Australian Exceptionalism | Pollytics. “Australian Exceptionalism”…. let that phrase roll off your tongue. Now stop laughing for a moment if you can! There’s something about that phrase that just doesn’t sit right with us. We’re not only unaccustomed to thinking about ourselves that way, but for many it’s a concept that is one part distasteful to three parts utterly ridiculous – try mentioning it in polite company sometime.
Bring a helmet. We’ll often laugh at the cognitive dissonance displayed by our American cousins when they start banging on about American Exceptionalism – waxing lyrical about the assumed ascendancy of their national exploits while they’re forced to take out a second mortgage to pay for a run of the mill medical procedure. That talk of exceptionalism has become little more than an exceptional disregard for the truth of their own comparative circumstances. Never before has there been a nation so completely oblivious to not just their own successes, but the sheer enormity of them, than Australia today.
Growing Gap. Fear of Contagion | The Majalla. How exposed are the economies of the Middle East and North Africa to the euro-zone crisis? With economic instability in Europe and political instability at home, MENA states are more vulnerable than ever, particularly the already weak economies of Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt. The eurozone crisis will have an effect upon the MENA region Europe stands at the precipice. With a near insolvent and debt-ridden Greece presenting the very real risk of an unmanaged default, the threat of ‘contagion’ spreading to other debt-laden euro-zone states looms large. Few parts of the world stand to be unaffected by the current crisis, and the Middle East and North Africa are no exception.
“The failure of European decision makers to come up with convincing solutions to the debt problems in Greece and other euro-zone countries is putting pressure on Middle Eastern markets,” said Wajdi Makhamreh, CEO of Amman-based Noor Investments. Dominic Mealy More Posts. How to get into and out of an economic crisis... - Andri Snær Magnason. From Scandinavian democracy to target of British anti-terror laws: the whole world knows about the Icelandic crash, but how did the country get itself into such a mess? Andri Snær Magnason tells a saga of privatizations, overreaching and astronomical pay checks. Iceland is like a human experiment. Leave 300,000 people on an island and see what happens. In many ways, Iceland is a strange place, and what happens in Iceland on a small scale can reflect far bigger forces in this world. Marketing experts sometimes use Iceland to test-run products or marketing campaigns – of course without letting us know.
If they are successful in Iceland, they take the campaign into the wider world. Throughout the centuries, Iceland has for the most part had little to do with the big events of world history. On an island just off where Hofdi stands there is a gigantic ray of light pointed skywards: the Imagine Peace Tower, designed by Yoko Ono in memory of John Lennon. In Greece, Barter Networks Surge. Marshall Auerback and Rob Parenteau: The Myth of Greek Profligacy & the Faith Based Economics of the ‘Troika’ By Marshall Auerback, a portfolio strategist and hedge fund manager, and Rob Parenteau, CFA, sole proprietor of MacroStrategy Edge and a research associate of The Levy Economics Institute Historically, Greeks have been very good at constructing myths.
The rest of the world? Not so great, if the current burst of commentary on the country is anything to go by. Reading the press, one gets the impression of a bunch of lazy Mediterranean scroungers, enjoying one of the highest standards of living in Europe while making the frugal Germans pick up the tab. This is a nonsensical propaganda. As if Greece is the only country ever to cook its books in the European Union!
So it’s not a problem of Greek profligates, or an overly generous welfare state, both of which suggest that the standard IMF style remedies being proposed here are bound to fail, as they are doing right now. Of course, these facts don’t matter. So why pursue it? Angela Merkel clearly has Italy in her sights. Euro Crisis Pits Germany and U.S. in Tactical Fight. Thierry Roge/Reuters Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, shown in Brussels on Thursday, views the financial industry with profound skepticism. Chancellor of defied skeptics and laid the groundwork for a deeper union that she said rights the mistakes of the euro’s birth and puts integration on a stable path for the long term.
In the process, she forced German fiscal discipline on Europe as the prescription for the ills that afflict the region. Yet even as the cogs of the European agreement were being fitted into place, President Obama issued his sharpest warning yet about the German-led solution. At the heart of the debate is the question of how far governments must bend to the power of markets. “It’s a battle of ideas,” said Almut Möller, a European Union expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations. It will be difficult to know for weeks, or maybe even months, which approach is right. On a political level, Mrs.
Just ahead of Mrs. Mr. Asia.
Up and Coming | The Majalla. Saudi Arabia’s stock market Saudi Arabia’s stock exchange gained nearly $12 billion in market capitalization during the first weeks of January, offsetting combined losses in all other Arab stock exchanges, and maintaining the region’s market capitalization at $879 billion. Building on the momentum, Saudi Arabia now wants to open the exchange to direct foreign investment for the first time. The Saudi Stock Exchange hopes one day to compete with major markets The last year has been difficult for Gulf stock markets.
The pressure of uprisings in the Middle East as well as Europe’s worsening debt crisis have taken a heavy toll. Dubai, in particular, has demonstrated the weakened state of stock markets in the region; its benchmark index plummeted to a six year low in 2011. Saudi Arabia is currently implementing important reforms to its stock exchange in order to build on the current momentum. The Tadawal is worth $341 billion. Paula Mejia Paula Mejia is a contributing writer for The Majalla. Ikhwanomics | The Majalla. The Muslim Brotherhood has a plan for Egypt’s economic recovery The Ikhwan’s economic manifesto to overhaul Egypt’s collapsing economy charts a pragmatic course between state-run economics on the left and crony capitalism on the right. But given the scope of the economic challenges before it, arguably the biggest thing the world has to fear from an Islamist-run Egypt is that its leaders don’t have the answers, either.
Salafists protest against IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde's visit to Tunisia. The Freedom and Justice Party in Egypt will have to contend with the hardline Salafist element in parliament. In early February, a senior official of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood warned that without a global effort to save Egypt’s troubled economy, the largely peaceful revolution that toppled dictator Hosni Mubarak could return, specter-like, as a calamitous “hunger revolution.”
To make matters worse, a cheaper Egyptian pound is not likely to do the country’s exporters much good. Stephen Glain. "Egypt’s Broken Economy" by Mohsin Khan. Exit from comment view mode. Click to hide this space WASHINGTON, DC – Egyptians’ political aspirations have dominated the country’s public life since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak last year. Unfortunately, as those aspirations are addressed, the economy has entered a steep decline, jeopardizing one of the revolution’s main goals, namely improvement in Egyptians’ living standards and welfare. Indeed, the populist rhetoric of Egyptian politicians threatens to undo the economic reforms undertaken by the Mubarak regime. In 2004, a major reform program was launched under former Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif. It was aimed at removing bureaucratic constraints to growth by restructuring the financial sector, streamlining business regulations, liberalizing foreign trade, and reducing the government’s role in the economy.
In 2011, the situation worsened on virtually all fronts. Africa Takes Off - By G. Paschal Zachary. Sacrificing Their Lives to Work by 72migrantes.com. When it was established in the late nineteenth century, Labor Day was intended to honor the American working man. Yet a great deal of our menial labor today is performed not by American citizens but by undocumented migrant workers—many of whom risk their lives in thousand-mile journeys simply to get to the United States.
A year ago this August, 72 of those migrants—58 men and 14 women—were on their way to the US border when they were murdered by a drug gang at a ranch in northern Mexico, in circumstances that remain unexplained. Since then, a group of Mexican journalists and writers have created a website, 72migrantes.com, to commemorate each of the victims, some of whom have never been identified. What follows is a selection of English translations of their work. —The Editors #26: Julián Sánchez Benítezby Thelma Gómez Durán (translated by Tania Espinal) Saturday August 7, 2010. His parents separated, and he went with his mother to San Pedro Sula.