The European Parliament is at it again

by Migeru Wed Dec 15th, 2010 at 05:17:55 AM EST

If the EU does no wrong, it is usually because of the European Parliament.

Spanish newspaper El Pais carried the following editorial yesterday

La Europa peor · ELPAÍS.com		The worse Europe - ElPais.com
La directiva del permiso único, de pasar el trámite parlamentario, sería aprobada en el próximo Consejo de Ministros de Justicia e Interior, no en el de Empleo y Asuntos Sociales. La instancia elegida es significativa del tipo de aproximación por el que ha optado la Unión a la hora de regular los derechos de los trabajadores extranjeros. Esta no es la Europa que deseaban los líderes que concibieron e impulsaron hace medio siglo su integración, ni tampoco la que alimentó las esperanzas de sus ciudadanos. Directivas como la del permiso único, o como la del retorno, son criaturas de una Europa diferente. No más integrada, sino peor.		The single permit directive, had it passed Parliament, would have been approved at the next Council of Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs, not Employment and Social Affairs. The chosen instance signifies the approach chosen by the Union to regulate the rights of foreign workers. This is not the Europe wished by the leaders that conceived and pushed its integration half a century ago, nor that which fed the hopes of its citizens. Directives such as the single permit, or the return directive, are creatures of a different Europe. No more integrated, but worse.

Below the fold, some additional background and details of the parliamentary debate.

Translation: Trichet or the Single European Unthinking

by Migeru Tue Dec 7th, 2010 at 06:04:38 PM EST

So I was looking around the intertubes and I found that the French European Parliament list Europe Écologie has a website for its MEPs. One of the French Green MEPs is Pascal Canfin, who sits on the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, as well as others such as the special committee on the Crisis. His Europe Écologie page is basically a collection of "above the fold" excertps from his blog on the Liberation.fr site. One of the latest blog posts is about our Dear ECB President and his ideological blinders.

Without further ado, here's my translation.

Échos d'euro-écolos: Jean-Claude Trichet ou «l'apensée unique»		Echoes of the Euro-Greens: Jean-Claude Trichet or the "single unthinking" - 01/12/2010
La commission des affaires économiques et monétaires du Parlement européen a auditionné Jean-Claude Trichet pendant deux heures hier après-midi. Comme tous les deux mois, ce dialogue monétaire se révèle un exercice frustrant: comme cet échange a lieu en présence de plusieurs dizaines de journalistes, les propos du président de la Banque centrale européenne sont préparés à la virgule près. Et certains députés se sentent même obligés de commencer leur question par une formule disant en substance «je sais que vous ne pouvez pas répondre à cette question à cause de la presse mais je vous la pose quand même car elle est importante».		The EP's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs held a hearing on Jean-Claude Trichet for two hours yesterday afternoon. Like every two months, this monetary dialogue reveals itself a frustrating exercise: since this exchange takes place in the presence of dozens of journalists, the ECB President's utterances are scripted almost to the last comma. And certain MEPs even feel obliged to start their questions by a formula saying in substance "I know you cannot answer this question because of the press, but I ask you anyway because it is important".

[UPDATE 2] Zapatero's thrusting, dynamic Keynesianism

by Migeru Wed Apr 16th, 2008 at 06:14:22 AM EST

So the Spanish Parliament voted Zapatero PM for a second term on Friday, and he seems to have hit the ground running: the first policy news we have from his government is a public-works Keynesian stimulus to absorb the unemployment from the sagging housing sector. It doesn't get any better than that, or does it?

Autopistas contra el parón - Público.es		Highways against the slowdown - Público.es
Más inversión en infraestructuras para compensar el efecto del parón constructor de viviendas. Ésa es la solución propuesta por los constructores que el Gobierno ha asumido para tratar de amortiguar el efecto de la crisis inmobiliaria en la riqueza económica y en el empleo. El Ministerio de Fomento ha sacado a estudio informativo la ampliación de las autopistas Radial 3 hacia la Comunidad Valenciana y la Radial 5 hacia Extremadura, según fuentes del sector. Estos Estas vías complementan el eje básico de comunicaciones norte-sur y este-oeste ya que van paralelas a la A-3 Madrid-Valencia y la A-5 Madrid-Badajoz. La fase de estudio informativo (para recibir alegaciones) es la previa al concurso, con lo que las constructoras y concesionarias adjudicatarias presentarán oferta en unos meses y podrían empezar las obras este mismo año, siempre que los trámites sean rápidos.		More infrastructure investment to compensate the effect of the slowdown in home construction. That is the solution proposed by the developers that the Government has adopted to try to cushion the effect of the housing crisis on economic wealth [sic] and employment. The Ministry of Public Works has opened an information study for the expansion of the Radial 3 highway towards the Valencian Community and the Radial 5 towards Extremadura. These roads would be complementary to the basic North-South and East-West axes as they run parallel to the A-3 Madrid-Valencia and the A-5 Madrid-Badajoz. The consultation phase (to receive public comments) is previous to the public tender, so that the constructor and operator companies awarded the projects could present their offers in a few months and work could begin already this year, assuming the formalities are dealt with quickly.

LQD: Risk risk

by Migeru Sat Apr 5th, 2008 at 05:49:49 PM EST

In a probably futile effort to make myself less unemployable, I'm reading Fabozzi's Bond Markets, Analysis, and Strategies. In it, there's the following list of sources of risk for bond holders:

Bonds may expose an investor to one or more of the following risks: (1) interest-rate risk, (2) reinvestment risk, (3) call risk, (4) credit risk, (5) inflation risk, (6) exchange-rate risk, (7) liquidity risk, (8) volatility risk, and (9) risk risk.

Risk risk? WTF is that? A typo?

ET Does Brussels: not gonna happen

by Migeru Tue Apr 1st, 2008 at 09:03:58 AM EST

It would appear that we don't have enough people committed to the Brussels visit for it to go ahead, so I'll probably e-mail the Commission soon saying that I'm very sorry but we've had a couple of cancellations and the size of the group has fallen below 15 so we can't make a reservation.

There is a Paris meetup being planned for the first weekend on May, so we'll go with that for the Spring ET meetup.

LQD: Taleb eats FT journalist for lunch

by Migeru Sun Mar 30th, 2008 at 08:44:26 AM EST

Well, not exactly, but look at this:

FT.com: Lunch with the FT: Nassim Nicholas Taleb (March 28 2008)

I put my two tape recorders on the table, feebly joking that I want to protect myself against a "Black Swan event" where one failed to work. He quickly corrects me, saying I have misunderstood the central idea of his latest book. It is not about events that are merely improbable and unpredictable. But about those that have a massive impact.

I thought the journalist managed a pretty good joke to break the ice, and Taleb pounced on him and called him clueless in so many words.

The interview is, nevertheless, interesting, and though it is Colman and not me that has read The Black Swan (well, he listened to the audiobook - I instead went and read his 1997 book Dynamic Hedging: Taleb on Risk from which I quoted here among other places) I responded to Jérôme's request for one of us two write a diary with a diary-length e-mail reply.

So, here it is, a Jérôme's request. All credit to him, all flaws are mine.

ET Does Brussels: Topic Selection

by Migeru Thu Mar 27th, 2008 at 09:43:39 AM EST

Time for another update on ET's European Commission visit on (tentatively) Friday the 13th of June, 2008.

I just got the following e-mail from the Commission's Visits Service:

Before we can confirm a visit for your group, we would need some more information on the participants as well as the purpose of your visit and a preliminary list of topics your group is interested in. I would be grateful if you could fill in the attached form and return it to me as soon as possible.

How much is $172 trillion worth?

by Migeru Mon Mar 24th, 2008 at 06:06:20 PM EST

Jerome a Paris:

The Truth and Consequences
Of $172 Trillion in Derivatives

Derivatives are essentially bets ... and ... debts.

...

But what was once a small sideshow in the traditional world of stocks, bonds and loans has become the towering center ring in the big-top: The derivatives market has now ballooned into a monster of unimaginable dimensions.

At U.S. commercial banks alone, the total notional value of the derivatives is $172.2 trillion, according to the latest report by the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).

How can there be $172 worth of derivatives? That's between two and three times the world's GDP and about 17 times the US' GDP. How did it come to this and what can happen if they are found to be worthless?

I don't pretend to have an answer to those questions, especially the one about what comes next, but below the fold I take a stab at illuminating the issues so we can have a discussion.

ET Does Brussels: June 13 2008

by Migeru Mon Mar 3rd, 2008 at 07:08:28 AM EST

This is a follow-up on my diary ET does Brussels from February 26th, 2008. In that diary I proposed an extended Brussels ET meetup around a whole-day Friday visit to the European Commission. As I explained back then,

Essentially, the format of the visit would be a series of 50-minute presentations and discussion sessions with European Commission staff on topics of our choice. A visit can last up to two days, which would allow us to meet with a dozen people from as many different offices within the Commission, though a single day would already be sufficiently fruitful.

I proposed to do this on a Monday or Friday in June, before the June 19-20 Council Summit. According to the results of the poll attached to that diary, June 13 is the only date that works for all 7 people who replied to the poll.

In order to contact the Commission's visitor service (as an "EU information media network") I need 15 people to commit to the visit 2-3 months in advance.

ET does Brussels

by Migeru Tue Feb 26th, 2008 at 03:47:17 PM EST

As some of you may recall, last November I joined a "study trip" to Brussels organized by the Liberal Democrats European Group, which included a visit to the European Parliament and a visit to the European Commission. I think ET has matured to the point where we could probably really benefit from a similar visit, and I would like to organize one. Over the next few weeks I'll be doing that in a series of diaries, assuming there is enough interest.

Below the fold, more details about the kind of visit I have in mind.

A European gambit from the Liberal Democrats

by Migeru Sun Feb 17th, 2008 at 11:45:23 AM EST

The British Parliament is getting ready for a vote on whether to have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Everyone seems to agree that the referendum, if called, will be lost. This is not only because of the strong influence of a Eurosceptic press with no countervailing force, but also because the Labour party doesn't have it in itself to defend the treaty. New Labour doesn't have strong Europhile convictions: Brown is passive-aggressive where we thought Blair was devious and self-serving. Blair promised a referendum on the ill-fated EU "Constitution" but must have been delighted that the French and Dutch referenda mooted the question before he was forced to actually fight to win his own. Since the Lisbon Treaty was not likely to be put to referendum elsewhere (in fact, it will only be in Ireland) he claimed that the Lisbon Treaty did not require a Referendum because it respected his "red lines" on British sovereignty, and then dropped the hot potato on Brown's lap. Having even less European conviction than Blair, Brown will try to pass the treaty by a vote in the Commons, but he will need the support of the backbenchers. This is a tall order since, as is well known, the "Old Labour" (which I am going to personify in Tony Benn) is Eurosceptic in ways reminiscent of the French left and the Fabius faction of the PS: they opposed EEC membership in the 1975 referendum (thus splitting the party and the government as the Prime Minister's faction was for keeping EEC membership).

The Conservative party is, as we know, strongly eurosceptic, but it wasn't always that way. Back in the 1970's when the European Economic Community was just a free trade bloc with no apparent political ambitions, the Tories actually were in favour of membership. But Margaret Thatcher, an ardent campaigner for British membership in the 1975 referendum, became the EC's biggest headache as soon as she became Prime Minister, and pretty much set the tone of Britain's European policy to this day. The Conservatives are agitating for a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon and maybe the only thing that would give the Labour backbench pause in supporting the Tories against Brown is that if Brown were to lose such a vote in the Commons there might be an early election which Labour MPs cannot be looking forward to at the moment.

promoted form the diaries. -- Jérôme

Stop Blair! The first 15002 signatures

by Migeru Wed Feb 13th, 2008 at 11:46:03 AM EST

The Stop Blair petition passed 15000 signatures around 15:45 CET today...

The bigger picture

by Migeru Mon Feb 11th, 2008 at 04:59:42 AM EST

The attention being paid to whether or not Blair wants or will be given the job of President of the European Council created by the Treaty of Lisbon provides me with a good excuse to take a look at the bigger institutional picture and how the appointment or not of Tony Blair fits with the direction that EU reform is taking.

One of the problems with the European Council is that it represents the political class only. This explains partly why the Council is the least trusted European Institution (source: Eurobarometer). The situation is so bad that Commissioner Wallström even accused this political elite of being a male chauvinist clique.

EUobserver.com: Margot Wallström fed up with EU 'reign of old men' (08.02.2008)

EU communications commissioner Margot Wallstrom has said she is fed up with the "reign of old men" in Brussels corridors, saying public opinion in Europe will not take lightly to the backroom scheming between EU hot-shots.

Promoted by DoDo

Hillary's accidental pro-Edwards campaign ad

by Migeru Sat Jan 19th, 2008 at 11:50:28 AM EST

This is an absolutely fascinating campaign ad by the Clinton campaign in Nevada.

On a purely "textual" level it is like a set of Russian dolls with at least three levels of message. In addition, because it is composed almost entirely of Obama campaign messages critical of Clinton, with a voiceover arguing that Obama is hypocritical, it is almost like a negative ad against both Obama and Clinton, and therefore accidentally and by default a campaign ad for Edwards.

Incompetent fuckwit ideologues! (a rant)

by Migeru Tue Jan 15th, 2008 at 07:10:22 AM EST

This headline was staring at me from the top margin of my google mail inbox today...
CNN.com: UK government may nationalize bank

The board of embattled Northern Rock PLC faced shareholders Tuesday amid growing speculation that Britain's biggest casualty of the global credit crisis will be nationalized.

Hundreds of investors attended a meeting to vote on proposals by two key shareholders that would restrict the power of the board to reach a private sale -- proposals that analysts say could simply speed up the move toward nationalization.

That fear was reflected in a share sell-off in trading ahead of the meeting, pushing Northern Rock's already battered stock 11 percent lower.

I am getting rather angry at this. Of course they will nationalise Northern Rock, eventually, but it should have been done immediately. The government and the press are so full of neoliberal propaganda that it is news that the government will finally capitulate to facts and do its job.

A few years ago there was a case in Spain that might have led to a similar bank failure, but it was handled differently. If you don't know about the Banesto case, follow me below the fold.

What happened in New Hampshire? [Updated]

by Migeru Sun Jan 13th, 2008 at 05:36:07 AM EST

It's funny how things happen sometimes. After the New Hampshire primary last Tuesday there were some suggestions that the Democratic primary might have been tampered with. I have taken part in some discussions of this on and off the blog, and my basic take was that

1. the implications are important enough for the allegations to be taken seriously;
   
2. "taking the allegations seriously" means carrying out some further tests before jumping to conclusions, especially if you're going to call for an official recall like Dennis Kucinich has done!
   My initial suggestion was to compare the actual vote counts by hand vs. by machine against the exit polls, if an exit poll could be found that aggregated the data according to the vote counting method used in the precinct where the voter was interviewed. Of course this variable was not in the published exit polls. In my enthusiasm I imagined someone in the blogosphere knowing someone in one of the companies that do exit polls, so they could try to get the raw data from election night re-analysed. But see below.
   
3. if a statistically significant discrepancy between the vote percentages and the exit polls, aggregated separated by vote counting method, were found, one would have to remember that correlation doesn't imply causation. One could imagine socioeconomic variables correlating independently with both the Clinton/Obama swing and the use of voting machines in a precinct. For instance, rural vs. urban precincts, the size of the town, the average income of the town, whether the local government is democrat or republican controlled, etc. All of these plausible explanations would have to be controlled for before one could claim to have evidence of election fraud.

A very interesting discussion, promoted by In Wales - some intro moved below the fold

The first London Mayoral Debate

by Migeru Sat Jan 12th, 2008 at 11:09:37 AM EST

This past Thursday on ITV1 there was a one-hour debate among the candidates for Mayor of London for the three main parties in the Greater London Assembly: Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat.

In the Red corner, running for reelection to a third term as mayor, was Ken Livingstone; in the Yellow corner was former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Brian Paddick; and finally in the Blue corner was buffoon extraordinaire Boris Johnson.

The European Physical Society gets it all wrong

by Migeru Sat Jan 12th, 2008 at 07:15:12 AM EST

A few weeks ago I received an issue of Europhysics News with an editorial called Is truth still of value? by Friedrich Wagner, president of the European Physical Society. I have to say I am rather shocked at the howlers I found in that one-page piece, starting with the use of the word truth.

Lazy Quote Diary: This Should Never Have Happened

by Migeru Tue Dec 25th, 2007 at 11:37:10 AM EST

Over the past six months or so we have had numerous discussions of the unfolding subprime crisis and of the credit crunch and liquidity freeze that have gripped the financial markets since the summer. It is not unlikely that in the coming year we will see some banks fail, the bottom fall out of the housing market in several countries, a recession and possibly even a depression if things get really out of hand. And out of hand they might well get. The media and the blogs are awash with commentary on the failure of the US Federal reserve to make a dent in the credit/liquidity crisis even with interest-rate cuts which would be quite bold on their own but seem outright desperate when there is a widely acknowledge risk of inflation. Only even bolder (the FT called them shocking) money injections by the European Central Bank have been able to ease the interbank markets, but only until the New Year.

In these discussions we have touched on the problem of over-reliance on mathematical models, including extrapolating them to regimes where the parameters haven't been calibrated (using a model in "uncharted waters") and valuing large chunks of banks' balance sheets by marking to model, that is, with no reference to a market price because in some cases there just isn't a market for the assets. We have also learned that the US has accounting rules that require companies to classify their assets into "levels", of which "level 3" is "valued using management's best estimate" and that some of the most powerful banks have more "level 3" assets than net equity (in other words, if the level 3 assets turn out to be nearly worthless, the banks would be technically bankrupt).

For this reason it is nothing less than infuriating to look at some of the textbooks that those of us at the bottom of the quantitative finance food chain have to read in order to make it through an interview and find that clearly worded warnings about all this are right there in black and white on the pages of these books. It makes me wonder whether people, including senior people, just read the books for the formulas and eschew the qualitative insight.

Follow me below the fold for some quotations that show that it needn't have been this way.

Questions for Brussels [updated]

by Migeru Mon Nov 26th, 2007 at 04:07:16 AM EST

Through a tip by a friend in the local Liberal Democrats I got myself a slot on a trip to Brussels on the last week of this month. On Tuesday Evening we'll have supper with some of the Lib Dem MEPs. On Wednesday we'll be at the EP all day, and will also meet local party members (unclear to me whether this is expat Lib Dems or local ALDE/ELDR members). Finally, on Thursday, we'll spend the day at the commission where we'll meet "some quite senior staff".

Yours truly will be live blogging the whole thing (most likely via daily diaries posted in the evening).

Now, I need your input.

Originally posted on 8 November

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