China-EU: Taking the headlines again.

How Chinese government perceive EU debt crisis? How the media protray their stance is quite interesting. Personally I think Mr. Wen and other Chinese officials are literally saying the same things. However, how media phrase them are quite interesting.

News coverage last year(2011):
Wen's Speech, Sep. 14th in Dalian (Telegraph, UK) and
Opinion from Chinese officials, Dec. 4 (NY times, US)

EU and Afganistan

Afganistan's Future

This article comes in mind when I met a few Afganistans here. They came to Holland as refugee and now the second generations finding a way to help their motherlands, as well as business opportunities.

Apparently Dutch governments have some ideas in mind to help Afganistan in a different way. (I did not check with the official policies yet learn from the talks with those Afganistan friends) They help to offer some low-interest financing for companies doing export-import with Afganistan. The company I know, selling heavy-duty machinery there to help reconstructions for basic infrastructure needs, plan to help Afganistan to set up a logistic networks. That will spread goods and services in need to ordinary people.

Their ambition is huge! Not sure how it might help out for those people.

A few FCB News: Pep to renew? Keita to Liverpool?

Keita going to Liverpool?
Reported by the SUN, such news source is usually not taken seriously. However, it worth taking a good look of it.

Keita is 32, and playing regularly as a substitution in the second-half, usually have 15-20 minutes, if not more. He is a good solid substitution, although every time we play him I feel our team would run out of good steam.

He just played well in African Nations Cup, that might help to boost the price, and also with the second team youngsters coming to the first team. (Thiago is the most noted and may consider him as a successoor of Xavi), the time for Keita would be really limited. Maybe it is good for both parties to depart. However, with there are still three titles we are competing for, a man extra is always the advantage!
Prediction: Summer transfer, with some $15-20 m.

Guardiola to Renew?
It seems the club has some difficulty to convince Guardiola to stay. Well, the coach mentioned before that, this would be his last year as coach, due to a great pressure to manage a team. However, the management won't want him to leave since he would be the one who could motivate players most. If there is another alternative, that would be Luis Enrique, who is now the coach of AS Roma.

Anyway, in Pep, we trust. That is the words we use most among my Catalan friends and fellow cules. We will see how things develop.

Barça B, Brilliant Young Players in form
This year we have two impressive young players coming into scene. Issac Cuenca and Cristian Tello. They are bold and daring, in their apearance in Copa del Rey games. It helps a lot when we need extra "feet" to compete on all fronts. (Thiago and dos Santos are not mentioned here because I knew them already.)

One more player to be mention is Javiar Espinosa, dubbed as "New Iniesta" I did not really see him play but he jumps into the news lately. He is very white, from de la Mancha, and also love wine. (mentioned in report)

It seems we have our second generation growing. (second Xavi=Thiago, Second Iniesta=Espinosa?) We shall just wait and see more development in them. Although it is too early to tell, I am still quite postive on the training system so far.

Jordi Alba or others?
After watching the highlight of the second leg of the semifinal, I believe Jordi Alba would be a better player for us to solve the left back solution. Very fast, very strong, and also have a good sense in the attack coordiation. I do not think any other players, even with better talents, can play so well-integrated into our formation now. The player has a great incentive to play for Barça. (ok, shall I mentoned again that he is Catalan?:P), and he could be merged with the team in no time!  I am so looking forward to see a positive transfer news coming in summer, if not earlier.

西班牙在歐債風暴

增訂: Debt/GDP % in EURO zone: NY times interactive
(相較於西班牙, 德法一直有較高的Debt/GDP ratio)

我特別會提到西班牙是因為對於這個國家比較熟悉, 此外對於台灣媒體把整體歐洲陷入債信困境的國家都打成一樣的類型感到莫名其妙. 歐洲很大, 每個國家都有不一樣的特色. 如果你放棄進一步看到每個國家差異的狀況, 大概就會跟某知名女性節目主持人一樣: 做了一個某國的專題之後那個國家就馬上陷入危機(i.e. 愛爾蘭)

Austerity, a re-visit.

There are two articles come into my mind today, while Greece (and other countries) v. trioka (i.e EC, ECB, and IMF)

Austerity v. Europe by Javier Solana
Does Austerity promote economic growth? by Robert Schiller

Debt should not be accumulated to a sky-racketing level, that is for sure. Not every country in the world enjoy the privilege of such borrowing power as U.S. However, austerity promoted so hard recently should not be the single solution as well.

In article of Javier Solana, he mentioned of the Great Depression period, while austerity arguably became the major killer of economy. In Schiller's article, he cited a early Dutch-born English philosopher's poem, suggesting the possible further shrinkage of consumption and employment in EURO-zone.

Yet, the next questions would be, what's the alternative?

1. Austerity + QE..that is what they are doing now, yet as I point out in another article, QE may not help the flow of money into the manufacturing sector, but only to finance and government sectors. (and who knows how these government sectors gotta spend???)

2. Austerity + Fiscal policy regulation (by a particular commission in EU structure): This is something under discussion. Should they create a commission "especially" for Greece? or if they apply to all member states, will France fall under the next prey?

3. No Austerity but structural reform: including a board-based pension cut, job stimulus package and tax-incentives for entrepreneurship: which makes more new firms and create more jobs?
4. ??????

By the way, as Javier Solana happens to serve in PSOE government as a Foreign Minister, he might have more sympathy with what PSOE did before. Yet, honestly, in terms of budget balance, PSOE actually did a great job. The Spanish government deficit was turn positive under PSOE hands, and then remained so until 2007, when they tried to use stimulus to be against economic recession.

Oh, a very interesting paper by Brender and Brazen comes to my notice. (They are from bank of Israel and U Maryland, respectively). They study  the expansionary policy (i.e. huge government spending project) and re-election probability. It does not help, or even lower, the probability of incumbent to be reelected. Sorry, PSOE, you should learn this earlier.

ECB lends out to Banks, Banks let out to ....well, mostly States!

Banks are reluctant to provide liquidity to those in need

Well, this news reminds me to another afternoon discussion with my dutch friend, Mr. S.

Mr. S: "ECB has to do what they do, the liquidity is needed, and the market is more calm now."
Me: "Yes, and, no. By the way, are liquidity really goes to those in need?"

If I recalled the package right, ECB provided Banks what they requested. And the capital shortage are mainly attributed to the bad government bond positions. These banks are provided liquidity, roll-over to new bonds, and the yields drop into a "reasonable" level. However, are those in the main street really feeling relieved?

Probably not.

With consumers cutting back their spending, there must be a few more problems on the road.

Bumpy!

Tax, unequally.

The problem is not only between the rich and the poor, but the overall system.

I just wrote an article about tax few days ago, arguing that,  from academia perspectives, there is a good reason to set tax rate high for the rich. However, it looks quite different in reality.

Mr. James Ross, as mentioned in this article, paid 102% of his taxable income to governments of all sort. (if you consider local, state, federal government separately) Well, such percentage could be quite different if you talks of adjusted gross income, he paid around 20% tax. Compared to some other professions, he still pays relative less in respect to the adjusted gross income. (A professor in the article paying 26%, an architect couple pay some 31%, an author/journalist paying 26%, and a TV show host pay almost 50%!)

how Romney's tax rate is alike, comparing to other high-income individuals?

Honestly, reading this article just helps us to realize how complex it could be to design a tax system. It is not simple as raise the tax rate a bit here and reduce a bit there. It needs some overall structural  overhauls.
It is not even a rich-poor game, it is a fair and unfair game. Of course, among the rich, there are still a huge discrepancy out there!

So, we should not hate the rich, better hate the system! (and someone should fire their accountant!)

前一陣子我才寫了一篇文章, 談到課稅得公平性, 最近因為共和黨總統參選人Romney的稅單被公布了, 稅率的議題在美國又有得吵了.

這位羅斯先生所支付的稅款, 如果以他的應稅所得來計算的話, 支付了102%的稅率. 也就是說, 他所繳交的稅款比他的可應稅所得還要高. 但如果以他的總所得來看的話, 他也大概付了20%的稅(well, 還是比Romney的少, ooops), 但是他也真的把他很大一部分的所得捐出去了, 所以用102%的稅來評斷他的狀況(也就是他還是得從他的存款中提錢出來繳稅), 也不誇張.

這篇文章也列舉了幾個社會上的名人/專業人士的稅單狀況, 試圖反映的狀況是: 創造雇用的人並沒有從創造雇用的過程中獲利, 而如果你的所得中很大的比率是"薪資", 那麼你很有可能是那個倒大楣的人, 就算你在怎麼有錢也需要上繳國庫!!

這不僅僅是一場富人窮人的戰爭, 而是如何修改體系的戰爭