'Work less - Pay more'. Seems reasonable.

As long as you are more productive. 

But if you are not more productive than the only way 'work less and pay more' works is if the state mandates it as the market is not interested.

That is the sure path to economic ruin.

And the only way to pay for it is for the state to borrow the money.

Until you hit the Irish wall.

Two very good videos with Niall Ferguson. The short one (15 minutes) on the current issues facing the US economy, the longer one (60 minutes) on the decline of Empires, swiftly.

Also commentary on, and an article by, Raffaele Simon who tries to answer the question why parts of Europe are swinging to the right both economically, and frighteningly given the continent's outstanding examples of genocide, culturally (read anti-immigration anti-Roma).

Some useful charts on the US economy, high profile victims of the Great Recession, thoughts on Robert Reich's new book, Ben Bernanke and the misdeeds of economists, why cuts matter, and a sad tale of Ireland's slow economic death by high interest rates.

Niall Ferguson discusses the recent issues facing the American economy and its leading politicians.

Harvard historian Niall Ferguson is not your usual ivory tower academic. His arguments about global economics and American policy are both scholarly and topical. And he likes a fight: He and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman have done battle over the right path back to economic health: spending cuts versus stimulus.  http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/economy/niall-ferguson-on-the-tea-party-budget-cuts-and-the-economy/3843/

Niall Ferguson lecture in Australia about imperial over reach and fiscal irresponsibility. Wonderfully arrogant. (ed's note - the introduction is not helpful move to about the 7th minute).

Empires On the Edge of Chaos http://fora.tv/2010/07/28/Niall_Ferguson_Empires_on_the_Edge_of_Chaos

Telling a difficult truth. Raffaele Simon on how an intellectually bankrupt left has opened the door to the radical right complete with ethnic hatred.

It is an irony now appreciated across the political spectrum, from the U.S. to Britain and continental Europe, that the global financial and economic crisis has not precipitated a mass shift to the parties of labor, the socialists, communists or center-left social democrats. Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, France and Italy's socialist parties and now, after last weekend's elections, Sweden's egalitarian collectivists can all tell their tales of misery.   http://www.offnews.info/verArticulo.php?contenidoID=25158

In Simon's own words.

Comment expliquer l'effondrement de la gauche européenne, alors que le continent souffre des contrecoups de la crise financière née des excès du libéralisme ? L'essai de l'Italien Raffaele Simone Le Monstre doux. L'Occident vire-t-il à droite ? qui sort enfin en France (Gallimard) aide à comprendre.  http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2010/09/12/pourquoi-l-europe-s-enracine-a-droite_1409667_823448.html

The consequence of high levels of immigration where the market is dysfunctional providing no path to new wealth and the instruments of social justice are dysfunctional providing no tools to new opportunity is a recipe for rage for the disenfranchised.

Europe today.

AN elderly Swedish woman clasps her walking frame and advances unsteadily towards the welfare payments desk.  http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/the-left-under-siege-in-europe/story-e6frg6z6-1225926399084

This was the point we tried to make in our concluding comments in the talk http://www.excellentfuture.ca/paul-summerville/the-economies-of-japan-and-china-lessons-for-canada

Immigration is already a good Canadian habit that matters tremendously.

 

The manageable scale makes a blessing out of a necessity.

 

Canada can use its immigration advantage to attract the best and brightest the world has to offer, and if Canada is smart, will make sure they bring their extended families with them.

 

I will conclude by making the following point, that just encouraging people to immigrate to Canada has not been, and will never be enough, to help guarantee our excellent future.

 

To date, Canada’s immigration strategy has been successful because those people that do immigrate to Canada have been able to depend on a country that is governed by the rule of law protecting all that live here from arbitrary power, to depend on a country that makes key instruments of social justice like best in class education outcomes and the science of good health accessible to everyone, to depend on a market economy that gives all its citizens the chance to become very wealthy, and to promise to each new generation of immigrants, and their children, a permanent invitation to sit at an ever larger Canadian table and make their unique contribution to their new home.

Floyd Norris on the fact that not all recessions and recoveries are created equally. 

In the old days — before 1990 — American recessions tended to be fairly sharp. But the recoveries, when they came, were also rapid. Laid-off workers were recalled and consumers who had deferred purchases out of fear they might lose their jobs were willing again to buy cars and homes.  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/25/business/economy/25charts.html?_r=3

 

Handy chart comparing the length of America's 22 recession since 1900.

For some perspective on the Great Recession, the chart of the day (below) illustrates the duration of all US recessions since 1900. There are a couple points of interest.  http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/09/historical-recession-duration/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheBigPicture+%28The+Big+Picture%29

 

The political price is the exit of most of President Obama's economic team. The mistake the Administration made was to have falsely sold the anti-Depression economic package with the promise that the unemployment rate would fall back to 7%.

The comic-book parallel was The Avengers, which included Marvel superheroes such as Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, and Captain America.  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/meet-obamas-fallen-economic-all-stars/article1725031/

Ben Bernanke's analysis of where the economics profession is today given, in the words of Queen Elizabeth, "Why did nobody notice [the coming financial and economic collapse]?".

Pdf file below.

(ed's note - pre the March 2009 rally the Queen lost about $50 million but did keep her house).

During a briefing by academics at the London School of Economics on the turmoil on the international markets the Queen asked: "Why did nobody notice it?"  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/theroyalfamily/3386353/The-Queen-asks-why-no-one-saw-the-credit-crunch-coming.html

So back to our friend who wants to get more money working less.

In his new book Aftershock, Robert Reich argues that the problem with the US economy is not that the middle class saves too little and consumes too much but it that they did it with other people's money rather than real increases in income.

Way way back, which means before the financial sector imploded, it wasn’t Wall Street bonuses and vampire squids that excited the most fury.   http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/books/review/Mallaby-t.html?ref=global

And when the money runs out the cuts always come at the worst time.

When I was expressing doubts about the strength of the economic recovery in early summer, a senior policymaker sent me a message stating: "Economies grow."  http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/sep/26/william-keegan-uk-economic-recovery

Into the Irish stew.

Years ago, when I worked for a Swiss bank, we would go to the Alps every month or so to examine all the trades we had made and make sure that the assets we held were sound and could be relied on.  http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/david-mcwilliams/david-mcwilliams-high-bond-rates-will-leave-us-an-economic-wasteland-2347600.html

 

A ten-minute walk from Ireland's main thoroughfare, O'Connell Street, takes you past monument after monument to the greed and profligacy of the Celtic Tiger years. Between the northern end of Dublin's busiest street and the 81,000-capacity stadium at Croke Park are swathes of waste ground where new private and public housing projects should have been built.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/sep/26/ireland-double-dip-recession

Dead cheap.