Two Models for Europe

MUNICH -- Interest rates for public debt within the eurozone have spread once again, just as they did before the introduction of the euro. Balance-of-payment disparities are steadily increasing. The sovereign-debt crisis is eating its way from the periphery to the core, and the exodus of capital is accelerating. Since the summer, 300 billion euros, in net terms, may well have fled from Italy and France.The printing presses at the Banque de France and the Banca d’Italia are working overtime to ma

Jan. 4, 2012

America’s financial leviathan

BERKELEY ― In 1950, finance and insurance in the United States accounted for 2.8 percent of GDP, according to U.S. Department of Commerce estimates. By 1960, that share had grown to 3.8 percent of GDP, and reached 6 percent of GDP in 1990. Today, it is 8.4 percent of GDP, and it is not shrinking. The Wall Street Journal’s Justin Lahart reports that the 2010 share was higher than the previous peak share in 2006.Lahart goes on to say that growth in the finance-and-insurance share of the economy ha

Jan. 4, 2012

U.S. can help end child labor worldwide by amending 1930 Tariff Act

EditorialBloombergThe scourge of child labor has proven difficult to eradicate. The International Labor Organization estimates that 215 million children are still being exploited for work, much of it hazardous. In recent years, the fair-trade movement has presented itself as an answer, offering, at a premium, goods and commodities certified to have been produced without exploitation. It is thus all the more appalling that a fair-trade program in Burkina Faso has been shown, in an investigation p

Jan. 4, 2012

After tumult of 2011, here are some global hotspots to watch in 2012

Could the world in 2012 surprise us more than it did in 2011? Certainly, after Japan’s earthquake, the Middle East’s upheavals and Osama bin Laden’s death, the bar on shockers will be high. The known unknowns for 2012 already form a daunting list: the fate of the euro zone; the war in Afghanistan and the “peace” in Iraq; turmoil in Syria, Egypt and across the Middle East; Iran’s nuclear-weapons program; Pakistan’s chronic instability; Kim Jong-un’s succession and China’s soft landing, to name a

Jan. 4, 2012

New Year’s resolution: No major overhauls

I’ve been making the same New Year’s resolutions since I was 11: be nicer, get organized and lose weight. And although I still have friends who speak to me, can easily locate 1,392 pencils in my office without searching and am not yet being hauled around by a winch, I haven’t exactly exceeded my expectations.In the spirit of new beginnings, and yet aware that, if certain fringe groups are correct, the world will end before I pay off my 2011 Visa bills, I’d like to propose a new vision for New Ye

Jan. 3, 2012

Job creation is price for new U.S. health law

I am not an expert on health-care policy, but I do know something about job creation. So when a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee asked me to testify about the effect on employers of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, sometimes known as Obamacare, I thought I could offer some insights. As I told the committee in a July 28 hearing, it is critical that Congress does a good job of balancing the benefits of new legislation against the costs of that legislation. That pro

Jan. 3, 2012

Mexico’s strengths still shine through the gloom

The news from Mexico, in recent years, has most often been bad. For a while, it was largely reports of corruption, electoral fraud and economic crisis. These days, it’s all about crime and insecurity. The country hasn’t been given sufficient credit for the good news it has generated since the 2000 elections broke the 71-year hegemony of a single party: the Institutional Revolutionary Party, better known as the PRI. Neither the international press nor we Mexicans have fully acknowledged what has

Jan. 2, 2012

Victims’ tears for dictators honor a shared past

I was born in China in 1976, just a few months before the death of Mao Zedong. So when I saw footage of thousands of North Koreans in tears after the death of Kim Jong-il, their leader, two thoughts hit me hard. One: They must be brainwashed. And two: Were we Chinese that brainwashed under Mao? Curious, I called my mother in Shanghai. Both of my parents were survivors of Mao’s brutal Cultural Revolution. Like countless others, they were taken out of urban schools and sent to rural areas to be “r

Jan. 2, 2012

Ways Japan can put disaster to good use

The first comprehensive report on Japan’s Fukushima nuclear crisis is 507 pages of the most sobering reading of the year. The verdict by a government-appointed panel: Disarray among regulators, dismal safety preparations, operational blunders, amateurish communication breakdowns and institutional inertia led to the worst radiation leak since Chernobyl in 1986. The findings, although damning, offer Japan the kind of opening that doesn’t come along very often short of war or the sort of natural di

Jan. 2, 2012

Intensify real diplomatic effort with Iran

Now that we’re finally out of one unnecessary war, the drumbeats for the next one are growing louder. Let’s hope that this time the voice of reason prevails over the itchy trigger finger. The Next Big Enemy, of course, is Iran. And the danger in a presidential election year is that President Barack Obama will feel pressured to sound more hawkish about it.One of the key reasons Obama beat Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries was his opposition to the Iraq War and her yea vote on a res

Jan. 1, 2012

On road to Delhi, India’s economy gets real

A few years ago, one of India’s private airlines started operating a flight from Delhi to the Himalayan city of Shimla, a few miles from my village. The brisk descent in a small turboprop aircraft isn’t for those with a fear of flying. The runway on a table-top mountain seemed particularly short last week, when the plane, breaking free of the fog over Delhi, came down to a wintry Himalayan mist. Still, cutting down journey times to a fraction, the flight seemed too good to be true; and, having e

Jan. 1, 2012

How readers can help with donations in world trouble spots

Readers often ask me how they can help the people I write about, whether it’s Iraqis who are endangered because they helped Americans, or Afghan women, or Israelis and Palestinians working for peace.So, for those who haven’t completed their end-of-the-year giving, I’m listing a few charities ― some quite small ― that are working hard, and sincerely, on these problems. These are organizations that are run, or staffed, by folks I’ve come to know in the course of my reporting. I admire them for the

Jan. 1, 2012

Africa’s rise deserves Americans’ attention in 2012

Here’s an issue that doesn’t get much play in America, but is worth watching in 2012: The rise of Africa.The continent may seem far from our own concerns here at home, but the emergence of an African middle class would mean new markets for U.S. products ― and more jobs for American workers. The emergence of the Four Asian Tigers ― Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan ― certainly produced that kind of ripple effect here.Beyond the Arab spring headlines out of the northern part of the cont

Dec. 30, 2011