Comments on: The risk of global economic meltdown

By: jg

jg — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:50:16 +0000

Euromoney's idea is not quite new. In fact, there has been some academic work on this concept for quite some time. For example, see Wyplosz: Visit W3Schools!

By: Allen Varney

Allen Varney — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:51:56 +0000

“Right hook” (of government failure) should be “right cross.”

“World markets in denial”? Oh, say it isn’t so! World markets can only exist through a state of denial. The entire world economy is founded on unsustainable consumption of resources to power unsustainable growth rates. Were this to be widely acknowledged, everyone in power would have to Do Something. Hence, denial.

By: jonathan

jonathan — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:15:16 +0000

There’s always dialogue with different points of view. The Germans have always been more conservative and maybe we need that voice because one thing we should have learned is that consensus can be lemmings running toward a cliff.

I don’t agree these 3 or 5 “musts.” We’re not going to do the best possible job. No country will. The question is: can we muddle through? That’s the way things work. We recently celebrated D-Day’s 65th anniversary and we muddled through that and then months in the hedgerows, just as we’d muddled through N. Africa and were then having a terrible time muddling through Italy. This crisis is more like a war than a trading strategy that depends on quick turns of data and hitting the sell or buy button at the right moment.

As an example, the US administration refused CA’s request for aid. CA must muddle through and the message to the other states, all smaller in importance, is the same. It won’t be pretty but CA has to work out its governance issues. That may take an election cycle – as in, the GOP in CA is consistently voting against policies that disproportionately help their own constituents and the question is whether that will fly.