t entirely predictable anymore. A few minutes ago, German Chancellor Schroeder confirmed earlier statements by Franz Muentefering, the SPD’s chairman, that the current red-green coalition will seek a – constitutionally problematic – vote of no-confidence to allow the early dissolution of the Bundestag and hold federal elections in autumn this year.
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SPD Defeat in North Rhine-Westphalia
Gerhard Schr?der and the SPD have suffered a major election setback in these regional elections. Schr?der’s response it seems has been to suggest he will call an early general election late this year.
Schroeder made his proposal after exit polls showed the Social Democratic Party (SPD) suffered a heavy defeat in a state election in North Rhine-Westphalia where it had ruled for 39 years.
The conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won 45 percent, comfortably ahead of the 37.2 percent for the SPD, public TV said.
Schroeder said the “bitter defeat” in North Rhine-Westphalia “throws into question the political basis for the continuation of our work” at a time when Germany was in need of wide-ranging reforms.
Xavi Sala i Martin in Beijing
According to the official version, Columbia University economist and well-known growth theorist Xavi Sala i Martin is in Beijing to give a paper at a meeting sponsored by the IMF. But my confidential sources (OK: I mean the newspaper ‘Sport’) here in Barcelona have another reading: the IMF meeting is a cover. Xavi – who is President of the Economic Commission of FC Barcelona (and a well known cul?) – is there to act as intermediary for Bar?a President Joan Laporta. His mission: sort out the details of the Beijing 2008 sponsorship for Bar?a shirts next season. If they get this the rumours say, then it’s next stop Thierry Henry.
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Human Capital And Trade Deficits
Michael Mandel had an interesting take on the US trade deficit in Business Week earlier this month (btw: he also has a weblog).
His opinion is that the US trade deficit isn’t as big a deal as people often think. One of the reasons: that the ongoing import of human capital into the US (which of course isn’t measured in the trading accounts ledger) more than compensates for the deficit:
“But get with the 21st century, folks. The trade in goods and services represents only one part of America’s connection with the rest of the world. What’s equally important — and what the trade numbers miss completely — is the incredible flow of people into the country. Each year, the U.S. receives about 700,000 legal immigrants, as well as a host of temporary skilled workers and undocumented immigrants.
Now I wouldn’t go down the same road as Mandel with the deficit question per se, but he obviously raises an interesting point here – and one, of course, that immediately strikes a chord with me.
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Andorre, null point, or…
Monaco is voting!
We were going to write something inevitably snarky about the Eurovision song contest (Hello from Minsk!) but Manolo’s Shoe Blog has pictures that are worth many, (Three points for Malta!) many, many thousands of words. (Good evening Amsterdam! Hello Kiev! This is the Netherlands calling!)
They’re here (Our twelve points go to … Turkey!)
here (Good evening Rejkyavik!)
and here (Latvia three points!).
Good thing it only happens (Moldova eight points!) once a year.
(Bon soir Bruxelles!)
(Thank you Finland!!)
UPDATE: Greece is the word.
UPDATE 2: Yushchenko presents the award. Even a cheesy show can have a cool moment. Thank goodness he wasn’t wearing an orange tuxedo.
A New Kind of Science ;)
Crooked Timber’s Eszter Hargittai found a new paper by physicists about social networks and the Eurovision Song Contest and sulkingly remarks that a) CT was far ahead on the curve on this matter and that b)
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