Germany may see Q4 shrink; GDP's status as wealth guide may go; Happiness, equality & economic growth

1 Germany may see a Q4 shrink (BBC) Germany, the main funder of the eurozone's many bailouts, may see its economy shrink by the end of the year as the crisis bites, the central bank has warned. Europe's largest economy will grow in the third quarter, but may experience a "slight contraction" in the last three months, the Bundesbank said. Germany has so far continued to grow while many of its neighbours shrink.

Meanwhile, Greece's deficit last year was higher than previously expected. Greece's deficit was 9.4% of output in 2011, the Hellenic Statistical Authority said. In April, it estimated that the public deficit stood at 9.1%. Greece's debt stood at 170.6% of GDP, a large jump from 148.3% in 2010.

In Germany, the Bundesbank said: "There are increasing signs that, following a noticeable expansion in output in the third quarter, we might see stagnation or even a slight contraction in gross domestic product (GDP) in the fourth quarter." Germany grew 0.5% in the first quarter and 0.3% in the second quarter. Europe's largest economy is the main backer of the two eurozone rescue funds, which have been used to bail out Greece, Ireland, Portugal and, soon, Spain's banks.

2 GDP’s status as wealth guide may change (Jane Gleeson-White on BBC) Britain has now posted three consecutive quarters of declining gross domestic product – the most recent figures show the economy has shrunk by 0.5%. With the latest set of GDP figures due to be released later this week, the nation remains sunk in the longest recession since the second world war.

But GDP is also coming under a different sort of scrutiny in these days of economic woe. GDP measures all legal transactions in the financial economy – no more and no less. And yet, since its inception in the 1930s, it has become the single most important policy tool for governments, financial institutions and corporations.

But GDP is a partial and misleading measure of national wealth and wellbeing. The problem is that it does not measure key goods in our economy, those unpriced but priceless services carried out by domestic workers and by nature – for example, the coastal defence of coral reefs, the pollution-filtering of wetlands, the nutrient recycling done by the soil and the unpaid work we do in our homes. And yet GDP does include bad elements such as pollution, crime, cigarettes and their related health costs and environmental disasters, which boost GDP and so generate economic growth.

These omissions and inclusions generate alarming anomalies. Here are two: we are better economic agents if we eat out at expensive restaurants rather than cooking food we've grown at home; cleaning up the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was worth more economically – in GDP terms – than the carbon absorption provided by the Amazon rainforest.

Under current GDP measures, countries that cut down forests for timber exports, dynamite their reefs for fish, pollute and degrade their soil for intensive agriculture and allow farms and factories to contaminate their waterways get rich.

3 Happiness, equality & economic growth (Robert Skidelsky in The Guardian) A new finding has also started to influence the current debate on growth: poor people within a country are less happy than rich people. In other words, above a low level of sufficiency, people's happiness levels are determined much less by their absolute income than by their income relative to some reference group. We constantly compare our lot with that of others, feeling either superior or inferior, whatever our income level; well-being depends more on how the fruits of growth are distributed than on their absolute amount.

Put another way, what matters for life satisfaction is the growth not of mean income but of median income – the income of the typical person. Consider a population of 10 people (say, a factory) in which the managing director earns $150,000 a year and the other nine, all workers, earn $10,000 each. The mean average of their incomes is $25,000, but 90% earn $10,000. With this kind of income distribution, it would be surprising if growth increased the typical person's sense of well-being.

That is not an idle example. In rich societies over the last three decades, mean incomes have been rising steadily, but typical incomes have been stagnating or even falling. In other words, a minority – a very small minority in countries like the US and Britain – has captured most of the gains of growth. In such cases, it is not more growth that we want, but more equality.

We live in a pushy society with turbo-charged fathers and "tiger" mothers, constantly goading themselves and their children to "get ahead". The 19th-century philosopher John Stuart Mill had a more civilised view: "I confess I am not charmed with the ideal of life held out by those who think … that the trampling, crushing, elbowing, and treading on each other's heels, which form the existing type of social life, are the most desirable lot of human kind … The best state for human nature is that in which, while no one is poor, no one desires to be richer, nor has any reason to fear being thrust back, by the efforts of others to push themselves forward."

That lesson has been lost on most economists today, but not on the king of Bhutan – or on the many people who have come to recognise the limits of quantifiable wealth.

America's self-inflicted decline; Lessons at the world's biggest school; Hi-tech loos are big biz; Television going the print media way -- to doom

1 America’s self-inflicted decline (Ting Xu in The Diplomat) America’s greatness was very much a function of the visionary pragmatism of its founding fathers. The common sense decision to pursue liberty, equality and individual well-being was achieved through creativity, openness and consensus based on compromise.  American leadership internationally is based on not only its economic prosperity, but also the sense of hope it brings to those who seek peace and development.

Unfortunately, this sense of hope will wane if America continues on its current path. Inadequate regulation of the financial sector among other factors has dragged the country into one of its worst recessions ever, yielding historically high unemployment and an expansion of people (over 46 million in 2010) living below the poverty level. Undisciplined public spending pushed the total debt to GDP ratio over 100% this year.

Not only is the US digging its own grave domestically, it is also doing so internationally as well. After entering a decade-long war in Iraq, the legitimacy of which is still being debated, the US is seen by many as more of a bully than a leader for global peace. The most disturbing fact from an American perspective is that the more than $3 trillion war bill and the 4,487 casualties have overstretched America’s resources and diminished the public’s tolerance for legitimate military interventions.

The country suffers from self-inflicted wounds the most critical of which is polarizing partisan politics. To heal the divide in society and put the nation back on a healthy track , we need to start to work on problems at home. In this election season, Americans need to follow those who can provide a clear and pragmatic path. The world will not wait for American leadership forever, now is the time to act.

2 Lessons at the world’s biggest school (Johannesburg Times) The first day in class for any new pupil can be an overwhelming experience, so imagine arriving for lessons as one of 40,000 pupils on the roll-call of the world's biggest school. The latest edition of Guinness World Records awards the title to the City Montessori School in the Indian city of Lucknow with 39 437 registered pupils in the 2010-2011 academic year.

 

The school says that enrolment numbers have already risen above 45,000, with 2,500 teachers, 3,700 computers, 1,000 classrooms - and one of the hardest first eleven cricket teams to break into. CMS, as it is known, was opened by Jagdish Gandhi and his wife Bharti in 1959 with a loan of 300 rupees ($6 at current rates) and just five pupils. Today it sprawls over 20 sites in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state, and is as famous for its exam results and international exchange programmes as for its scale.

"The phenomenal growth of our school is a reflection of our efforts to please our parents with our service to their children," said Gandhi, who is still involved in the school's management at the age of 75. "Our students have exceptional academic results each year and outstanding global exposure. Getting this Guinness record is heartening but it's not just about size," he said.

CMS, which receives no government funding, charges 1,000 rupees a month in fees for younger pupils, rising to 2,500 a month for seniors. The school's size is matched only by its idealistic ambitions, with pupils taught a philosophy of universal peace and globalism under the motto "Jai Jagat" (Victory be to the World).

3 Hi-tech loos are big biz (Matthew Wall on BBC) In a world where 2.5 billion people still do not have access to basic sanitation facilities, and 1.5 million children die each year from preventable diseases as a result, there is a pressing need to find sustainable solutions to this most ancient of human problems. But this isn't just a humanitarian issue - it is also about hard-headed economics.

"The United Nations estimates that achieving the Millennium Development Goal for sanitation could save us $66bn in time, productivity, averted illness and death," says Sanjay Bhatnagar, chief executive of WaterHealth International, a provider of water purification centres to developing economies. "Every dollar spent on improving sanitation generates nine times the amount in economic benefit."

So the world's finest scientists and inventors have been applying their technological know-how to the unglamorous but important issue, and coming up with some ingenious solutions. In 2011, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge, awarding $3.2m in grants to promising entrants. Bill Gates writes in his blog: "Inventing new toilets is one of the most important things we can do to reduce child deaths and disease and improve people's lives." Sanitation and economic development are inextricably linked. Better loos will mean big business.

4 Television going the print media way – to doom (Steve Johnson in Sydney Morning Herald) Television has been by far the most resilient form of “old media”. For more than four decades, television has delivered huge audiences that advertisers crave. The rise of the internet has killed the newspaper business model, but demand for television remains enormous. Does it make the battered shares of Seven, Nine and Ten cheap buying for potentially-rich stocks? No.

Australian television broadcasters are at the very same tipping point newspapers reached a few years ago, just before their problems became near-terminal. While new technology is already eating away at TV's margins, faster broadband speeds will demolish the business model altogether. Just as you can now read a newspaper on your computer, soon people will be streaming video content to their TV, from a diverse variety of providers, not just conventional stations.

The newspaper business model was upended when readers could go online and cherry pick stories from media organisations and bloggers the world over. The same is about to happen to television. Most of us can't be bothered searching for a new program to watch. We just crash in front of the telly and take what's served up. The internet can do a much better job of satisfying our cravings, for very little effort. Once your television starts telling you what's popular amongst friends and other like-minded people, it's goodbye to sloth profits for the free-to-air television networks.

How long will it take? The wave of destructive change takes longer to build than most pundits expect, but the demolition itself is surprisingly quick. The technology is ready. We're ready. All we're waiting for is faster internet speeds. And that's about to arrive. Video may not have killed the radio star. But the NBN is about to kill the television station.

Good news grand slam; Moody's warns of German banking weakness; Am I a working dad?; Paperless news

1 Good news grand slam (Stephanie Flanders on BBC) There have now been four pieces of good economic news in as many days: inflation, employment, retail sales and now the public finances have all come in better than expected. The EU Summit even ended in (partial) agreement. No-one's cracking out the champagne, but it's fair to say that the economic picture looks brighter than it has been for a while.

The September borrowing figures will be especially welcome to the British chancellor. Thanks to some encouraging growth in revenues, these show the lowest September deficit since 2008. The Office for National Statistics has also revised down borrowing for the first five months of 2012-13 by a chunky £6.7bn, largely because spending by central government turns out to have been lower than initially thought.

2 Moody’s warns of German banking weakness (The New York Times) The debt ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service provided a reminder Friday that the vaunted German economy has a major weakness: its banking system. In a report, Moody’s warned that German banks suffer from meager profits, rising risk and insufficient reserves to absorb losses. The rating agency reaffirmed the negative outlook it has assigned to German banks since 2008.

The poor state of German banks seems surprising considering that the country’s economy has held up fairly well to the euro zone crisis. In addition, German banks benefit from the country’s status as a haven from the turmoil and are able to borrow money at much lower rates than counterparts in other European countries. There is no real estate bubble and households are not over-indebted.

German banks did, however, invest heavily in countries like Spain and Italy before the crisis, because they could earn more profits there than at home. Four years after the financial crisis began, they remain exposed to problems in those countries, Moody’s said. In addition, Moody’s said, Germany still has too many banks in relation to the size of the country. The oversupply pushes down lending rates and profits. “Intense competition and low interest rates are causing margin pressure that will likely further erode already-weak bank revenues and profits,” Moody’s said in a statement early Friday.

3 Am I a ‘working dad’? (Ken Gordon in The New York Times) I’m a dad — two children, 9 and 7 — and I work. Hard. I fall out of bed at about 5 am and stumble back there at about 10 pm, and it seems like I haven’t caught my breath or cleared my to-do lists since my first child was born on July 22, 2002. Yet in spite of all this unremitting labor, no one, not a single person, has ever called me a “working dad.” I’ve never called myself this. The question on the docket is, “Why not?”

For one, “Working dad” is a weird term. An odd idea. Working dads simply don’t count as a recognized demographic in our society — a dad is a dad, and he works, of course, and to suggest otherwise is, well, strange. A working mom, after all, is a term of approval. She is a master of multitasking. A mistress of multitasking. The whole bring-home-the-bacon-and-fry-it-up-in-a-pan shtick commands our respect and admiration. The adjective “working” means that whatever else she’s doing, she’s also on the job.

My fellow dads and I deserve the same kind of respect, no? We dudes get up every day and make breakfast. We feed the cat, take out the trash, wash the dishes, if any are left over from the night before. We can do an occasional emergency load of laundry — even if we sometimes mix lights and darks — drop the kids off, and commute to work. And then put in a full workingman’s day of labor. After which we rush home, bolt down dinner and shuttle our kids to soccer, guitar lessons and the rest. Then it’s overseeing homework, playing with the kids, helping them into jammies, and finally a good-night story or two. At the end of all this, we do maybe an hour of work and then collapse next to our wives. That’s enough to earn a “working dad” merit badge, no?

If not, I have another, more modest proposal. I suggest that we give “working,” that poor, exhausted adjective, a vacation. Perhaps we can replace it with one that fits contemporary moms — and dads — better. What about “overworked”? This adjective suggests that every good contemporary parent is employed on many levels, and that all our nonstop busy-ness, means that we’re chronically wiped out. Works for me.

3 Paperless news (Khaleej Times) It’s been a rapid and painful death for print in the West during the past decade. It started when newspapers started collapsing — one after another began losing advertisers, market revenue and readers in the Internet age. In fact, with 105 newspapers shuttered and 10,000 newspaper jobs lost in the US in 2009, the Business Insider declared the latter the “year the newspaper died”. Amidst plummeting stock market value of newspapers, owners of Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal chose to sell off the majority of the their holding. The renowned New York Times Company has been witnessing a major decline in its stock since 2004.

Other print houses on the brink of a financial crisis, were quick to see the writing on the wall and thus switched their operations online.  Amongst the hundreds that did, Christian Science Monitor is a recognised name worldwide; the paper shut down its print edition in 2008. Now it seems like even magazines are not insulated from financial woes of the print industry. It’s none other than Newsweek that will be shutting down its print edition after 80 years. The magazine’s editor-in-chief Tina Brown has signified that this move aims to “embrace the all-digital future”.

Skills gap shows as US economy recovers; Google value down $22bn in e-mail mishap; Goodbye to Newsweek in print; AMD to cut 1,800 jobs; Malala v/s vanilla

1 Skills gap shows as US economy recovers (Laura Tyson in The Guardian) The latest US employment data has confirmed that the American economy is on the path to recovery after the recession of 2008-2009, despite the slowdown engulfing other G20 nations. Indeed, the pace of private sector job growth has been much stronger in this recovery than after the 2001 recession and is comparable to the resurgence after the 1990-1991 slump.

In the last 31 months, private sector employment rose by 5.2 million and the unemployment rate is now below 8% for the first time in nearly four years. But it is still more than two percentage points above the long-run value that most economists view as normal when the economy is operating near its potential.

But, as the US economy recovers, technological change is accelerating, fuelling demand for more skills at a time when the workforce's educational attainment levels have plateaued. This is the real skills gap that existed before the 2008 recession – and it is getting worse over time. The gap manifests itself in much higher unemployment rates for high school-educated workers than for college-educated workers at every stage of the business cycle. The gap also shows up in significant – and rising – inequality between the earnings of high school-educated workers and those with a college degree or higher.

2 Google value down $22bn in e-mail mishap (Charles Arthur in The Guardian) It was the printer's error that wiped about $20bn from the value of the world's biggest search engine. Shares in Google were suspended after an accidental email to the US stock market authorities revealed that the company's latest quarterly results were far below Wall Street's demanding expectations.

The inadvertent – and clearly unfinished – financial release began with the words "Pending Larry Quote" – referring to the company's chief executive, Larry Page, whose job, normally, would be to put the best gloss on the financial figures. But he was likely to be offering different sentiments after the stock tumbled 9% before trading was halted. After trading resumed the shares recovered slightly to close down 8%.

The figures showed that Google earned $9.03 per share in the third quarter – notably below analysts' consensus estimates of $10.63. Its search engine revenues were also below expectations, hitting $11.5bn where analysts had expected it to show $11.9bn. A key reason for the revenue and profit miss seemed to be a fall in "cost per click" – the amount that advertisers pay when people click on Google's adverts. Google said that such revenues fell by 15% year on year and by 3% compared with the second quarter, even while the number of "paid clicks" grew 33% year on year.

3 Goodbye to Newsweek in print (Christine Haughney and David Carr in The New York Times) From the start, it was an unwieldy melding of two newsrooms: a legacy print magazine, Newsweek, combined with an irreverent digital news site, The Daily Beast. It had high-profile ownership and it was held together by the experienced magazine editor Tina Brown, looking for one more big hit on her résumé.

But on Thursday, Newsweek buckled under the pressure afflicting the magazine industry in general and newsweeklies in particular, with their outdated print cycles that have been overtaken by the Internet. In a message posted on The Daily Beast, Ms. Brown announced that Newsweek would cease print publication at the end of the year and move to an all-digital format. The transition, she wrote, would include layoffs, and at a staff meeting, she grew teary-eyed when she told employees that she didn’t know how many people would be let go.

The staff remaining will publish a digital magazine called Newsweek Global. Readers will continue to pay for Newsweek, Ms. Brown said, and some Newsweek articles will appear on The Daily Beast, which will continue as a free Web site. The end of the print edition will help stem Newsweek’s estimated $40 million in annual losses. Founded in 1933, Newsweek established a venerable place in the American media landscape, competing ferociously with Time magazine week in and week out to bring the top news stories to several million readers.

4 AMD to cut 1,800 jobs (San Francisco Chronicle) Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices says it will cut nearly 1,800 jobs, about 15% of its workforce, by the end of the year in order to reduce spending in the face of dwindling sales. AMD is the world's second-biggest maker of microprocessors for personal computers and PC sales are falling. That's partly due to more consumers shifting away from PCs and doing their computing on tablets and smartphones.

CEO Rory Read says AMD needs to quickly restructure its business because trends that are reshaping the PC industry are happening faster than the company expected. The job cuts were announced as AMD reported that its revenue tumbled 25% in its fiscal third quarter.

5 A focus on ‘shame’ in India rape reports (Heather Timmons in The New York Times) Several particularly hideous rapes in Haryana recently brought the issue of sexual assault on women, an all-too-common occurrence in India, back to the front pages of India’s newspapers and news websites. Many news outlets were quick to highlight a “blame the victim” mentality prevalent among police, politicians, schools and officials in India.

But focusing on the shame brought to the woman, rather than the illegality and brutality of the men’s actions, seems to be pervasive, even in some Indian newsrooms. In the presentation of many of these articles, the emphasis still appears to be on the disgraced victim. Almost inevitably, the art to go with a story about rape depicts a “shamed woman.” Sometimes, this woman also happens to be somewhat scantily clad.

6 Malala v/s vanilla (Masud Alam in Dawn) Malala Yusufzai is now 14, and fighting for her life after being shot by the Taliban. A nation that has not seen a hero in its lifetime was reluctant in accepting one as young as Malala, but the attack on her did the trick. Pakistanis spoke as one, in favour of education and against ignorance, in favour of Malala and against the Taliban, in favour of those who can imagine and against those who want barricades on imagination.

The girl in critical care has done us another favour. She has pulled the mask off the faces of those who are the enemies of education and imagination. Everyone has had to condemn the act, under public pressure, but the partisan ones have given themselves away by attempting to side-track the issue with drones, Waziristan operation, funding sources and what not. So there. Half of our political class chooses to defend the terrorists who sprayed bullets at young girls, with the intention to kill. Giving us this realisation is what makes Malala a hero.

There are millions of children growing up in Pakistan without a healthy imagination. There are another few millions who have no access to education. Malala has given a voice to these millions and who knows, the historian may record that she gave a whole nation hope. And courage. And that’s what makes Malala a hero. A hero for life.

China growth slows to 7.4%; EU car sales in year-long fall; UK chain stores fall like nine pins; One billion don't have a mobile phone; The indispensable half

1 China growth slows to 7.4% (BBC) China's economic growth slowed further in the third quarter as the European debt crisis and a weak recovery in the US economy hurt demand for its goods. The economic grew 7.4% in the three months to the end of September compared with a year earlier, down from a 7.6% growth rate in the previous quarter. However, other data released showed a jump in factory output, retail sales and investment in September.

Analysts said the data indicated that China's economy may be stabilising. China's growth over the past few years has been led by the success of its export and manufacturing sector, as well as by a credit-fuelled investment boom in the country.But demand for its exports has slowed from key markets lately, leading to fears of a sharp slowdown in its economy.

2 EU car sales in year-long all (BBC) New car sales in the European Union have fallen for the 12th month in a row in September, according to the region's biggest carmakers. Demand across the 27 European Union countries fell 10.8% from last year. Of the major markets, the UK was the only one to grow, up 8.2% from the same month last year. 

In September, the major car markets in the eurozone - which is weighed down by recession, spending cuts and high unemployment - fell sharply. Germany - the largest economy in Europe and one of the biggest car manufacturers in the world - saw its car sales drop 10.9%. France fell by 17.9%, Italy fell by 25.7% and Spain declined by 36.8% from September 2011. 

Across the EU as a whole, the 10.8% drop in September is the steepest drop so far in the past 12 months. Jay Nagley, managing director at the Spyder Redspy automotive consultancy, said car sales had fallen by 4 million a year across Europe since 2007. "Cars are the ultimate discretionary purchase, in that you can hold on to it for five or six years and hold off buying a new one. We're nearing the bottom, I think, but the problem for carmakers is that there is no sign of recovery.You can't say that next year is going to be better than this year. In some parts of southern Europe, there is no car market anymore."

3 UK chain stores fall like nine pins (The Guardian) The UK's struggling retail chains are closing their shops at a rate of more than 30 a day across the UK as the economic downturn continues, according to research. Figures show that across the UK embattled retailers closed 32 stores a day in July and August as Britain's high street continued to suffer from the consumer spending slump. That figure is up from 20 a day in the first six months of 2012.

High-profile administrations this year of major retailers including Game Group, Peacocks, Past Times and Clinton Cards push the number of closures of town centre chain store outlets to 953 in the first half on a net basis (meaning those closing minus those opening). That compared with 174 in the whole of 2011, according to the study of 500 town centres by the retail data provider Local Data Company (LDC). for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

The figures will spark more concern among campaigners and politicians that Britain's high streets are being abandoned by the retail chains, leading to long-term damage as stores are boarded up and shoppers head to out-of-town centres.

4 One billion don’t have a mobile phone (Khaleej Times) A report by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) showed that six billion people — six out of seven of the world’s population — had a subscription to a mobile phone by the end of 2011. However, even with the rapid advancement of the communications industry, one billion others still do not have a phone. About a third of the world’s population - around 2.3 billion - does not have access to the internet, the report said.

The report said the number of people acquiring mobile phone subscriptions has risen sharply in recent years, with developing countries seeing a double-digit growth in 2011. The use of mobile broadband grew by 78% in developing countries and 40% across the world.

However, huge disparities were revealed in the cost of services from country-to-country, the ITU report said, with poorer nations paying the most. Macau, Norway and Singapore were at the top of the list of 161 countries in terms of internet affordability, while Madagascar came last, just behind Togo and Niger.

5 Checking FB during a romantic dinner (Khaleej Times)  While most of us may hate being disturbed during private moments, a survey has found half of the Britons chatting to about 10 other people via Facebook or Twitter even during a meal with partner. A whopping 53% said they used their smartphones during a cosy dinner with their other half. It was also found 66% cannot resist checking their Facebook accounts for updates during a dinner, The Sun reported.

The poll also found a third admitting being so addicted to Twitter that they will even check the site throughout the evening. The most popular digital activities include posting pictures, updating a status, and "checking in" to allow pals to see where they were dining. Amazingly, 20% of Britons say they would even use social networking sites during a first date.

6 The indispensable half (FS Aijazuddin in Dawn) There will be as many opinions as there are voices on who exactly is funding the Taliban. Is it Pakistan’s ISI? If not, perhaps a rogue element within it? Is it Russia, determined to bleed the US in retribution for the blood it shed in the 1980s? Or are the Taliban sustaining themselves peddling their harvest of poppy seeds on international street-corners?

War is never cheap. The Vietnam War cost $738bn (in today’s dollar equivalent); the Iraq war another $784bn. How much education could that have bought? The bullet shot at Malala Yousufzai cost the same amount as her monthly school fees.

Malala’s sacrifice has demonstrated that the only counter to the militants is not a bullet. It is education. Even in Saudi Arabia, 58% of college students are women. Almost 85% of its female graduates are reabsorbed into education. Perversely, Saudi women may not be permitted by their government to drive cars in the kingdom, but they are trusted enough to be the drivers of the next generation of Saudis. Saudi Arabia knows, as every Muslim community must, that it cannot stifle female emancipation; all it can do is to postpone it.

That is equally true in Pakistan. Public opinion and time is on the side of girls like Malala. Malala Yousufzai may never again be the effervescent, outspoken young champion of her gender or of her generation. Cruelly, she may never be aware how her cause has galvanised her country out of its chauvinistic apathy. As a female student in Swat, she was all too vulnerable; as a potent symbol, she is indestructible.

IMF says US QE-III could hurt emerging nations; Dilemma over RBS break-up; Enumerating Obama's feats; Self-destruction of the 1%; Future of farming may be up

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.

3 Enumerating Obama’s feats (Jonathan Power in Khaleej Times) Obama’s Recovery Act was massive — over $800 billion, larger than Roosevelt’s entire New Deal in constant dollars. Obama has struggled with Congress to make this much bigger, but the Republican majority continuously blocked him, as they have on so many other things. Nevertheless, compared with Europe, the US is well ahead in the recovery of economic growth. Unemployment is now beginning to fall, consumer confidence is increasing and people are buying houses again.

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.

5 Future of farming may be up (Owen Fletcher in The Wall Street Journal) Want to see where your food might come from in the future? Look up. The seeds of an agricultural revolution are taking root in cities around the world—a movement that boosters say will change the way that urbanites get their produce and solve some of the world's biggest environmental problems along the way.

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

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