Comments on: The G20 Lets Us Down http://baselinescenario.com/2009/03/14/the-g20-lets-us-down/ What happened to the global economy and what we can do about it Sun, 27 May 2012 14:01:34 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: G20: Bättre än väntat « Ekonomistas http://baselinescenario.com/2009/03/14/the-g20-lets-us-down/#comment-8919 Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:38:15 +0000 http://baselinescenario.com/?p=2882#comment-8919 [...] av Jonas Vlachos Förväntningarna på G20-mötet har onekligen varit låga, inte minst vad gällde samordningen av de finanspolitiska åtgärderna. På en viktig punkt har [...]

]]> By: ” THE G20 COMMUNIQUE: A VIEWER’S GUIDE ” FROM BASELINESCENARIO. COM. EXCELLENT ANALYSIS OF WHAT IT MEANS, WHAT’S BEEN WRITTEN, AND A BETWEEN THE LINES GUIDE. « Want Less Blog http://baselinescenario.com/2009/03/14/the-g20-lets-us-down/#comment-8664 Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:52:44 +0000 http://baselinescenario.com/?p=2882#comment-8664 [...] the real substance, the G20 punts on most of the big issues - as predicted, the language on monetary policy and fiscal policy is completely vacuous (paragraphs 3 and 4; the [...]

]]> By: London Calling « The Confluence http://baselinescenario.com/2009/03/14/the-g20-lets-us-down/#comment-8595 Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:44:21 +0000 http://baselinescenario.com/?p=2882#comment-8595 [...] goals a “punt”. On the real substance, the G20 punts on most of the big issues – as predicted, the language on monetary policy and fiscal policy is completely vacuous (paragraphs 3 and 4; the [...]

]]> By: The G20 Communique: A Viewer’s Guide « The Baseline Scenario http://baselinescenario.com/2009/03/14/the-g20-lets-us-down/#comment-8540 Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:06:29 +0000 http://baselinescenario.com/?p=2882#comment-8540 [...] the real substance, the G20 punts on most of the big issues – as predicted, the language on monetary policy and fiscal policy is completely vacuous (paragraphs 3 and 4; the [...]

]]> By: HSG at MIT http://baselinescenario.com/2009/03/14/the-g20-lets-us-down/#comment-8392 Sun, 29 Mar 2009 03:57:40 +0000 http://baselinescenario.com/?p=2882#comment-8392 I don’t feel especially let down by the G20…as my expectations were already pretty low.

I’m pretty sure there will not be substantial progress on a European emergency economic stabilisation fund. The news media might be hookwinked–but the rest of us are not. So…if they had the fund…they could argue how to best use it. Makes me glad not to be a European for a moment.

]]> By: Is The G20 Summit Worth Holding? « The Baseline Scenario http://baselinescenario.com/2009/03/14/the-g20-lets-us-down/#comment-8312 Sat, 28 Mar 2009 12:06:38 +0000 http://baselinescenario.com/?p=2882#comment-8312 [...] all the important issues are kept off the table by anachronistic diplomatic niceties: monetary policy around the world, Europe’s impending [...]

]]> By: G20 smackdown | Discover Texarkana http://baselinescenario.com/2009/03/14/the-g20-lets-us-down/#comment-6657 Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:04:53 +0000 http://baselinescenario.com/?p=2882#comment-6657 [...] if (minutes Simon Johnson, the always illuminating economist at The Baseline Scenario blog, has this smackdown of the G20 summit in Horsham, [...]

]]> By: Political Will: Bernanke On The True Cost Of Banking « The Baseline Scenario http://baselinescenario.com/2009/03/14/the-g20-lets-us-down/#comment-6649 Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:58:13 +0000 http://baselinescenario.com/?p=2882#comment-6649 [...] current anemic proposals on the table - as last weekend indicated, the G20 process is currently worse than useless on this [...]

]]> By: StatsGuy http://baselinescenario.com/2009/03/14/the-g20-lets-us-down/#comment-6630 Tue, 17 Mar 2009 01:52:14 +0000 http://baselinescenario.com/?p=2882#comment-6630 Life gets more interesting for the G20:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=af81EoUv7m24&refer=home

Go Brits. And who knew that Bernanke and Governor King were office-neighbors when they were lowly assistant Profs? Small world, eh? Maybe they can get a few beers together at John Harvard’s, and Bernanke will have an epiphany.

On the other side of the Channel from the UK, however, Spain is in quite the pickle:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/spanish-doldrums/

Remember previous conversations about currency adjustment being a way to simultaneously renegotiate tens of millions of contracts without having to spend 20 years in court?

Well, Spain is becoming a poster child for economics classes to discuss what happens when an economy with real transaction costs is subjected to massive disequillibria. If markets were perfect and well greased, wages and prices in Spain would all smoothly readjust to the reality of less wealth – and there would be no need for currency adjustment. Just some “negligible” distributional consequences that don’t impact efficiency (unless, of course, they create a massive negative aggregate demand shock resulting from a wealth effect on the middle class – but that’s not in the model).

Oh, Krugman shows two nice graphs – income, and current account… He only briefly mentioned housing prices and mortgage debt. Well, if you thought the US had it rough…

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/11/global-real-estate-ratios/

Lovely graph. See the US in the middle? Now do you see Spain? So, even if Spain miraculously drops wages by 15% to prevent its exports from being priced out of the market, how its people pay off their debts?

Answer: They can’t.

And remember, unlike the US, it’s harder for labor to relocate across “state” borders, and “federal” (EU) expenditures are a fraction of “state” expenditures. The equalizing factors in the US that come from true national unity are not (yet) present in the EU.

Unless the G20 moves fast, or the US forces a move (let’s pray), we are only just starting this crisis.

]]> By: Top Posts « WordPress.com http://baselinescenario.com/2009/03/14/the-g20-lets-us-down/#comment-6627 Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:16:07 +0000 http://baselinescenario.com/?p=2882#comment-6627 [...] The G20 Lets Us Down I’m continually amazed by how easy it is for government officials to hoodwink most of the news media.  All it [...] [...]

]]> By: PowerPointPerfect.com » Blog Archive » The one good thing to have come out of the G20 meeting this weekend http://baselinescenario.com/2009/03/14/the-g20-lets-us-down/#comment-6593 Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:39:15 +0000 http://baselinescenario.com/?p=2882#comment-6593 [...] and it’s worth checking out the reaction from respectively, former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson and [...]

]]> By: Billy Jones http://baselinescenario.com/2009/03/14/the-g20-lets-us-down/#comment-6576 Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:35:57 +0000 http://baselinescenario.com/?p=2882#comment-6576 joe,,,bingo

]]> By: The one good thing to have come out of the G20 meeting this weekend | News in brief http://baselinescenario.com/2009/03/14/the-g20-lets-us-down/#comment-6575 Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:22:05 +0000 http://baselinescenario.com/?p=2882#comment-6575 [...] and it’s worth checking out the reaction from respectively, former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson and [...]

]]> By: ‘MUCH WORSE THAT YOU THINK: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC DIPLOMACY’ BY SIMON JOHNSON OF THE : BASELINESCENARIO. COM. GREAT READ FROM FORMER CHIEF ECONOMIST AT I.M.F. « Want Less Blog http://baselinescenario.com/2009/03/14/the-g20-lets-us-down/#comment-6572 Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:21:53 +0000 http://baselinescenario.com/?p=2882#comment-6572 [...] G20 summit, broadly, is a leading example (as is the G20 process since the fall).  No one can believe that this really achieved nothing [...]

]]> By: StatsGuy http://baselinescenario.com/2009/03/14/the-g20-lets-us-down/#comment-6569 Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:32:35 +0000 http://baselinescenario.com/?p=2882#comment-6569 @ Charlie

For a quick overview intro, try:

http://orfe.princeton.edu/~jqfan/papers/03/overview.pdf

or

http://web.mit.edu/alo/www/Books/fmetrics.pdf

The field is Financial Econometrics.

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