1 IMF says US QE-III could hurt emerging nations (Straits Times) IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said the US’ third round of quantitative easing - the introduction of new money supply to boost economic growth - could hurt emerging economies. "This could strain the capacity of these economies to absorb the potentially large flows and could lead to overheating, asset price bubbles and the build-up of financial imbalances," she said at the International Monetary Fund meetings in Tokyo.
Her view has found support from emerging economies. It was supposed to be curtains down on Sunday, but that did not stop delegates from hitting out at controversial policies like the US' decision to loosen monetary policy.
In its defence, the US argued that a strong US economy would boost global growth. "It is not at all clear that accommodative policies in advanced economies impose net costs on emerging market economies," US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said in prepared remarks for a seminar in Tokyo.
2 Dilemma over RBS break-up (Robert Peston on BBC) In a
way the mystery is why it has taken so long for RBS's sale of 316 branches to
Santander to collapse. It has been clear almost from the start in 2009, when
the European Commission obliged RBS to dispose of these branches as a way of
injecting greater competition into the small-business banking market, that it
would be a nightmarishly difficult deal to execute.
The banking industry was in crisis
and most banks were trying to retrench rather than expand, so there were never
going to be many buyers. In the end, there was only one, Santander. But that
was only the start of the challenge for RBS. Persuading more than two million
customers to move to a new bank was always going to be hard.
And seamlessly transferring the
computerised accounts from RBS's patched-up old systems to Santander's was a
mammoth and complex task. Inevitably the process has been hit by repeated
delays. A deal that originally supposed to have been completed at the end of
2011 was - according to my sources at Santander - looking as though it would
not finally happen until 2015.
The US President also bailed out the bankrupt car manufacturers, GM and Chrysler. He succeeded faster than anyone expected and the companies paid back the government’s loans well ahead of schedule.
Not only did the Recovery Act lay the foundations for resuscitating the economy, it was the most transformative energy bill in history. It has financed unprecedented government investments in a better electricity grid, cleaner coal, a substantial increase in energy efficiency, “green collar” job training, electric vehicles and the infrastructure to support them, advanced biofuels and the refineries to brew them, renewable power from the sun, wind and heat below the earth’s surface. He persuaded automobile manufacturers to go to 54 miles per gallon by 2025, which is double that existing when he took office.
And that’s not it. Obama initiated the biggest expansion of anti-poverty initiatives since the presidency of Lyndon Johnson and the largest middle class tax cut since Ronald Reagan. He is spending $8 billion on a new high-speed passenger rail network and has poured $7 billion into expanding the country’s high-speed Internet network to under-served communities. It’s time that Obama blows his trumpet, otherwise he could lose the election.
4 Self-destruction of the 1 per cent (Chrystia Freeland in The New York Times) Karl Marx wrote that capitalism contained the seeds of its own destruction. And it is the danger America faces today, as the 1 percent pulls away from everyone else and pursues an economic, political and social agenda that will increase that gap even further — ultimately destroying the open system that made America rich and allowed its 1 percent to thrive in the first place.
You can see it in America’s growing social and, especially,
educational chasm between those at the top and everyone else. At the bottom and
in the middle, American society is fraying, and the children of these
struggling families are lagging the rest of the world at school. Economists
point out that the woes of the middle class are in large part a consequence of
globalization and technological change. Culture may also play a role. In his
recent book on the white working class, the libertarian writer Charles Murray
blames the hollowed-out middle for straying from the traditional family values
and old-fashioned work ethic that he says prevail among the rich.
It's called vertical farming, and it's based on one simple principle: Instead of trucking food from farms into cities, grow it as close to home as possible—in urban greenhouses that stretch upward instead of sprawling outward.
The idea is flowering in many forms. There's the 12-story triangular building going up in Sweden, where plants will travel on tracks from the top floor to the bottom to take advantage of sunlight and make harvesting easier. Then there's the onetime meatpacking plant in Chicago where vegetables are grown on floating rafts, nourished by waste from nearby fish tanks. And the farms dotted across the US that hang their crops in the air, spraying the roots with nutrients, so they don't have to bring in soil or water tanks for the plants.
Advocates say the immediate benefits will be easy to see. There won't be as many delivery trucks guzzling fuel and belching out exhaust, and city dwellers will get easier access to fresh, healthy food.
6 Cartoon in Khaleej Times on EU receiving Nobel
Peace Prize
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/cartoongall.asp?next=0&file=data/photogallery/cartoon/cartoon.xml§ion=cartoon
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