Cohen on The Post-American Mall

As Brazil and other emerging powers grow, underlying tensions become more apparent. Quoting Fernando Henrique Cardoso, author of Brazil’s economic miracle, we see this concern exemplified:

“There is a widespread discomfort, principally in big cities, that has emerged as the product of an insensitive occupation of urban space with little or no infrastructure and a low quality of life for a fast-growing population. Chaotic access to transport, deficient water supply, and poor services (education, health and security) fall well short of people’s growing demands.”http://nyti.ms/1gn8GKG

Is the path to economic, social, and political growth littered with materialism and limits on dissent?

Those Depressing Germans

Is Germany playing a double-game in Europe? Krugman makes the case:

In that paragraph Treasury argues that Germany’s huge surplus on current account — a broad measure of the trade balance — is harmful, creating “a deflationary bias for the euro area, as well as for the world economy.”

The Germans angrily pronounced this argument “incomprehensible.” “There are no imbalances in Germany which require a correction of our growth-friendly economic and fiscal policy,” declared a spokesman for the nation’s finance ministry.

But Treasury was right, and the German reaction was disturbing. For one thing, it was an indicator of the continuing refusal of policy makers in Germany, in Europe more broadly and for that matter around the world to face up …
http://nyti.ms/1hG7D7F

After Fraud, the Fog Around Libor Hasn’t Lifted

Reforming the UN is hard–but so is fixing the global financial system. If you knew a major measure was broken, wouldn’t you assume that it would get fixed?

This is the story of Libor at present:

Unfortunately, nothing fundamental is being changed. Libor lives on. Regulators who wanted to change that, most notably Mr. Gensler, have been outmaneuvered by those who did not want to risk damaging one of the biggest and most lucrative markets around.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/business/after-fraud-the-fog-around-libor-hasnt-cleared.html