News for October 10
October 10, 2008 by Barbara
Filed under News and Analysis
It’s Not Just U.S.
While the Dow Jones Industrials continued to dip Friday morning, financial centers around the world anxiously watched their own stock markets for signs of the start of a global economic slowdown. While some countries dealt with the financial woes plaguing their systems, some began to take steps to try and fend off the coming storm. Links include:
Matthew Yglesias | “As world economic conditions continue to deteriorate, Iceland continues to be the leading edge of collapse. Small countries tend, in the nature of things, to have less-balanced economies than do big ones. And Iceland is a very small country with an economy that revolves more-or-less exclusively around fish, tourism, Bjork, and banking so a banking collapse amidst a global economic slowdown leaves them in bad shape and facing national bankruptcy.”
- Related link: Taking on the Icelandic Menace | Matthew Yglesias
European Tribune | “As a direct consequence of the credit crisis, the first country, Iceland Teeters on the Brink. But yesterday, a turmoil on Hungarian financial markets signalled that larger countries are at risk, too, and that from indirect effects.”
Foreign Policy Passport | “If a stock market falls, but no one hears about it, did it really happen? That seems to be part of the Kremlin’s strategy for addressing Russia’s jittery economy. The Moscow Times‘ Anna Smolchenko reports that state television channels have been instructed to downplay the severity of the financial meltdown.”
Slate | Is the European credit crisis America’s fault? No. The current financial crisis began with the collapse of the subprime mortgage market, which was certainly largest in the United States. But that market depended on a vast network of international investors, all of whom bear some responsibility for what’s happened.
BBC America | Mexican President Felipe Calderon has announced plans for $4.3bn (£2.5bn) in emergency spending on infrastructure to help Mexico amid world financial woes. In a televised address, Mr Calderon warned that Mexico faced a fall in exports, investment and remittances as a result of the US economic slowdown.
Pointing the Finger at Greenspan | ProPublica
Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 until 2006, had enormous power on Capitol Hill because of his perceived infallibility. But “The Oracle,” as he was called, was wrong about one big thing: derivatives. Despite ample warnings that the largely unregulated derivatives market could lead to financial disaster, Greenspan praised them as “extraordinarily useful” and rebuffed repeated attempts to regulate them. But they did lead to disaster.
Did the U.S. Government Snoop on Americans’ Phone Calls? | Truthout
The Senate Intelligence Committee is examining allegations by two former U.S. military linguists that the super-secret National Security Agency routinely eavesdropped on the private telephone calls of American military officers, journalists and aid workers. NSA interceptors purportedly shared some intercepts of highly personal conversations, including “phone sex.”
When Nations Kill Their Own | csmonitor.com
While the right of humanitarian intervention might be seen in most of the developed world as a noble and effective rallying cry, it had the capacity elsewhere to enrage. And it continues to do so, not least among those new states emerging from the post World War II period, proud of their identity, conscious in many cases of their fragility.
The Story We Tell About Ourselves | Tikkun
Conventional wisdom dictates that when discussing presidential candidates, we may refer to either the issues or character. It feels inappropriate or perhaps impossible to consider the two simultaneously. The proliferation of bread and circuses must surely be due both to the public lust for scandal and sizzle, and the labyrinthine nature of the challenges before us. Wide-eyed gossip about the personal lives of the contestants is faster and more fiscally justifiable. And more fun. But let us not too hastily dispatch any and all character assessment for a dryly clinical deconstruction of the issues. Stories matter.
Barbara Schwartz is the editorial director at the Xenia Institute. She lives in Oklahoma City, Okla., and currently is pursuing a Master of Divinity degree at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa.
