Summit Notebook

Does Germany need Europe?

Jim O’Neill, the new Goldman Sachs Asset Management chairman who is famous for coining the term BRICs for the world’s new emerging economic giants, reckons he knows why Germany might not be rushing to bail out all the euro zone debt that is under pressure. Europe is not as important to Berlin as it was.

Speaking at the Reuters 2011 Investment Outlook Summit being held in London and New York, O’Neill pointed out that in the not very distant future Germany will have more trade with China than it does with France.

“It’s a different global environment. That’s why maybe Germany (ties)  itself to a rules-based game with the rest of Europe because economically it doesn’t mean so much to them now. What goes on in China is more important than what goes on in France and that’s puts a different economic (spin) on the situation for the Germans.”

O’ Neill also drew parallels between the current situation which sees Germany being asked to stump up for ill-disciplined  southern euro zone economies and the problems faced in 1990 when West Germany had to do something similar for East Germany.

“Fast forward 20 years and this time (they are saying) it’s not even our own  people. I think the Germans will stay pro-European ,  but it’s  a different  set of circumstances.”

The idea that Germany and others will eventually sort out the euro zone debt problem because of a desire for political unity underlies much of the long-term expectations for euro zone survival. But it is a new world, in many ways.

from MacroScope:

APEC’s robots stealing the show

A guide at the "Japanese Experience" exhibition talks to Miim, the Karaoke pal robot, on the sidelines of the APEC meetings in Yokohama, Japan on Nov. 10. REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao

    Miim is one of the more popular delegates at the APEC meetings in Yokohama Japan. She sings. She dances. She tosses her shoulder length hair. She may not be able to spout an alphabet soup of APEC acronyms like the other Asia-Pacific delegates. But she's still pretty lively. For a robot.

    This week's meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum have been earnest and most comprehensive . Foreign and trade ministers issued a 20-page statement about all the things they talked about -- a giant free trade zone, protectionism, the Doha round, easing restrictions on businesses, simplifying customs procedures, promoting green industries, cooperating on health and security, you name it. They also have been, and pardon my French here, excruciatingly dull. So far, the meetings and their stupefying statements have been a testimonial to Japan's skill at stating the ambiguous. Call it the opaque meetings. Journalists from around the Pacific rim have been desperately trying to find news as the 21 APEC leaders gather for their annual pow-wow this weekend.

     The annual "silly shirts"  photo shoot, in which leaders don native attire for the class picture of their summit is usually good news fodder, but is going to be a  big let-down this year. The leaders are merely being asked to show up wearing "smart casual" for the photo shoot on Saturday night, before they head inside for a Kabuki show.

   Which brings us back to Miim, the karaoke robot. She, er it, is one of 130 exhibits on display at  "Japan Experience", a government-sponsored exhibition in  the Pacific Yokohama convention center where the APEC meetings are taking place. The exhibit also features "personal mobility vehicles",  a cyborg suit named HAL that enables the wearer to lift really heavy stuff and perform heroically in disaster relief, a talking delivery robot, cute robotic seal pets for use in pediatric therapy, and much other cool stuff . 

    "Welcome to APEC Japan 2010," the anatomically correct Miim says. "This exhibition shows Japan's strengths and attractions. Please see, feel and touch advanced technology and initiatives of Japan."

Grassley grades Obama’s performance C to F

We asked Senator Charles Grassley to grade President Barack Obama’s performance (close your ears Sasha and Malia) and the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee was a bit of a tough schoolmaster.

“He’s still learning an awful lot,” Grassley said at a Reuters Washington Summit.

But Obama gets a D on foreign policy, a C on domestic policy, and an F on trade (ouch!)

We asked him to explain the grading.

“If you go to class, college, and you don’t do anything you get an F,” Grassley said on trade. He noted that Obama has put a 35 percent duty on tires from China, which the senator believed was not a good idea, but he would have been willing to overlook that if the president was pushing forward on trade agreements.

And why the D on foreign policy?

“He’s taken a month to decide whether to send more troops to Afghanistan,” Grassley said.