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[marektysis]

Toward a strategic vision for the transatlantic market – A synopsis of the fourth report from the Transatlantic Policy Network (TPN)

December 18, 2011 By ajit

By

Maggie Baldry


The Transatlantic Policy Network (TPN) published a 36 page report entitled – Toward a Strategic Vision for the Transatlantic Market. The full report is available, in pdf format, here.

This article summaries the key points below:

The report’s recommendations recognise the urgent need for closer economic cooperation between Europe and the United States at a time when both urgently need to stimulate jobs and growth. Given the interlocking nature of our current problems, the size of our shared market and the scale of transatlantic direct investment, a determined effort to remove remaining barriers to transatlantic trade and investment by 2020 can make a major contribution to jobs and growth on both sides of the Atlantic.

In order to fully realize this untapped potential for new jobs and growth, the report calls for a comprehensive Transatlantic Jobs and Growth Initiative, including a road-map for the removal of remaining non-tariff barriers and steps towards zero tariff levels on transatlantic trade. It recommends that such an initiative should be launched at the next US-EU Summit in late November in Washington DC.



Report Structure
■Executive Summary
■Strategic Challenges
■Economic Challenges
■The Political Opportunity
■Transatlantic Market Integration
■Toward the Future including Issue Roadmaps for 2012-2015 and 2016 to 2020



EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The 2011 US-EU summit should encourage the Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC) to be restructured, streamlined and strengthened in the following key areas.


■Forum in which Europe and the United States implement a jobs and growth agenda and coordinate their response to systemic consequences of the euro crisis and America’s ongoing economic woes.
■Provide broad policy guidance on both bilateral and global issues;
■Be more deeply involved in agenda setting for the annual US-EU summit;
■Monitor the technical work that is the substance of the transatlantic agenda, while the principals should focus their efforts at their annual meeting on broader strategic concerns;
■Narrow its immediate agenda to focus more on jobs and growth, financial reform, energy and green technologies, protection of intellectual property, the digital agenda, and innovation.



Procedurally, the TEC should:
■Make its work more transparent and accountable to the various stakeholders in the transatlantic relationship;
■Involve leaders from both the European Parliament and the US Congress;
■Issue a public report about the results of each TEC meeting and its plans and goals for the future;
■Create a small US-EU Transatlantic Market Implementation Group comprised of elected and appointed officials in the executive and legislative branches to oversee the implementation of the roadmap;





STRATEGIC CHALLENGES
■2025 world production will almost have doubled in relation to 2005.
■US and European markets will no longer dominate the world.
■The center of gravity of world production and world trade will have moved to Asia.
■The gap between the rich and poor will have grown, exacerbating social and political tensions.
■World’s population will grow to 8 billion, and three-fifths of those people will be Asian.
■Europe will become the region with the oldest population and both Europe and the United States will face an even larger budgetary burden thanks to the pension and health care needs of their ageing populations.





ECONOMIC CHALLENGES
■2009, in the wake of the Great Recession, the Euro Area contracted by 4.3 per cent. The US economy shrank by 3.5 per cent.
■2010, both economies rebounded, giving rise to hopes of renewed prosperity.
■2011, the Euro Area is expected to expand by only 1.6 per cent and the United States by only 1.5 per cent, giving rise to fears that transatlantic growth is stalling out, raising the spectre of a double-dip recession.
■European growth prospects are haunted by the sovereign debt crisis that began in Greece, has spread to Ireland and Portugal and now threatens to engulf Spain and Italy.
■Joblessness in the European Union is 9.5 per cent, including 21 per cent in Spain and 14 per cent in Ireland. A whole generation of European youth risk never having a job: unemployment among those under age 24 is 46 per cent in Spain, 40 per cent in Greece and 28 per cent in Italy.
■In the United States, unemployment remains high at 9.1 per cent, home-owner mortgage indebtedness, restraining consumer spending.





The cost of transatlantic contagion from these economic maladies would be high.
■American banks have $1.3 trillion dollars in outstanding loans in Europe.
■Europe is America’s largest trading partner, the largest destination for US foreign direct investment and generates more than half the earnings of the overseas operations of US companies.
■With China expected to grow six times faster than either Europe or the United States in 2011, with India likely to expand five times faster and South-east Asia three times faster, the transatlantic market risks losing its pivotal role in the global economy.





THE POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY
■European and American public opinion polls show that people want growth, they want jobs and, above all, they want a reason to hope. What they lack is a sense of direction and purpose from their leaders.
■A majority of Europeans believe that the United States should exert strong leadership in world affairs.
■An even larger majority of Americans look to the European Union to show such leadership.
■Overwhelming majorities of elites in both Brussels and Washington agree that the US and the EU should lead on the world stage.
■A plurality of both Europeans and Americans want the relationship between the European Union and the United States to become closer.
■The political environment in the transatlantic space is ripe for a joint European and American effort to spur growth and jobs.
■Convergence of common economic challenges on both sides of the Atlantic are an opportunity for a transatlantic growth and jobs agenda.
■Europe and the United States have long demonstrated their shared commitment to market liberalization through multilateral trade negotiations.
■TPN is strongly committed to successful completion of the Doha Development Round at a high level of ambition as a means to spur trade and fuel economic development.
■The Doha Development Round, which was launched in 2001, has yet to produce meaningful, tangible results. Differences over agriculture and market access for manufactured products and services have stymied progress.





TRANSATLANTIC MARKET INTEGRATION
■In 2010, trade across the Atlantic in goods alone exceeded $600 billion.
■Europeans bought three times as many American merchandise exports as did the Chinese and 15 times more than that bought by the Indians.
■Similarly, the European Union sold the United States nearly two times the goods it sold China and nearly seven times what it sold India.
■Foreign investment is the driving force in the transatlantic economic relationship. It dwarfs the trade relationship and is thus essential for American and European job creation and prosperity.
■The United States is the recipient of nearly three-quarters of European foreign direct investment and Europe more than half of US overseas investment.
■Three and a half million Europeans now work for American companies in Europe and a similar number of Americans work for European firms in the United States. Such investment drives trade, with a third of US exports to the EU and three-fifths of its imports from the EU accounted for by intra-company trade.
■The services economies of the United States and Europe represent the sleeping giant in the transatlantic economic space, with European countries accounting for five of the top ten export markets for US services providers.
■Sales of services by European affiliates in the United States more than double US services imports from Europe.
■Creation of a Transatlantic Market, rather than a traditional transatlantic free trade agreement, is a more ambitious undertaking, because it would explicitly deal with regulatory obstacles to economic integration.
■The EU already has a free trade agreement with Mexico, one with South Korea, and it will, by next year, have a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, as well as a framework agreement, with Canada, and may start negotiating a deal with Japan.
■The United States already has free trade accords with Canada, Mexico and one soon with South Korea.
■A joint effort to better integrate the transatlantic market with those to its south could reap great economic benefits for all involved.





TOWARD THE FUTURE
■In 2007, US president George W. Bush and German chancellor Angela Merkel, agreed to create a Transatlantic Economic Council as a permanent, high-level group tasked with “rationalizing, reforming, and, where appropriate, reducing regulations”, “achieving more effective, systemic and transparent regulatory cooperation” and “removing unnecessary differences between our regulations to foster economic integration.”
■The 2009 European Commission study, Non-Tariff Measures in US-EU Trade and Investment, found that for the EU, removing all actionable non-tariff measures would increase the GDP by €122 billion per year and improve exports by 2.1%.
■For the United States, the benefits of removing actionable non-tariff barriers would add €41 billion per year to the economy and boost exports by 6.1%.
■For the Transatlantic Market project to succeed, it is essential to have a shared strategic vision among all concerned and a sense of urgency, especially given the increasing competitiveness of Asian countries in the global system.
■Priority needs to be given to initiatives that can boost jobs and growth in the short term, such as removal of all tariffs on goods traded across the Atlantic.
■Once the TEC has been able to establish a rolling four-year programme, based on a shared vision, it will be essential to bring all the major actors onto the same stage. Currently the Transatlantic Business Dialogue, the Transatlantic Legislators’ Dialogue and the other dialogues set their own agendas, priorities and meeting places, with no coordination between them for the subjects they discuss.

The immediate TEC agenda should be narrowed to a few mutually supported, high priority issues:


■Jobs and Growth: Identify immediate initiatives that Europe and the United States can take together or in parallel in the short run to spur job creation and revive growth.


■Financial Reform: Focus on the leadership Europe and the United States can provide in strengthening global financial markets, avoiding protectionism, minimizing regulatory overreach in the wake of the global financial crisis and dealing with shared strategic issues.
■Energy and Green Technologies: Enhance R&D cooperation, coordinate technical standards and testing for emerging products such as the electric car to ensure that the transatlantic market sets the global standard for these new technologies.
■Intellectual Property: Coordinate protection of intellectual property rights for emerging technologies; align US and EU policy on counterfeit goods and protecting intellectual property rights in third countries; and encourage cooperation between regulators and legislators on patent reform.
■Digital Agenda: The new US administration and the renewed EU institutions are moving rapidly to establish strategic policy agendas intended to exploit the transformational power of digital tools and technologies. On the EU side, a major focus will be the European “digital single market”. These initiatives must be pursued wherever possible with a full focus on transatlantic market challenges and opportunities.
■Innovation: Transform the current transatlantic innovation dialogue into an innovation action council with a detailed agenda to encourage entrepreneurship, enhance education and promote research and development.



The Issues Roadmap 2012-2015



The 2012 roadmap should include the following goals for 2012-2015:



Jobs and Growth

• In the face of the economic crisis, both Europe and the United States need a number of short-term deliverables that have a quick and substantial impact on jobs and on market confidence.



Financial markets

• The United States and the European Union should establish a transatlantic working group that involves both members of the relevant bureaucracies and relevant members of the European Parliament and the US Congress to share experiences and insights and to coordinate responses to the ongoing euro crisis.



Energy and the Environment

• Make energy and climate change a priority issue for the TEC to speed the transition to a greener, cleaner and low-carbon transatlantic economy.



Intellectual Property

• Make progress toward patent harmonization, including facilitating an EU patent, and enhanced cooperation between patent offices and greater coordination in extension of patent life.

• Develop a joint agenda for dealing with counterfeiting and piracy around the world and bring joint legal action against such abuses at the World Trade Organization.



Digital Agenda

• Converge policy and regulation affecting digital market access and participation across the Atlantic (and where possible beyond), notably in the areas of intellectual property, consumer protection, network access, network security and internet governance, and standards (for example, for e-health).



Innovation

• Focusing on the building blocs of an innovative transatlantic economy—education, research and development, entrepreneurship—lay out and implement a short-term action plan to boost innovation on both sides of the Atlantic.





In addition, the TEC should continue its work in the following areas:



The Regulatory Dialogue

• In pursuit of their G20 commitment to build a more sustainable financial system, Europeans and Americans should closely coordinate their initiatives to strengthen investment rules, revise bank capital requirements, supervise credit agencies and consolidate financial sector supervision.

• The TEC should redouble its efforts to mobilize departments and agencies on both sides of the Atlantic to search for areas where regulatory friction can be reduced or avoided.

• The EU and US should agree to a framework for resolving reinsurance issues involving the EU Solvency II directive, the state-based approach to insurance regulation in the United States and any new American regulation of insurance.

• The American administration and the EU Commission ought to come up with a framework for developing compatible rules affecting new technologies that are not yet regulated in Europe and the United States.

• Develop a common, open, technology-neutral standard on eAccessibility for the blind, deaf and infirm.

• Pursue standardization, digitization and interoperability of patient health care records, with appropriate privacy protections, to reduce medical errors, to facilitate real-time transatlantic sharing of information on contagious diseases and to improve health care productivity and cost-containment.

• Resolve the dispute over supplier’s declaration of conformity for electrical products.



Investment

• Agree, in light of recent global financial market turmoil, on a framework for deeper, ongoing coordination between European and American financial regulatory agencies.

• European and American leaders should agree on a comparable code of conduct and best practices governing Sovereign Wealth Fund investment in the transatlantic market, following up on efforts by the International Monetary Fund to develop a code of conduct for Sovereign Wealth Fund investors and by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to come up with best practices for investment receiving countries.

• Europe and the United States should finally resolve remaining transatlantic differences over accounting standards, promoting investment and the efficient allocation of capital within the transatlantic market.

• Complete the third phase of the Open Skies agreement removing investment restrictions for European and American air carriers in the transatlantic market to demonstrate the practical benefits of an eventual transatlantic investment accord.



Secure Trade

• Commit to the creation of smart ports to ensure the security of cargo container traffic.



Security Technology Cooperation

• Collaborate on joint defense and homeland security technology initiatives to maximize the economies of scale inherent in a $1 trillion transatlantic defense market at a time when defense budgets on both sides of the Atlantic are under growing pressure and the cost of research and development continues to rise.



The Legislators’ Dialogue

• Engage Members of the European Parliament and the US Congress more directly in joint consideration of pressing transatlantic concerns by focusing on shared challenges such as jobs and growth, climate change, internet policy, agriculture, financial issues and China.

• Lay the groundwork for eventual creation of a Transatlantic Assembly of legislators from both sides of the Atlantic to discuss mutual regulatory and economic concerns and to hold to account the executive on both sides of the Atlantic.



The Issues Roadmap 2016-2020

In the 2016-2020 timeframe, the United States and the European Union should include:



The Regulatory Dialogue

• Commit to develop comparable regulatory decision-making processes, with, at minimum, agreement on underlying principles and regulatory objectives, mutually compatible transparency, including an early warning system for new regulations under development, similar timeframes, appeal procedures and post-regulatory monitoring.

• Develop a framework for resolving differences in international standards setting bodies so that there can be collaboration in these forums whenever possible.

• Establish a system of mutual recognition of automotive products with functional equivalence to ensure comparable automotive test procedures, emissions and safety regulations.

• Agree to a framework for establishing a parallel process for granting approval for pharmaceuticals.

• Build on the experience gained by the FDA and the EMEA in the medical product equipment regulatory area by embedding a senior-level agency representative or expert within each other’s offices in a range of regulatory agencies to share ideas and to gain insights into each other’s regulatory cultures and procedures.





Investment

• Establish a date certain for creating a transatlantic capital market.

• Negotiate an investment agreement that opens most sectors of the transatlantic economy to reciprocal capital flows.

• To that end, achieve mutual recognition of securities regulation.



Manufacturing

• Reaffirm their commitment to multilateral trade liberalization by pursuing tariff-free trade worldwide in key manufacturing sectors of importance to the transatlantic economy.



Environment

• Agree to a transatlantic market for green products, including zero tariffs and the mutual recognition and certification of products.



Multilateral Trading System

• Using lessons learned from the Doha Round improve the functioning of the World Trade Organization, with special emphasis on mutual rules of the road for negotiating bilateral trade agreements and what more the United States and the European can do to foster growth in the least developed economies through trade and investment.


People and Commerce

• Commit to the freer movement of people for work, study, residence and tourism through a smart visa program.

NOTE :

This is a condensed extract of 36 page PDF document Toward a Strategic Vision for the Transatlantic Market.

The full document is available for download here.
http://www.policybloggersnetwork.com/archives/2011/12/toward-a-strategic-vision-for-the-transatlantic-market-a-synopsis-of-the-fourth-report-from-the-transatlantic-policy-network-tpn.html
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for education purposes for limited public.
Marek Tysis

[marektysis]

By Mark Gongloff

BloombergMario Draghi has learned much from the Germans, as he is proving by once again spraying cold water on everybody’s hopes for an immediate cash bonanza from the ECB.

Draghi, talking to the European Parliamentary Commission this morning, has produced the following series of Dow Jones Newswires headlines, which do not exactly ring with the sound of soaring Money Helicopters:
http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2011/12/19/draghi-draghing-down-the-market/

[marektysis]

http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=1164

[marektysis]

Global economy



With the sun setting on US global hegemony, the European model of governance is set to be adopted across the planet in a matter of a century, argues the founder and president of the French Institute of International Relations, Thierry de Montbrial.

­De Montbrial shared his vision that “100-200 years from now, the EU will extend to the whole planet” – because, he believes, it is the next form of government.

The EU is experimenting with fresh ways of governing as the world moves in the direction of globalization, but this is a difficult and long process, argues de Montbrial. He says the crisis will only hasten the invention of new schemes of governance.

The EU’s governing system is “the most interesting model in politics that has been invented since World War Two,”and if the EU fails because of the euro crisis it will represent a catastrophe for every one of its members and, indeed, the whole world, Thierry de Montbrial insists.

The global future of the European model is also backed by the fact that the US is “no longer the hegemon.” It is “the beginning of the end” for the US, and end which will be evolutionary and will take decades to complete.

Still, Thierry de Montbrial says, “Europe is not yet a single, unified decision maker, especially for foreign policy, and I think it will take decades before Europe can act as a single voice in international affairs.”

http://rt.com/news/eu-governence-model-montbrial-341/

[marektysis]

French prosecutors are probing allegations of spying by private investigators looking into the business affairs of the former chief executive of nuclear group Areva and her husband, judicial sources said on Wednesday. Anne Lauvergeon filed a legal complaint after she discovered a confidential report by private investigators on her husband's business activities, her lawyer Jean-Pierre Versini-Campinchi told Reuters. The alleged spying on Lauvergeon and her husband took place in 2011, French satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaine reported on Tuesday, adding it was unclear at this stage who had commissioned or paid for the report. "Areva has had no knowledge of such a report and has no further comment to make," a spokeswoman said, without elaborating. FOLLOWED ON http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/21/areva-idUSL6E7NL4R020111221 *************** Comments given by marek Tysis: in the same 'canard' hypothesis are displayed about responsabilities of this secret 'study'. 1. This document of 23 pages is centered about the buying of the Namibian company Uramin that generated a loss for Areva. 2.This is documented by the spying of the franco belgian Daniel Wouters, former director of development of UraMin. 3.The goal was evidently to give an evidence of a possible corruption in the buying of the uranium mine.(targeting Lauvergeon) 4. the author of the ' study' were knowing that this was perfectly illegal and were more than possibly willing to fire her. We have as potential coupable: the director of EDF ( electricity of France) mr Henri proglio, President Sarkozy- i have written something about him in the case of Atomic Anne-and says the ' canard 'mr Roussely former CEO of EDF (electricity of France) and now something at Credit Swiss First Boston .Other candidates are Luc Oursel. Mr Bouygues ( the boss of the bosses in french cement) who was willing to preside Areva....too.He is a personal friend of French president Sarkozy who was embarrassed by the rebufade given to him by Lauvergeon. Since month of June, Atomic Anne is without work. Luc Oursel is now presiding the company Areva. As having punch and big capacities, it should quite normal her to find a job in something out of France. As presiding Areva she had in common with Bilderberg the desire of knowing everything on the energy market in the western world.
Her husband is working in switzerland for the account of Total ( international oil and gas french company) and the report that analyzed the bank account in Switzerland and France is giving evidence of the honesty of Mr and Mrs Lauvergeon.
This had to be said.
Marek

[marektysis]

Belgium In Deep Financial Trouble Due To Bank Bailouts, But Finally A Bank CEO Gets Sued
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Wolf Richter is an entrepreneur, executive, and writer based in San Francisco.

Dexia SA, the Franco-Belgian mega-bank that collapsed and was bailed out in 2008 and that re-collapsed in early October, is a big deal in Belgium where it employs 10,000 people and has over 21 million bank accounts. Its assets of $715 billion dwarf Belgium's $395 billion economy.

The three countries involved in the bailout agreed in October to guarantee €90 billion in loans, of which Belgium will be responsible for 60.5%, France for 36.5%, Luxembourg for 3%. Belgium’s portion, €54.5 billion, represents nearly 14% of its GDP. The process is moving forward. On December 21, the European Commission approved on a temporary basis €45 billion of those guarantees though they violate EU rules on government subsidies for private companies.

Taxpayers are paying a heavy price for Dexia’s bailout. Belgium nationalized the Belgian entities of Dexia, including untold amounts of toxic assets. The French entity, which was involved in an enormous subprime scandal à la française, was taken over by the Caisse des Dépôts and the Banque Postale—both owned by the French government. Precision Capital, a Luxembourg company controlled by Qatari investors, bought 90% of Dexia Bank International Luxembourg, valuing the firm at €730 million, a steep discount from the expected €1 billion. Luxembourg acquired the remaining 10%. Other entities remain on the block.

In trying to bail out its financial sector, Belgium has guaranteed a total of €138.1 billion in debt (35% of its GDP) and has injected €15.7 billion in capital and €8.6 billion in loans, according to Belgium’s Cour des Comptes (Audit Court), which released the results of its annual audit on December 20 (PDF of the 412-page 168th Cahier) . The largest recipients: Dexia Banque Belgique, Dexia SA, BNP Paribas, and Fortis Banque.

The ultimate costs to Belgian taxpayers will be huge and long-term, given how small the country is. Yet there have been no legal consequences for those responsible. Until now....

Lynx Capital, a Belgian investment firm, has sued Dexia SA and former CEO Pierre Mariani for "spreading false and misleading information" and “market manipulation.” The amount in the case is small—and irrelevant. Lynx purchased 5,350 shares on September 5, 2011, for €1.46 per share and lost 82% of its investment over the next few months. But in a potentially significant development for Belgium, where class-action law doesn’t exist, Bernard Delhez, CEO of Lynx, is now trying to encourage other shareholders to join the cause.

The complaint alleges that Mariani and Jean-Luc Dehaene, Dexia’s former president, issued reassuring statements about the financial condition of the bank from the time they took over, following its bailout in 2008, until September 2011. Because the bank was in a precarious situation throughout and engaged in high-risk activities, the information in those reassuring statements was false and misleading and was intended to artificially inflate Dexia’s share price. Hence, Dexia and Mariani engaged in market manipulation.

Moreover, Mariani must have known that the information was false and misleading. For example, Mariani confided in Dehaene in 2008 that Dexia was "not a bank but a hedge fund" (L’Expansion). Dehaene spilled the beans on this conversation last October during the presentation of the breakup plan. Among the others reasons why Mariani must have known about the true condition of Dexia was a note that Luc Coene, Governor of the National Bank of Belgium, had sent to Dexia last August, in which he recommended that Dexia be dismantled.

For Robert Witterwulghe, Lynx’s lawyer, the facts demonstrate that Mariani knew as early as October, 2008, that Dexia was in a precarious situation, and that the reassuring communications since then were willfully false and misleading.

The court action is based on the law of August 2, 2002, concerning insider trading and market manipulation. But: "Why impose a system for everyone when it is not applied in certain cases?" Delhez said (L’Echo), perhaps to justify in part why he is pushing the case though his investment is small and his legal expenses will pile up quickly.

When a bank collapses, the lies behind its financial statements come out of the woodwork—and Dexia is no exception: a report surfaced with the damning results of an earlier investigation by French regulators. And what happened then? Nothing.... Regulators Knew of Dexia's Problems But Were Silenced.

Read more: http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2011/12/22/ceo-of-dexia-not-a-bank-but-a-hedge-fund.html#ixzz1hOjKM6uZ
http://www.businessinsider.com/belgium-in-deep-financial-trouble-due-to-bank-bailouts-but-finally-a-bank-ceo-gets-sued-2011-12

Marek Tysis
Guess who will be condemned in this gigantic fraud? We are in Belgium,
land of the barons robbers with a justice in accordance...

[marektysis]

Ethiopia: Investigating journalists from Sweden investigating foreign minister Carl Bildt’s involvement in Oil deal

Filed under: Ethiopia,Meles Zenawi,Uncategorized — ethiopiantimes @ 10:43 pm
Tags: Carl Bildt, Dictatorship, EPRDF, Ethiopia, Human Rights, johan persson, Lundin Group, Lundin Petroleum, Martin Schibbye, Meles Zenawi, Sweden



After two Swedish journalists claiming they were investigating the presence of the Lundin Group in Ethiopia were found guilty of terror crimes on Wednesday, Swedish investigative journalist Leo Lagercrantz takes a closer look at the Swedish company and foreign minister Carl Bildt’s involvement with it.

Swedish journalists ‘must be freed’: Reinfeldt (21 Dec 11)
Swedes convicted of terror crimes in Ethiopia (21 Dec 11)
Bildt avoids Sudan war crimes probe (21 Oct 11)
Bildt slams paper over ‘amateur’ reporting (17 Oct 11)

On July 1st of this year, Swedish journalists Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye were arrested after having ventured into the disputed Ogaden Province in eastern Ethiopia in the company of soldiers from the ONLF guerrillas.

They were found guilty of terror crimes by an Ethiopian court on Wednesday.

The story of the Swedes is more than business as usual, for the Ethiopian regime and for the Swedish government.

The affair has once again put the spotlight on Carl Bildt’s previous involvement in the mining and oil group, The Lundin Group – founded by the now deceased, controversial Adolf H. Lundin – and listed on the Stockholm and Toronto stock exchanges.

This time it’s about Carl Bildt sitting on the board and being involved in negotiating the agreement between Lundin Petroleum and the Ethiopian regime in Addis Ababa.

And it was precisely the Lundin Group’s presence and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in connection with the establishment of the deal that the Swedish journalists wanted to investigate.

When it became known that the Swedes had been arrested Carl Bildt commented: “It’s an area we have been advised against traveling to because it is a dangerous area.”

The foreign minister’s statement has caused concern and anger among Schibbye and Persson’s fellow journalists, and many Swedish publishers are today asking the question: Whose interests does Carl Bildt represent – the captured Swedish citizens’ or the Ethiopian regime?

Or perhaps his own?

And Sweden’s largest newspaper, Aftonbladet, is campaigning on its cultural pages for his resignation.

The suspicion has not exactly diminished after Göteborgs-Posten (GP) got an interview with the head of Africa Oil in Addis Abeba, James Phillips, where he claims that he had a close cooperation with the former Swedish ambassador to Ethiopia, Staffan Tillander, and that Africa Oil and the Swedish ambassador on a regular basis exchanged “security info” and travelled in Ogaden together.

This leads to the conclusion that it’s OK for Swedish companies with questionable reputations to be in Ogaden, but for Swedish journalists investigating crimes against humanity, it is not.

But the Ethiopian affair is just one of several that are haunting the Swedish foreign minister after his seven years in the Lundin sphere.

Let us go back ten years to the year 2000. It was the year that the former prime minister (1991-1994) and EU envoy to the Balkans (1995) joined the Lundin Petroleum’s board of directors.

The seven years with the Lundin Group that followed would make Carl Bildt a wealthy man. But at what price?

His time as a “Lundin man” follows him like a dark shadow that he can’t shake.

This is because The Lundin Group is not just any other listed company.

The founder, the Swedish rock engineer and oil and gas magnate Adolf H. Lundin, made a fortune back in the 1970s when he came across huge natural gas fields in Qatar.

However, the company attracted international attention the first time in 1984, when, despite the UN boycott, it mined gold in South Africa. Adolf H. Lundin, however, couldn’t be bothered with the criticism: “I do not understand the Swedish rage against this beautiful country,” he told the Swedish newspaper Expressen.

The next storm of criticism came in 1996. This time, after The Lundin Group was blacklisted by the United Nations who believed that the company had plundered the Congo for its assets.

Today, the Lundin sphere is the second largest owner of the Tenke Fungurume facility (ownership amounts to 24.5 percent) but the mine continues to be the subject of criticism from NGOs.

Among other things, the Lundin sphere and the other owners have been criticized for having displaced people who today are forced to live under canvas, although they were promised decent housing.

After the deals in the Congo, the Lundin ravage there has been compared to the ruthless imperialism in Joseph Conrad’s novel “Heart of Darkness” in the Swedish media.

So who then was Adolf H. Lundin (1938 – 2006)? A modern variant of the ivory collector Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s novel, or a charming Indiana Jones type?

Bildt, who wrote Lundin’s obituary, described him like this:

“Adolf is a true global entrepreneur of a species that unfortunately we hardly have in Sweden.”

The descriptions of Adolf H. Lundin as 100 percent contractor is substantiated by his own description of himself:

“We work without regard to political risks. (…) The only thing that is important to us is that what we are looking for can be something big.”

But for those who read the authorized biography written by journalist Robert Eriksson, now responsible at the company for Investor Relations in Europe, a different picture is presented of the tycoon who built up the Lundin empire: Adolf H. Lundin did indeed have political passion.

He was an ardent anti-Communist who was involved in the Washington, DC-based conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation.

Adolf H. Lundin sponsored Ronald Reagan’s election campaign; in return, he and his wife Eva were invited to the Reagent inauguration in 1981. The program included a show with Frank Sinatra that the couple watched from the front row.

So what was Adolf H. Lundin’s position towards doing business with communist countries?

He answered author Robert Eriksson like this:

“I would not have dreamed of doing business with Soviet Communist politicians.”

When it came to the German Nazis, however, the answer is different:

“That I certainly would have done. There was no one who knew what really happened there until very late, at the end of World War II.”

Among all of the controversial projects that Adolf H. Lundin initiated, there is one which even today – five years after Adolf H. Lundin’s death – continues to drain the company and the Swedish foreign minister’s trust capital: Sudan.

Since the summer of 2010 there has been an ongoing criminal investigation by the International Public Prosecution Office in Stockholm concerning Lundin Petroleum’s operations in Sudan.

When Carl Bildt in 2000 agreed to become a member of the board of the Lundin Group, the company had already been active there for three years. Human rights groups were early to assert that the government bombed villages and killed and expelled the local population in the province of Unity State (also called the Western Upper Nile), so that Lundin Petroleum could prospect for oil undisturbed.

But as usual, when accused of unethical business, the company was unresponsive to criticism. When Carl Bildt was questioned in the Riksdag’s Constitutional Committee in April 2007 (this time about his options in the Lundin company Vostok Nafta, all of whose assets were in Russian Gazprom) he rejected the criticism, countering that his commitment has contributed to peace in the region.

When after the hearing in the constitutional committee, reporters pressed Carl Bildt it ended as it often does with the Swedish foreign minister: he berated them, pushed on factual errors, often petty, in the questions – and got laughs and sympathy on his side.

After the hearing in the constitutional committee he appeared in the Swedish media more as a hero of peace in Sudan, rather than a dubious businessman.

And he has continued to be one of the Reinfeldt government’s most popular ministers. The criticism of him and his commitment to The Lundin Group has been brushed aside as “leftist propaganda.”

However, lately support for Carl Bildt has begun to fade.

His arrogant attitude to the case of the Swedish journalist Dawit Isaak, who has been imprisoned for 10 years in Eritrea without trial, has created discontent among Swedish journalists. His unwillingness to criticize first Iran (where Lundin has been active through its subsidiary Lundin Munir) and then Qaddafi, whose regime the Lundin Group long had close relations with, has disappointed many of his former supporters.

While the majority of the world’s democratic leaders condemned Qhaddafi when he attacked demonstrators with fighter jets, Bildt took another position.

“It has nothing to do with supporting one or the other, it has to do with obtaining stability and a reasonable development,” he said.

Yet again the question needed to be raised: Did the Swedish foreign minister’s peculiar, tactful attitude towards crimes against humanity have any connection with his time as a Lundin board member?

His veto recently against EU-sanctions against Syria – called “The Ericsson factor” because of Swedish pundits’ analysis that he voted against full sanctions to protect the Swedish telecom company’s interests – has also created amazement.

And now, on Wednesday, two Swedish journalists were found guilty of terror crimes by an Ethiopian court.

Lundin Petroleum first established itself in Ethiopia in 2006. The situation in Somali Ethiopia, as the area is also called, was difficult even before Lundin started looking for gas and oil there. Security consultants warned Lundin against establishing operations in the Ogaden – but in vain.

The company signed a contract with the Ethiopian regime.

And in connection with the establishment, the government took the opportunity to “clean up” so that no one or anything could interfere with the exploitation.

That they wanted to get rid of various rebel groups and warring tribes is not surprising, but the allegations of the methods used are familiar ones when it comes to how the Lundin Group does business in Africa: burned villages, people displacement, and systematic rape.

That is at least what human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch and other experts claim. But the documentation of the regime’s abuses in Somali Ethiopia is far from satisfactory.

The regime has effectively isolated the area, and to visit it unlawfully is considered a terrorist crime.

This means that the army can feel safe – it’s not possible to produce any evidence that could lead to prosecution in The Hague.

But multinationals in place there, such as the Swedish Lundin Group (Lundin Petroleum’s operations were taken over by African Oil, in which they still have a strong interest) have had little to fear.

The same applies to political socialites such as Carl Bildt.

The Lundin Group’s business in Ethiopia has received little media exposure.

Until now.

And while the criticism of Bildt’s handling of the Ethiopia-Swedes is growing in strength, there is also a preliminary investigation which should may also cause the foreign minister to lose sleep: the International Public Prosecution Office in Stockholm’s investigation of crimes against humanity in Sudan 1997-2003.

No one yet has been informed they are under suspicion, and the prosecutor, Magnus Elving, has not even mentioned that it is Lundin Oil currently under investigation.

But he confirmed that the investigation started because of a report by a human rights organization that explicitly criticized this particular company.

When I talk with Magnus Elving he says:

“So far we have devoted ourselves to gathering documentation. Now we are beginning to approach the stage where it becomes necessary to call in [people] for questioning.”

Prosecutor Elving is optimistic: “The investigation will take at least another year, but we will not give up so easily.”

Adolf H. Lundin died in 2006 and today the group is led by sons Lukas and Ian Lundin.

They have invested considerable resources in re-profiling the Group and making it more socially acceptable. They have started a philanthropic operation – Lundin for Africa, and have also donated $100 million to the Clinton Foundation.

In a business context, The Lundin Group has made headlines recently for having made a giant oil discovery in the North Sea that caused its shares to shoot up.

Despite happy charities and investors, questions about what really happened when Lundin Petroleum established itself in Somali Ethiopia have not disappeared.

Recently, when The Lundin Group was discussed at a conference on conflict minerals at Clark University in Worcester Massachusetts, a participant commented:

“Was it the Lundin family that Stieg Larsson had in mind when he drew his portrait of capitalists?”

Leo Lagercrantz is an award winning investigative journalist and former editor of the opinion pages at the Swedish tabloid Expressen.

A previous version of the article was originally published in the Expressen newspaper in October
http://ethiopiantimes.wordpress.com/tag/carl-bildt/

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what is well established here is that mr 'Lessons giver' has nagociated the establishment of this company of murderers in Africa in the name of the Swedish government. He also beneficiated of his position in the same
'murder and co cy'.
To this title, he was accomplice of the whole operation in the name of petrol, gas etc...and has to resign of his functions without dignity.

Marek Tysis

[marektysis]

Mario Draghi: Dangerous Dictator?

December 23, 2011 | From theTrumpet.com
A recent newspaper article inferred that the head of the European Central Bank has dictatorial powers greater than the late North Korean president. By Ron Fraser

Monday’s edition of the Telegraph newspaper carried a headline, “Mario Draghi: More Dangerous Than Kim Jong Il.”

The comparison is an interesting one from one perspective: The late president of North Korea was a dictator having supreme authority, accountable to no one. Mario Draghi, president of the bank that is dictating fiscal policy to the world’s largest trading bloc, the European Union, is accountable to no other authority than himself.

As an extension of this comparison, Kim Jong Il virtually held the world to ransom with the threat of nuclear war. Draghi currently holds the world to ransom with the threat of the collapse of the means of exchange with which much of the EU enacts its global trade—the euro.

Kim rattled his nuclear sabers to scare off the world. The latter is scaring the world into a fear of a global financial collapse of nuclear proportions.

It’s an interesting comparison.

Largely an unknown till he assumed control of the world’s largest central bank on November 1, Draghi has been developing a more public persona of recent date. His most recent interview was with the Financial Times. It contains some interesting vignettes that somewhat explain Draghi’s intransigent stand on the euro crisis.

“It is a sometimes legalistic—at times, even theological—debate,” the FT writes (emphasis added). That is a point not yet seen by the vast majority. There is a “theological” entity at the root of all this, playing its hand extremely carefully, given its almost-2,000-year history. We have pointed to this crucial part of the equation numerous times.

“The important thing,” Mr. Draghi says, “is to restore the trust of the people—citizens as well as investors—in our continent. We won’t achieve that by destroying the credibility of the ecb. This is really, in a sense, the undertone of all of our conversation today.”

It is just possible that this Jesuit-educated son of Rome is in tune with the Vatican’s plan for a “new evangelization” of Europe, to “restore the trust of the people,” the true “undertone” behind German elites leading the “conversation” behind closed doors in Rome, Berlin and Brussels.

Either way, the Financial Times interviewer did sound a realistic warning: “… 2012 may well mark the moment when the euro’s fate is settled.”

Aware that grave dangers face the eurozone economies in the new year, Mario Draghi loosed the purse strings of the European Central Bank (ecb) on Wednesday. As the Washington Post reported (December 21):

The European Central Bank announced Wednesday that it is loaning about $640 billion to European banks for an unusual three-year term as part of its effort to free up credit tightened by the eurozone’s government debt crisis.

Statistics released by the Frankfurt-based ecb showed that 523 banks signed up for the loans, the largest infusion of cash since the euro became the common currency of a number of European nations in 1999. In all, 17 nations have adopted the currency, which was seen at its inception as a boost to economic stability but has in recent months come under withering and perhaps fatal attack.

Some see this latest move by Draghi to ease EU banks liquidity as a trick designed to circumvent EU treaty obligations that currently restrain the ecb from becoming the lender of last resort to EU member nations’ governments.

“Reports in Paris suggested some governments also hope the loans will make it possible for banks to buy government debts when cash-strapped governments issue bonds early in 2012. In effect, the reports said, this would be an indirect way of having the ecb become the lender of last resort for indebted governments—something it is forbidden from doing directly by its founding statutes” (ibid).

On the euro’s fate hangs the fate of the global economy. The test year is 2012, beginning with the EU governments’ bond auctions in the first quarter of the year. What other cards does Mario Draghi, the “war dragon” of the ecb, have up his sleeve?

The time is fast approaching when Mario Draghi, unfettered president of the most powerful bank in the world—the European Central Bank—will prove whether or not he is, indeed, “more dangerous than Kim Jong Il”! •
http://www.thetrumpet.com/?q=8947.7723.0.0
------------------
What is amazing is that we discretly are on the way of a European Quantity Easing policy: now 750 billions euro lent to the bankers the ECB HOPE they will use to buy state bonds.(in exchange of junk bonds) Will the US or Eu be the first in the gigantic wall standing before us?
Answer in not so much time with a big Staterupcy or a big, really big war !

Marek Tysis

[marektysis]

Google Nexus Tablet to Be Launched within the Next Six Months

December 25, 2011 | Filed under: Business | Posted by: Dannie Heffron

Google executive chairman, Eric Schmidt said during an interview that the internet giant has plans to release its very own tablet, the Google Nexus in the first half of next year.

No longer happy to watch from the sidelines, Google is reportedly going to go head to heat with the likes of Amazon Kindle Fire and Apple iPad. Schmidt told Corrier della Sera recently that the company will be launching a high quality tablet PC in the next six months. The executive chairman for Google also added that the tablet will prove to make the competition between Apple and the Android tighter.

The blogosphere has been buzzing about this for the past few days and many would like to know the precise meaning of what Schmidt said. Whichever the case, the techies in the Android community are excited to have a new toy to play with courtesy of the web giant.

Dubbed to be an iPad rival, the Google Nexus will have a summer release, sources say. Many are now asking if Google will produce the tablet alone or let Samsung do the dirty work for them. Since Schmidt said that the device will be made of the highest quality, it is very likely that Samsung will be helping the company.
http://dailynewscorner.com/google-nexus-tablet-to-be-launched-within-the-next-six-months/6144/

[marektysis]

LOOKS LIKE A GOOD PUBLICITY CAMPAIGN... you are the judge !...
*************************
http://www.danielvasella.com/corporate-responsibility/index.shtml

Marek

[marektysis]

Mario Draghi Nomination Based on Deception

Posted on 27 December 2011 by admin
by ECB Watch

The Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) Committee was in charge of evaluating Mario Draghi’s credentials on behalf of the European Parliament. The view of the Committee, and accompanying evidence, was described in a 36 pages report released on 16 June 2011 just before the vote on the nomination by MEPs. It concluded to “a favourable opinion to appoint Mario Draghi (pictured) as President of the ECB”. Then 75% of the MEPs approved, resulting in “his appointment for a term of office of eight years with effect from 1 November 2011” by the European Council. The report made no mention of the strong reservations within the Committee about his alleged role in the falsification of Greek debt. This points a possible ethical failure by ECON Committee in handling the nomination process.

The contentious transactions were engineered by Goldman Sachs International in 2001. They were subsequently managed while Mario Draghi held the position of vice chairman and managing director of the bank’s London branch (European headquarters), and a member of the firm-wide management committee, from 2002 to 2005. In particular, a significant increase in the debt hiding scheme, engineered in 2005, has yet to be addressed in relation with this nomination.

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The report made no mention of the strong reservations within the Committee about his alleged role in the falsification of Greek debt. This points a possible ethical failure by ECON Committee in handling the nomination process.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reservations within the ECON Committee

Questions about Mario Draghi’s connection to the controversial deal were raised in an influential financial blog, The Baseline Scenario, in three posts spanning February-March 2010. Two members of the ECON Committee jointly wrote a solemn appeal, published in newspaper Le Monde on 14 June 2011, for Mario Draghi to clear his name. The first is the former Chair of the Committee, Pervenche Berès. The second is Pascal Canfin, who reiterated the call directly to Mario Draghi during a hearing held on 15 June 2011, in the presence of Sharon Bowles, the current Chair of the Committee. Mario Draghi’s reply was strikingly incoherent in substance and defiant in tone. In a webcast interview with the EU Parliament’s TV, the next day (15 June 2011), Pascal Canfin warned of the sword of Damoclès hovering over the head of the president of the ECB for not clearing his name.

Draghi’s Explaination

Mario Draghi’s explanation, during the hearing held on 15 June 2011, rested on two arguments. The first argument was that, since the contentious transaction was initiated in 2001, the year preceding his hiring by Goldman Sachs, it follows that he had no connection to them. First, the contracts were in effect during the time he held a top position at Goldman Sachs. That’s not neutral given the alleged fraudulent nature of these contracts, particularly as the bank remained lead manager of Greek debt underwriting. Second, a renegotiation took place in August 2005, increasing the scale of the window dressing scheme from 2.830 bn euros in 2001 to 5.125 bn euros in 2006. This is to be found in Eurostat’s Methodological Visit Report of November 2010 on page 19 under “All the appropriate corrections have now been implemented in the EDP notification released on 15 November 2010”. It represents an 81% increase in the debt hidden under this scheme. This particular information did not surface at the hearing.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Mario Draghi’s reply was strikingly incoherent in substance and defiant in tone. In a webcast interview with the EU Parliament’s TV, the next day (15 June 2011), Pascal Canfin warned of the sword of Damoclès hovering over the head of the president of the ECB for not clearing his name.

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His second argument is that he did not interact with governments because he had no taste for it. How could anyone have believed that Goldman Sachs could dispense with Mario Draghi’s most valued asset? In fact, the bank communicated otherwise and so did Bloomberg on 29 December 2005, just before he took office at the Central Bank of Italy.

Subsequent Revelations

Evidence of Mario Draghi’s specific dealings with governments was revealed in October 2011. Pascal Canfin comments this post-hearing finding in a webcast whose title translates to “Mario Draghi lied to the EU parliament”. He interprets Mario Draghi’s attitude in tactical terms: facing the problem head on might have dragged him to a deeper controversy, so he chose to use a smokescreen. He says that a person who is custodian of the truth could blackmail the ECB President and potentially destabilize the institution.

Sharon Bowles’ communication to MEPs was a whitewash

A whitewash is to exonerate by means of a perfunctory investigation or through biased presentation of data. The report submitted by Sharon Bowles to the European Parliament just before the vote only mentions the hearing in name : “whereas the committee subsequently held a two-and-a-half-hour hearing with the nominee on 14 June 2011”. In addition, the ECON Committee issued a press release on 15 June 2011. That’s for anyone who wishes to read it, unlike the report that was specifically addressed to Parliament. It does acknowledge the reservations, but they are dismissed as follows:


A few MEPs asked Mr. Draghi about his past involvement with Goldman Sachs and whether this could negatively affect his perceived integrity as ECB president. Mr Draghi vehemently defended himself, saying that he was not involved in the bank’s work with governments and that his track record since then in clamping down on the banking sector and warning about the build up of risk proved that he would not be in the pocket of the financial industry.

Notice that what was controversial about his past at Goldman Sachs, the falsification of Greek debt figures, is left out of this paragraph. His claim that he was not involved in the bank’s work with governments, in fact, confirms the perceived shortfall of his integrity, because it is contradicted by evidence and it is not plausible. Not the other way around, as the press release assumes.

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“Mario Draghi lied to the EU parliament.” (Pascal Canfin)

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On 23 June 2011, Sharon Bowles released a personal endorsement in which she said:


I was impressed by the answers he gave to my committee [...] Many other answers were also interesting and thought provoking. He has the respect of the committee and of Parliament [...].

The Parliament may well have had the respect of Mario Draghi, but on the basis of an incomplete report, which casts a sobering light on the nomination process. An MEP who wanted to find out more would have probably looked in the ECON Committee’s webpage and stumbled upon the press release. The latter presents Mario Draghi’s defense as if it had appeased initial reservations: the contrary of what actually happened.


Hypotheses about how things happened

The whitewash was most likely motivated by the desire for the nomination go as smoothly as possible. The scheme worked out marvelously well.

There were only but a few skirmishes, in the realm of politics, that specifically addressed the red flag waved in Mario Draghi’s hearing. For example, on 23 June 2011, the french Secretary of Trade Pierre Lellouche very obviously dodged a question about it, in a debate at the French National Assembly. Incidentally, a written parliamentary question on a related topic, dated 19 July 2001, addressed to the French MOF, François Baroin, remains unanswered.

Is There a Question of Perjury?

No major newspaper worried about his alleged perjury, until a very short time before he took office on 1 November 2011. The NY Times gave a faithful account of the hearing on 29 October 2011. Further proof of Mario Draghi’s incorrect account of his service at Goldman Sachs, documents from the Bank of Italy, was reported on 24 October by Tiempo de hoy. By and large, however, it has gone unnoticed.

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His [Draghi's] claim that he was not involved in the bank’s work with governments, in fact, confirms the perceived shortfall of his integrity, because it is contradicted by evidence and it is not plausible.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We can get a sense of the mood that prevailed among MEPs by reading some of their explanations of votes, on 23 June 2011, under “Report: Sharon Bowles (A7-0229/2011)”. Be advised that this a small sample of the MEPs. Take, for instance, Alfredo Pallone, who sits on the ECON Committee. His explanation of vote contains lofty rhetoric in praise of Mario Draghi. Of those who explained their vote, it seems that only ECON members referred to the hearing. Their account of it is rather flattering considering the red flag waved in the hearing. Did Sharon Bowles set the right tone to impress a modicum of impartiality in their minds?We can only speculate as to Sharon Bowles’ motives. The Council, among which Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, unanimously recommended Mario Draghi. In the context of a deteriorating Euro crisis, it would have been a public disservice to allow disharmony to take root in the nomination process. But then, what is the point of consulting MEPs on a nomination?

Under the counter-factual—giving MEPs untainted evidence, the controversy about the falsification of Greek public finance might have reignited. This would have irked some constituencies, governmental and corporate alike, who, perhaps, have turned a blind eye to the problem or bear some responsibility thereof. Avoiding a backlash might have entered Sharon Bowles’ calculation. It’s not a crazy hypothesis, but there is no data to substantiate it.

Let us close this section with some background about Sharon Bowles. She is affiliated with two organizations, The Transatlantic Policy Network (TPN) and the European Parliamentary Financial Services Forum (EPFSF). They are used as a channel to lobby MEPs, according to Corporate Europe Observatory (May 2011). This said, the Committee has contributed significantly in creating a European wide financial supervisory structure under her leadership (Euractiv, September 2010).


Conclusion

We already knew that the ECB nomination process was controversial. The first president, Wim Duisemberg, bowed to Jacques Chirac insistence that he step down midway through his mandate, in order for Jean Claude Trichet to replace him. The plan, however, was delayed by the interested party’s fraud trial in connection with the collapse of French bank Crédit Lyonnais. Through no fault of the ECON Committee, we assume. Not anymore, in this new nomination. The ECON Committee used political tactics to remove the hurdles to Mario Draghi’s nomination, in relation with his past at Goldman Sachs.


Sources

* Professor Mario Draghi joins Goldman Sachs (press release), Goldman Sachs, 28 January 2002
* Italy names Mario Draghi governor of Central Bank, Bloomberg, 29 December 2005
* Simon Johnson, Fallout from Goldman Sachs-Greece affair widens : impact on the European Central Bank, The Baseline Scenario, 15 February 2010
* James Kwak, Bank of Italy defends Draghi, The Baseline Scenario, 19 February 2010
* Simon Johnson, Mario Draghi and Goldman Sachs, again, The Baseline Scenario, 17 March 2010
* EU passes historic agreement on bank supervision, EurActiv, 24 September 2010
* Report on the EDP methodological visits to Greece, Eurostat, November 2010
* Council recommends the nomination of Mario Draghi as President of the ECB, Council of the European Union, 17 May 2011
* Helen Burley, Lobbying under the radar, Corporate Europe Observatory, 24 May 2011
* Pervenche Berès and Pascal Canfin, BCE: Mario Draghi doit lever des doutes, Le Monde, 14 June 2011
* Interview: “Mario Draghi didn’t convince me”—Pascal Canfin, MEP, 15 June 2011, EuroparlTV
* Sharon Bowles, Mario Draghi recommended as candidate for next ECB President, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, 15 June 2011
* Sharon Bowles, Report on the on the Council recommendation for appointment of the President of the European Central Bank, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, 16 June 2011
* Sharon Bowles MEP backs “Super” Mario Draghi for European Central Bank President (press release), sharonbowles.org.uk, 23 June 2011
* Explanations of votes, European Parliament, 23 June 2011
* Question au gouvernement N°3403 (debate), Journal Officiel de l’Assemblée Nationale, 23 June 2011
* European Council appoints Mario Draghi President of the ECB (press release), European Council, 24 June 2011
* Question écrite Nº114970, Journal Officiel de l’Assemblée Nationale, 19 July 2011
* Stefano Marchi, El nuevo hombre fuerte del euro : Mario Draghi, Tiempo de hoy, 24 October 2011
* Mario Draghi a menti aux eurodéputés (webcast), Europe Ecologie, 28 Octobre 2011
* Can Super Mario save the day for Europe, NY Times, 29 October 2011


http://econintersect.com/wordpress/?p=17123

[marektysis]

LETTER: No leadership

Published: Tuesday, December 27, 2011 at 5:52 p.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, December 27, 2011 at 5:53 p.m.


Ron Paul is a Republican and has spent his lifetime trying to eliminate Social Security and organized labor. Now he wants to give corporations tax breaks and lower the Social Security tax.

He is doing all he can to help eliminate Social Security from older people by cutting taxes and allowing younger people to opt out of paying into it. He wants to keep the Bush tax breaks for the rich, which never should have never taken place during a war.

Bush’s budget strategy boiled down to never-ending tax cuts for the rich, big increases for the Pentagon, and spending cuts for everything else.

Bush’s misguided war and misguided tax cuts stand in the way of responsible, responsive budgeting. The fact that we debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It’s a sign the federal government can’t pay its own bills. It’s a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally.

Leadership means “the buck stops here.” Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices onto the backs of our children and grandchildren.

Paul’s plan shares several features with those of his Republican rivals, including extending the Bush tax cuts. Most lawmakers would agree to a year-long extension of the payroll tax cut, which currently is a drop in Social Security taxes from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent.

Democrats want to continue allowing jobless workers to claim up to 99 weeks of benefits, while Republicans are pushing to drop the total number of weeks to 59.

It’s a crying shame people can’t come up with someone better suited for the president’s job. We need to be very selective in picking who’s to run for our next president, and not allow the Bilderberg Group to select the man of its choice.

Wooten Watson

Gadsden

http://www.gadsdentimes.com/article/20111227/NEWS/111229902
FOR EDUCATION PURPOSES FOR LIMITED GROUPS ONLY
Marek Tysis

[marektysis]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204720204577128751503699714.html

[marektysis]

How Technology Will Change Governments, Corporations, and the Rest of Our Stubborn Institutions
Can technology overcome and change institutions otherwise overcome by inertia and stagnation? Will technology help overcome tyrants and change the relationship between state and citizen in positive and hopeful ways, or will it enable dictators and make governments even more oppressive?

These were some of the questions posed at Techonomy this past November.

These aren’t merely political questions. The corporation as it has been conceived of for quite some time – that massive bureaucracy built upon a steep hierarchy – is also threatened by innovation and technological change. The old boss model may be facing its own near-extinction as the gig economy grows. Tech is changing everything.

The Techno-Futurists Are On to Something

In many ways, this is the same thinking behind Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch’s new book on libertarianism and its effects on stagnant institutions and mainstream culture. The free-wheeling nature of cultural libertarianism and economic freedom lead innovation and creative expression in ways that subvert and invariably alter the nature of the status quo.

In this sense, at least the ethos behind the sort of libertarianism that Welch and Gillespie are preaching is very similar to the ethos that undergirds the thinking of techno-Utopians and others tech enthusiasts – like me.

Maybe this is why so many in the tech business are drawn to libertarianism and why the investment culture in Silicon Valley is so often colored by a certain libertarian streak.

Nobody better infuses this libertarian techno-futurism than Peter Thiel. Forbes has an excellent profile of Thiel by Brian Caulfield and Nicole Perlroth. From that profile comes this:

Almost every problem–the shortcomings of our political and educational systems, the lingering financial disaster, market bubbles, energy crises, the failed promises of the developing world, resource-based wars–stems from what he calls “stalled technological innovation.” What a better place this would be, he often muses, if we could press the reset button and go back to the late 1950s and ’60s and realize the predictions of science fiction that failed to materialize: ubiquitous space travel and colonization, robots à la the Jetsons, underwater cities, desalinization, reforestation of deserts and much more. Because we’re all running harder and harder just to stay in place, the only salvation is big scientific breakthroughs.

Someone like Tyler Cowen would argue that we’ve plateaued – that all the big scientific breakthroughs have been discovered, the low-hanging fruit plucked at least for the time being, and that this is the underlying cause of our current ‘great stagnation’ and flatlining growth.


Reasons to Be Optimistic In Spite of it All

Others might argue that the innovation is still occurring but that the fruits of that innovation and growth are accruing to only a very small percentage while the wages and living standards of the vast majority of people are struggling to keep up. Whatever the case, whether or not we can achieve major technological breakthroughs is certainly an important piece of the economic puzzle.

It’s also an important piece of the political puzzle. I suppose the two are inextricably bound to one another – economics and politics are so closely tied it can be difficult to separate the two in any meaningful way. The question is whether the optimists at Techonomy and the futurists like Thiel are right or whether technology will ultimately serve the despots rather than the people. Maybe it will serve the despots and the hackers and leave the rest of us in the shooting gallery.

I can’t say anything for sure – nobody can – but I remain optimistic.

My piece this morning on the National Defense Authorization Act ends on a hopeful note largely because of my own techno-futurism and my optimism in the face of all the Very Bad Things that people and governments do. I think that the bulky legal apparatus of the modern nation-state will have a hard time keeping pace with rapid technological change. especially given the power of online social media to organize people and ideas.

The Corporation Goes Light-Weight

The optimism over a new sort of corporate America comprised of smaller, more innovative and more flexible firms rather than giant behemoths is a prediction that is already being borne out in practice. Sure, many of the most successful companies are really big still, but they’re also often very new.

Ten years ago, Facebook wasn’t an industry giant. It wasn’t even a twinkle in Mark Zuckerberg‘s eye. Apple wasn’t even close to the top computer manufacturer and nobody had a phone made by that company. Now Apple is, well, huge. But it’s facing tons of competition.

One industry after another is evolving and changing, facing new upstarts eager to take them down.

Take books, for instance. Self-publishing is very much a reality now for many writers who before relied almost entirely upon the luck and good will of the publishing industry. Ditto that for music. The success of indie gaming is also testament to this sea change. Once upon a time the biggest corporations were seen as inevitable, now everyone wants to know who the next Apple will be.

Many big firms will do their best to resist, of course, and use the full power of the state and its regulatory institutions to fight back. We see this playing out in the SOPA fight, for instance, but I think that even the successful passage of that bill will fail to achieve what its sponsors hope. We’ve also seen in it play out in the ongoing patent frenzy. But water flows where it will, and the cracks in these sorts of dams become apparent quickly.

Meanwhile social media is fueling revolution in the Middle East, changing how protests happen across the globe, and connecting people through ideas and commerce in ways never before possible.

It used to be common to see the Evil Corporation portrayed as even bigger than the nation-state in film and literature. The rise of the Evil Corporation was supposed to be quite frightening. Governments were merely puppets of these giant profiteering industries.

I think what we’re likely to see instead is the rise of the hyper-connected individual – whether these are individuals working with other firms or communities connected via corporate-run or community-driven social media or through other platforms not yet imagined. The big, Evil Corporation is a dinosaur (or perhaps even a myth) nowhere nimble enough to keep up.

Of course, it’s also true that when you read and write about technology you see lots of phrases like the “mobile wars” or the “social media wars” because tech is a very competitive industry. But I think the real key, the real game-changing thing about technology and the internet is not so much the competition it arouses but the collaboration. The internet gives people new ways to collaborate and work together and align like minds in truly exciting ways. It’s through this collaboration that technology can become David to the Goliaths of the world.

So yes, I think technology can and will (and is) changing and evolving our most stubborn institutions. It’s just not entirely apparent how it will all go down yet.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/01/02/how-technology-will-change-governments-corporations-and-the-rest-of-our-stubborn-institutions/

for education purposes only for limited groups

Marek Tysis

[marektysis]

Dr. Victor Halberstadt
The Professor of Public Economics at Leiden University has many roles to play next to teaching economic EU policy.
He also acts as an International Advisor of Goldman Sachs Group, a Non-Executive Director of PA Consulting Group and Holdings, a Member of the International Advisory Council of Chugai Pharmaceutical, and a Director of International Advisors Group of Goldman & Sachs.
Additionally, he also has been a Crown-member of Social and Economic Council, and since 2005 acts as the Independent Director of RHJ International. Before this, he was a Member of the Supervisory Board of Daimler AG from 2001 to 2005, and a Member of the Supervisory Board of PostNL N.V. from 1998 until 2010.
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