Financial Times
Eurobonds. EFSF. IMF austerity. ESM. Budgetary rules. A European finance minister. So many wonky ideas for saving the single currency swirling as pressure mounts on the eurozone’s leaders to find a solution at this weekend’s summit. Unusually, senior US policymakers have also weighed in, urging boldness and the American policy tools of 2008 on their European counterparts.
New York Times
FOR the typical American, the past decade has been economically brutal: the first time since the 1930s, according to some calculations, that inflation-adjusted incomes declined. By 2010, real median household income had fallen to $49,445, compared with $53,164 in 2000. While there are many culprits, from declining unionization to the changing mix of needed skills, globalization has had the greatest impact.
Financial Times
Let’s agree that a lot of bad stuff happened along the way to the 2008
financial meltdown and that a good portion of the responsibility can justifiably
be laid at the feet of the Wall Street community. Whether or not laws were
broken, the lack of discipline and inadequate controls around many lending and
risk taking practices certainly merit some version of the vigorous rethink of
the regulatory apparatus that is now in process.
“[a] surprisingly modest account…Rattner has a journalistic talent for the telling detail, resulting in a memorable tale of life in the middle of the economic meltdown...Rattner deftly draws portraits of the inhabitants of "the Oval" and the West Wing...Rattner has proved himself a gifted chronicler.”
-Time Magazine
