International Issues

Historian N. Ferguson on ‘The New Europe’

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203699404577044172754446162.html

Europe and the Crisis

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/19/world/europe/for-wolfgang-schauble-seeing-opportunity-in-europes-crisis.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/19/business/global/lenders-flee-debt-of-european-nations-and-banks.html

Global Migration and Business

http://www.economist.com/node/21538700

Weekend Reading

MCC – A Successful Approach to Foreign Aid

http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/11/11/millennium-challenge-corp-foreign-aid

Millennial Generation

http://nymag.com/news/features/my-generation-2011-10/

David Brooks considers acceptable and unacceptable inequalities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/opinion/the-inequality-map.html

Amity Shales’s interesting piece on the Harvard EC 10 controversy

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-11/harvard-walkout-students-misunderstand-economy-commentary-by-amity-shlaes.html

Battle for the Pacific Free Trade Zone Heats Up

http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2011/11/free-trade-agreements

South Korean Economy

http://www.economist.com/node/21538104

Europe – A Season of Austerity

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10162176

The Need for Real Tax Reform

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/magazine/adam-davidson-tax-middle-class.html

Innovation Revolution – An Indian Example

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/opinion/sunday/friedman-the-last-person.html

Brand Names in China

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/12/world/asia/picking-brand-names-in-china-is-a-business-itself.html

Unemployment Rates by College Majors

WSJ has a neat graphic here:
http://graphicsweb.wsj.com/documents/NILF1111/#term=

Business Economics majors have lower unemployment rate and better salaries compared to many other majors.

Related article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203733504577026212798573518.html

BIC Update

Brazil and Oil

http://www.economist.com/node/21536570

Brazil – Macro Policy Challenges

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-27/rousseff-crisis-spurred-by-lula-debts-as-brazil-boom-diminishes.html

India’s IT Firms

http://www.economist.com/node/21536613

Financial Regulation in China

http://www.economist.com/node/21536633

The Plain Truth Regarding Job Creation

Adam Davidson makes a great point:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/magazine/job-creation-campaign-promises.html

“Without the distortion of a credit bubble, it is clear that far too many Americans don’t know how to do anything that the world is willing to pay them a living wage for. No economic theory offers them easy salvation.

We don’t need to become a nation of app designers. An economic downturn is a great time to learn things — carpentry, say, or aerospace engineering — that others will eventually pay for: high-school dropouts should get their degrees and a year of specialized training; high-school grads who can’t afford a four-year school should get a community-college degree. Life will be tougher for liberal-arts majors if they don’t get training in how to apply a humanities education. Those who can’t find a job where they live should consider moving to places where there are more jobs than applicants — the Dakotas, Nebraska, Wyoming.”

Some Reasons Behind Lack of STEM Majors

An interesting article from NYTIMES:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/education/edlife/why-science-majors-change-their-mind-its-just-so-darn-hard.html

“The latest research also suggests that there could be more subtle problems at work, like the proliferation of grade inflation in the humanities and social sciences, which provides another incentive for students to leave STEM majors. It is no surprise that grades are lower in math and science, where the answers are clear-cut and there are no bonus points for flair. Professors also say they are strict because science and engineering courses build on one another, and a student who fails to absorb the key lessons in one class will flounder in the next.”

John Taylor on US Economic Influence

Stanford Economist John Taylor Observes:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204394804577009651207190754.html

“Some countries, including Mexico and Brazil, are complaining that the Fed is exporting inflation with its near-zero interest rate and massive purchases of long-term government debt, which is rapidly growing due to U.S. fiscal deficits. And when global inflation picks up, as it has started to do in many emerging markets, it feeds back into more inflation in the U.S. through higher prices of globally traded commodities. With unemployment already high, the result would be stagflation—slow growth, high inflation, steady unemployment—as we saw in the 1970s. For the good of the world and for its own good, America needs to show some leadership and better adhere to sound monetary and fiscal policy.”




Meanwhile,

Caroline Baum (Bloomberg) considers the dangerous consequences of US government policies:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-03/you-can-t-fix-a-burst-bubble-with-more-hot-air-caroline-baum.html

“There are still plenty of reasons to own a home, but the deductibility of mortgage interest isn’t one of them. For the last two decades, the nation’s housing policy was designed to convert as many Americans as possible into homeowners. It was aided and abetted by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which lowered the standards on mortgages they guaranteed; lax lenders; fraudulent loans, with borrowers and lenders often in cahoots; bankers that securitized and sold the mortgages; credit-rating companies that thought enough collateralized junk was worthy of a AAA; and, yes, a public eager for a free lunch.”