Netting a penny out of the ocean

There was a great graph in the NYT Week in Review on Sunday. Considering the growing US deficit and the affect spending cuts would have on it, this is a dramatic illustration.

It's online at:

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/02/07/weekinreview/07calmes-grfk.html

By the way, the EU government announced that it would add financial help to aliviate the sovereign debt of Greece.

http://247wallst.com/2010/02/10/signs-of-the-apocalypse-a-bailout-for-europes-weaklings/

Question: What is the difference between fiscal and monetary policy?

Answer: Fiscal = budgetary choices of taxing and spending

Monetary = federal reserve decisions on interest rates and monetary supply.

Question: What do the Stimulus Plans look like World Wide?

Answer: This is a great interactive site that allows you to click on a nation and see what they have to done so far to try and save their economy.

Cult of Putin

Ken Wedding posted this compilation of the Cult of Putin that is still going strong in Russia, even if the economy is not:

Karmin Tomlinson, who teaches in Oregon City, OR, sent along these hints for understanding part of the Putin mystique.

The video for "I want a man like Putin" Такого как Путин (English version)

Or how about Такого как Путин / One Like Putin (English subtitles)?

If you want 28 seconds of The Putin Girls (just the song): I want a man like Putin

And here are the translated lyrics for "I Want a Man Like Putin"

My boyfriend is in trouble again,

He got into a fight and got stoned on something,

I am sick of him and so I told him, 'get out of here',

And now I want a man like Putin.

A man like Putin, full of energy,

A man like Putin who doesn't drink,

A man like Putin who wouldn't hurt me,

A man like Putin who wouldn't run away from me.

I saw him in the news yesterday,He was saying the world was at the crossroads,

It's easy with a man like him at home or out and about,

And now I want a man like Putin.

"Here's another music video: Putin forever - Путин навсегда

And yet another: Putin "the legend"

How about a blog entry on the Putin Cult?

This is relevant to the political culture. Put it in context with the relationship with Medvedev and the security ministries.

Putin May Consider 2012 Presidential Run

In an electric four-hour solo performance on live television, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he will think about whether to reclaim the presidency — one of the strongest signals yet that he may run again for Russia’s top office in 2012.

http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=100&story_id=30463

The pint: A battle EU importers couldn't win

A blurb from last year, re-run to teach about the European Union and its struggles when its bureaucratic rules, backed up by legislation from the European Parliament, challenge national sovereignty, sparks fly. What's a sovereign nation to do?In this, the latest example involving the EU and its members, the EU bureaucrats, using their wide range of discretion, seem to have backed down.

The defenders of pints, miles, and pounds (as weight, not money) are not entirely satisfied. By the way, those of us not in the UK (or the Republic o Ireland) might not understand that the pint is the most important of these traditional measures.

EU gives up on 'metric Britain'

The European Union is set to confirm it has abandoned what became one of its most unpopular policies among many British people."It is proposing to allow the UK to continue using pounds, miles and pints as units of measurement indefinitely..."Under the plans which have now been scrapped, even displaying the price of fruit and vegetables in pounds and ounces would have become grounds for a criminal prosecution."The decision to back down was made by Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen... 'I want to bring to an end a bitter, bitter battle that has lasted for decades and which in my view is completely pointless.

We're bringing this battle to an end.'..."John Gardner, director of the pro-imperial British Weights and Measures Association, said: 'If a trader tries to conduct his business in just imperial measurements that will be illegal.'"The UK Metric Association said the statement does not mean that traders can go back to weighing and pricing in imperial measures, and it will be 'business as usual'..."

Ken Wedding on his blog, Teaching Comparative Govenment and Politics, http://compgovpol.blogspot.com/ goes back on some Minnesota history when metric rationalists seemed to have been gained the upper hand and even in the US people saw km/hr speed limit signs, learned that a dime (part of a metric system) weighed about a gram, and that a meter was about a yard long.

In 1977, the NCAA sanctioned a Division III metric football game between Carleton and St. Olaf Colleges here in Northfield, Minnesota. But the enthusiasm for imposing metric (even in Europe)uniformity may be waning.Yet another victim on nationalistic pride. The Brits and Irish will raise a pint to that.

President's Question Time

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Nice job with our Question Time in Mock Commons today. Friday, President Obama did the uncommon, especially in today's partisan political days. He spoke to House Republican leaders at the retreat in Baltimore. This from the Washington Post's Ezra Klein:

"Remember the old joke, "I was at a fight and a hockey game broke out?" Well, earlier this afternoon, I was at a photo opportunity and a policy debate broke out.

Obama's Q&A session with the House Republicans was transfixing. What should have been a banal exchange of talking points was actually a riveting reminder of how rarely you hear actual debate -- which is separate from disagreement -- between political players.

This was a surprise. The session was clearly proposed so that Obama could appear to be taking real steps to reach out to Republicans. That implied warm feelings and a studied unwillingness to cause offense. But that was not the event we just saw. Instead, Obama stood at a podium for an hour and hammered his assailants. That makes it sound partisan and disrespectful. But it wasn't. It was partisan, but respectful."

Watch it if you missed it, and post what you think here. Should the U.S. have more of a real question time for the President like they do for the PM in Great Britain?

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/01/presidents_question_time.html

Welfare State Analyisis

Today's assignment (due Wednesday 2/3) is to review and analyze the British Welfare State:

Part One

1) Review the notes in your packet.

2) Click on the BBC link:Among the features, read:

3) Breadline Britain (timeline), Hard Times & Poverty in UK

4) Blunket on Welfare State & State of Welfare (charts) and

5) 1st Time Buyers & Then & Now: A Hospital's Story

When done reading and taking notes, write your own 10 question BreadlineBritain quiz (with questions & answers).

Do Not just copy the quiz that is on the page, although you should take that when you are done. Quiz must be typed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/business/2005/breadline_britain/default.stm

Part Two

In a one-page social and economic analysis, take a side on what the UK should do about its economic slump. From the The Times (UK): "Over the next five years, public spending is set to fall to an eight-year low as a proportion of national income, while taxes rise to a 24-year high."

Inflation in the eurozone hit 3.2% in January 2009, the highest in the decade.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article3300955.ece

In your position paper, back one of two famous ecomonic thinkers.

John Maynard Keynes. Regardless of what other economists say, Keynes' brand of interventionist fiscal and monetary policy have trumped times like these since the Great Depression. The influential writings of Keynes, the British liberal who died back in 1946, still hold court in both Democrat and Republican circles in America and have been foundation of the British Welfare State. Central to his economic theory was the importance of deficit spending. The government is to play an important role in "priming the pump" of the national economy. Laissez - faire is out, active intervention is in. This is now economic dogma here in America. Not quite that far out in the UK.

Milton Friedman. Friedman’s view was that inflation, at the time a serious problem in many countries, was caused by governments pumping too much money into the economy.

At the same time Friedman was convinced that private individuals and companies should be given as much freedom as possible to carry out economic activities. Friedman became the most outspoken economist of his time, promoting small governments, low taxes, free markets and privatisation.

He attacked even the dominant theory of the time, developed by the British liberal thinker John Maynard Keynes among others, who espoused capitalism with a softer, more human face.Friedman promoted capitalism in its basic and less human forms, centring on a fundamental belief in the working of markets and privatisation: market fundamentalism.

In 1976 Friedman was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics, which gave him the status to impress not only generals like Pinochet, but others including British prime minister Margaret Thatcher (1979-90) and US president Ronald Reagan (1981-89).

Politics, and Promises are easy, governing is hard

Promises. Promises. After the State of the Union, This has both rollover feature that let's you see the promises Obama made in the campaign, what he has accomplished, what he still has to do as well as the details for each proposal.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/obamas-promises/?hpid=topnews

Happily ever after, or till death due us part?

Will an agreement reached by Democratic Unionsist Party leader Ian Paisley(below, left) and Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams finally lead to a power-shared devolved government in Northern Ireland? The Stormont Parliamentary Building in Belfast had been limited to hosting weddings for the last several years (2003-07).


“Compromise is not a dirty word – Compromise.” – Bono


http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/mar/26/northernireland.devolution

Marriage is give and take. Governments, and nationalist movements, you should know, tend to be more about the latter than the former. But with the setting the Northern Ireland Assembly Dining Room – the only portion of the Northern Ireland Parliament that has been open for business the last 4+ years (you could book your wedding there) – that Northern Irish nationalist leaders agreed on Monday (3/26/07) to legitimately function in a power-shared parliament beginning on May 8, 2007.

The Good Friday Agreement brokered in 1997 as part of Tony Blair’s “Third Way” reforms. The planned devolution (the unitary British Government turning over power) was dissolved a total of four times (suspended from 2003-07) when the historic rivals showed they could not get along. As a unitary government, unlike our shared federalist powers, Westminster has sovereign authority to release or pull back rule.

Britain and Ireland, like the parents of an arranged engaged couple, threw money and smiles at the process.

Former prime ministers, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, said the Sinn Fein-Democratic Unionist pact was the welcome culmination of their governments’ close cooperation on Northern Ireland since 1997.

“Everything we have done over the last 10 years has been a preparation for this moment,” Blair said in London.

In Dublin, Ahern said all players in the often tortuous peace process can “move forward from today in an entirely new spirit and with every expectation of success.” Ahern said he and Blair were “determined to ensure that the final steps of the peace process are successfully completed.”
But will it last? Democratic Unionist leader Ian Paisley and Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams sat at the same table for the first time in history, but they reportedly avoided eye contact and did not shake hands.
This certainly doesn’t not look like a “match made in heaven.” Though, like many nationalist quarrels and cleavages, it is often defined a religious conflict between the Protestant Unionists and the Sinn Fein Catholics. It is much more complicated than that.

Could it also be much more simple?

“Eye, Ian try the Corned Beef.”

“A Guinness, Gerry?”

Brilliant!

Brilliant!

For more on the Good Friday Agreement (The Agreement) of 1998:

http://www.nio.gov.uk/the-agreement

And more on the cleavage on the isle, on the second largest city in Northern Ireland Derry or Londonderry (depending on which side you align):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derry