by A swedish kind of death
Sat Dec 27th, 2014 at 01:08:57 PM EST
The new elections in Sweden which were planned for March have been cancelled. So says the radio and all the papers.
Promoted by DoDo
by A swedish kind of death
Tue Dec 2nd, 2014 at 04:31:06 PM EST
Tomorrow the new red-green minority government is facing a defeat in parliament as the four-party former government and the racist party have all declared that they will vote for the former government's budget. Or will they...?
by A swedish kind of death
Mon Sep 15th, 2014 at 09:20:30 AM EST
This did not end well.
Looked good half a year ago with the left in the lead, but now my facebook flow is filled with grief.
by A swedish kind of death
Sat May 31st, 2014 at 02:10:28 AM EST
We often hear about the great advances of the far right in the EP election, but seldom any concrete numbers. Now, I am a bit sceptical as we started hearing about this long before the election. Join me in estimating the numbers of MEPs each group will have after the sorting is done, and lets see if there really was a far right advance, and if so how big.
front-paged by afew
by A swedish kind of death
Thu Feb 20th, 2014 at 07:14:33 AM EST
Pollwatch2014.eu has released their first aggregation polls and prediction of result.
So as of yesterday, here is the score, in seats (+ change from today):
S&D 217 (+22)
EPP 200 (-74)
ALDE 70 (-15)
GUE-NGL 56 (+21)
Greens-EFA 44 (-14)
ECR 42 (-14)
EFD 30 (-3)
NI 92 (+62)
(Note that the total numbers of seats changes from 766 to 751.)
by A swedish kind of death
Thu Jan 16th, 2014 at 01:27:47 AM EST
The EU informs us that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership that is presently being negotiated under much secrecy will have positive results.
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) - Trade - European Commission
Independent research shows that TTIP could boost:- the EU's economy by €120 billion;
- the US economy by €90 billion;
- the rest of the world by €100 billion
That should be, according to Dean Baker:
Research by a pro-deal think tank shows that TTIP could in the best case scenario boost:
- the EU's economy by €120 billion;
- the US economy by €90 billion;
- the rest of the world by €100 billion
in the year 2027, in 2027 euros. However it also shows that the more likely scenario is about 50 USD per person and year.
The US-EU trade deal: don't buy the hype | Dean Baker | Comment is free | theguardian.comAs growth policy, this trade deal doesn't pass the laugh test, but that doesn't mean that it may not be very important to a number of special interests and, for this reason, bad news for most of the public. Since conventional barriers to trade between the US and EU are already very low, the focus of the deal will be on non-conventional barriers, meaning various regulatory practices.
front-paged by afew
by A swedish kind of death
Sat Jul 13th, 2013 at 07:49:40 AM EST
In Egypt, things are getting interesting. Morsi is unseated but his supporters do not accept it. The military has installed a new government but its backing is falling to pieces. No common framework is established to settle conflicts, and the tourism economy is not doing well.
Now, I am no expert on Egypt, but if I jot down my impression of things, and you all chim in with comments, info and analysis maybe the picture will get clearer.
front-paged by afew
by A swedish kind of death
Fri May 31st, 2013 at 05:42:51 AM EST
Prompted by an exchange with DoDo in the 28 May 2013 thread, I will collect some bits about how the so called riots in Stockholm got started.
front-paged by afew
by A swedish kind of death
Mon Mar 25th, 2013 at 04:41:29 PM EST
Saturday the 16th of March, the first Cyrprus bail-in was announced. Since then accounts has differed on what really happened, and whose fault the results were. I figured we can collaborate in creating a record, since actual minute meetings apparently does not exist at this refined a level in politics.
At this blog we have together a large span of languages and I suppose most finance ministers must have commented the news in their home press. Collecting the pieces can be interesting and above all practical in the discussions about how the whole structure works.
by A swedish kind of death
Mon Mar 4th, 2013 at 04:25:25 AM EST
In many threads here the possibility of war in Europe as a result of the crisis has been discussed. I got to thinking and concluded that it could be good to look a bit at different war-like scenarios.
by A swedish kind of death
Sat Nov 3rd, 2012 at 06:50:53 AM EST
I recently came across John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society where he (afaik) introduces the concept of Conventional Wisdom. Since we are seeing a clash between the Conventional Wisdom in the Economics of today and what Galbraith calls circumstances having a look at what it is might be beneficial.
front-paged by afew
by A swedish kind of death
Thu Aug 2nd, 2012 at 03:16:32 AM EST
From time to time there has been discussion here on ET on the impact (if any) of lack of real resources when it comes to the current crisis. In short, the question can be posed as if there is an element of resource austerity driving the political austerity. To find the answer I had a look at history and found a recent enough example of resource austerity.
What is resource austerity?
First for a definition. Resource austerity is the condition when an economy can no longer get natural resources at the high quantities and low prices that earlier was the case. As such it is a gradual condition, so to find a situation where it is a really big factor we want dramatic cuts in access to resources or dramatic price increases.
Choosing an example - Sweden during world war two
As example I have chosen Sweden during world war two. This is based on the topic being familiar to me, The League of Nations providing statistical information for the period and Sweden not being at war (only prepared for war) so you get rid of the direct effects of war like destruction and looting. In the diagrams Switzerland will also be included for two reasons, it had a similar history and it often was on the same page as Sweden in the League of Nations statistical yearbooks. However, I will not discuss Switzerland much, as my knowledge there is limited.
front-paged by afew
by A swedish kind of death
Wed Dec 7th, 2011 at 04:35:45 PM EST
Cyrille linked a Monbiot article in the Salon which caused some discussion, a lot on other things. In an attempt to refocus the discussion, here comes a diary.
A bit of history
In 1995 Carlo Rubbia et al wrote a paper ("Conceptual Design 0f a Fast Neutron Operated High Power Energy Amplifier") on how to use a controlled decay-path for nuclear isotopes. The basic difference between an energy amplifier and a fission reactor is that the energy amplifier does not have a self-sustained reaction so no risk of meltdown. I remember this well as my younger self was very excited and saw a simple solution to every energy problem the world faced, including what to do with nuclear waste - feed it into the energy amplifier. One problem solved!
As I got older (and a fair bit more cynical) energy amplifiers first changed brand to Thorium reactors, then to 4th generation nuclear power and now apparently integral fast reactors. Actual reactors have however not been built.
by A swedish kind of death
Fri Oct 14th, 2011 at 04:42:17 PM EST
Right now, an interesting crisis is developing in Sweden's old power party, the Social Democratic party. I am not certain where it is heading. This was the case when I started writing this morning, now it is pretty clear.
On the surface it is about the party leader Juholt and a to high expense report as a parliamentarian, but that does not appear to be the real issue.
Below the fold follows the key elements.
by A swedish kind of death
Fri Jun 3rd, 2011 at 12:58:13 PM EST
In How the Euro Crisis was resolved an idea for a multilingual LTE was formed.
I wrote:
Has the countries in the core balanced trade with each others? Otherwise, I doubt very much that it could work for the core either. Structural trade imbalances would have built up, the surplus recycled to the trade deficit countries through the finance sector and then when recession hits, it turns into depression through the budget deficit ban, the vultures start attacking the debt of the trade deficit countries as the ECB demands shock therapy and demands that the finance sector of the trade surplus countries be protected at all costs.
Methinks inhabitants in the countries in the core that has a structural trade deficit against other members of the core should be very happy that they got away with a warning thanks to the admission of the periphery.
Migeru answered:
Can we fashion that argument into an LTE to be sent to newspapers in surplus countries having a deficit within the group of surplus countries?
And I say yes, we can.
by A swedish kind of death
Tue May 10th, 2011 at 06:16:05 AM EST
This diary was meant to be called "Getting IMF'd" but apparently right now, within the eurozone, IMF plays the role of slightly less raving mad police officer.
Hence the name. Now to the content.
It has been pointed out that while you learn economics you are best positioned to write clearly about what it means. So I have been thinking about what Getting ECB'd or IMF'd means in economic terms, if we look past the terms of money.
IMF comes in when a country is less rich then it recently was. So what is a rich country?
frontpaged - Nomad
by A swedish kind of death
Fri May 6th, 2011 at 12:18:26 PM EST
Since no-one that knows something about it has put up one. Results, discussions etc in the comments.
front-paged by afew
by A swedish kind of death
Sat Feb 12th, 2011 at 01:42:28 PM EST
Since the housing crash in the early 90ies, Sweden has had a long increase in housing prices, most markedly the last couple of years. Now it appears to finally burst.
by A swedish kind of death
Mon Nov 8th, 2010 at 10:39:09 AM EST
It recently came to my attention that Carbusters - an online anti-car magazin - featured an anti-HSR article.
High-Speed Rail: Green or Mean? - Carbusters
High-Speed Rail: Green or Mean? High-speed rail is often touted as a means to move forward and beyond the current modes for long distance transport. Its advocates tells us that, by combining the low energy use of trains and the high speed of planes, it will be the best option for our future transport needs. But is it really so? In this article Hampus Rubaszkin debunks some of the myths surrounding high-speed trains and argues that we can't solve our transport problems by using the same kind of thinking that created them.
by A swedish kind of death
Mon Sep 20th, 2010 at 01:16:57 AM EST
I wrote the basic intro earlier and Starvid wrote about scenarios after the election.
Last SIFO (big poller, calls many and calls them fast) conducted 15th and 16th gives 49.9% for the Alliance and 45.3% for the RedGreens, and Sverigedemokraterna just outside parliament. This is a big increase for the RedGreens over a few days, if the trend continued during 17-19th of September we have an interesting night tonight.
next-day front-paged by afew
