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Roubini Topic Archive: Advanced Economies
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Good Reads, June 9, 2011
ECONOMY, ENERGY Payroll tax for employers Nouriel and I advocated last fall in this FP article is finally getting on Washington’s radar (Atlantic). Tim Duy thinks the U.S. economy is “Circling the Drain” The World Bank (of all places) publishes a study of the negative/negligible effects that “social policy” in rich nations have on economic performance. [...]
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Washington Prepares for a New Egypt
The resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will resonate across the Middle East but also in the capital of his most stalwart ally, the U.S., where policy makers are reassessing the “certainty” that Egypt will continue to act as a “moderating force” in the region. Having left the Soviet Union’s orbit in 1977 and signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, Egypt came to form the foundation of U.S. diplomacy in the region—a role that seemed so secure that its significance was widely overlooked.
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Obama’s ‘Plan B’: In a Largely Domestic Speech, the World Loomed Large
It would be easy to view President Obama’s State of the Union speech Tuesday night as a domestic pitch—an agenda setting political address geared primarily to accelerate the resurrection of his popularity among the centrist “independent” voters whose support he will need if he is to win reelection in 2012.
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Germany: Largesse Oblige?
For Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, it is the best of times, and it is the worst of times. German employment last month reached a new post-unification high, and business confidence, export revenues and many other measures of economic vitality are all positive—for now. (RGE sees this growth tempering, however, and already Q3 GDP growth shows a severe slowdown). Nonetheless, Merkel has capitalized on Germany’s position as the only major developed country that is truly growing, seeing off challenges to her leadership of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) this autumn and facing down anger from populists over the increasing cost of bailing out EZ PIIGS, much of it borne by German taxpayers.
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Will the ‘Lame Duck’ Lay an Egg?
One of the oddest of the many oddities of U.S. democracy, the “lame duck” Congress has, in recent decades, turned into a desperate last attempt for an outgoing legislative majority to jam through pet legislation. However, as partisanship increasingly enforces discipline around parties’ bread-and-butter issues, these sessions—packed as they are with lawmakers heading out to pasture—can also provide brief, tantalizing moments of compromise, opening up the possibility of progress on key reform issues that wouldn’t stand a chance in the churning course of America’s perpetual campaign.
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Handicapping the U.S. Midterms
In our primary scenario (55% probability), the GOP takes control of the House by a relatively small margin, with Democrats experiencing shifts in their own party that make defections to the GOP on important votes more likely. A second scenario (35% probability) has the Democrats retaining a thin majority in both chambers, again with a [...]
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Beyond the Euro: German Foreign Policy Unbound
Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from a larger RGE Analysis, “Uncertain Giant: Germany’s Changing Role in Europe” by Katharina Jungen and Michael Moran, May 24, 2010.
The events of the past several months in the eurozone have accelerated a dynamic that German policy makers—within Germany and among some of its allies—have tried for decades to smother. Since the end of the Cold War, which removed the existential threat of Soviet invasion from the political debate, Germany’s increasing share of EU GDP, coupled with increasing demands from the U.S. and others that Berlin shoulder more of a burden on the international stage, have encouraged a “coming out” process for German foreign policy.
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The Middle Makes Its Move
If anyone needed reminding that the American Century is over, Turkey and Brazil provided it by giving notice that they won’t stand aside as another nuclear nonproliferation crisis slides toward armed conflict. The standoff between the U.S. and its allies in Israel and Western Europe on one side, and Iran and its sympathizers around the world on the other, may or may not end in violence. But the surprise Turkish – Brazilian diplomatic coup this week makes it clear that nations once relegated to the second-tier of influence in the world refuse to watch from the sidelines in deference to American power this time around.
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Washington’s Dirty Secret: ‘Bipartisanship’ Returns, at Least on Foreign Policy
As Washington has torn itself asunder over health care, a surprising word has crept back into foreign policymaking circles: bipartisanship. To a surprising degree, especially on the big issues of Iraq, Afghanistan/Pakistan and North Korea, President Obama’s administration has found allies across the policy barricades to bolster his approach to the rest of the world.
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Choppy Waters Rock the Trans-Atlantic Relationship
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Each day in recent weeks has brought new evidence of troubles in the once stalwart “trans-Atlantic relationship,” the outdated misnomer for ties between Washington and its major Western European partners: Britain, France, Germany and more recently, the European Union. Disputes and slights – some real, some imagined – have led to speculation about a drift in a relationship that dominated (and indeed founded) most of the global institutions of the second half of the 20th century. While few see any evidence of an actual rivalry between the two sides, it’s possible that the combined damage to the relationship caused by the 2003 Iraq War and then the global financial crisis in 2008 has altered the way the major players view each other. In particular, hopes that maturing EU institutions could simplify this relationship so far remain unfulfilled. Ties between various individual European states and Washington vary greatly, with Poland and the Baltic states on the warm end and an increasingly disgruntled Turkey and bellicose Russia on the other.
