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Benjamin Wolf

@benbawan

9 Dec

Austria can borrow billions for 100 years for a yearly coupon of 0.88%.

Imagine the Republic would borrow, say, €9 billion and then put €1,000 for each of its citizens into a fund that invests like Norway’s National Fund.

Fanciful but fascinating.

ft.com/content/d55687…

A small, stable country could probably even get away with that. It would raise some eyebrows, but in the end, nobody would mind much. And you could repeat it for a couple years. Then you wait until global growth does its miracles.

In a decade or two, the Republic could have a veritable National Fund on behalf of its citizens which it could use to give them a “baby bond” like payout when they turn 18 or use for a number of other cool projects.

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Benjamin Wolf

@benbawan

8 Dec

In 1990, the population of Western Germany (62 million) and France (58m) was within a whisker.

Then reunification happened – and Germany suddenly had 80 million.

In 2050, France’s population could reach around 80 million and overtake Germany as the EU’s most populous state.

France’s demographics – current & historical – will never cease to amaze me.

France was one of a few countries to kinda miss out on the massive population increase of the 19th century. And it got worse until 1950.

But then, when everyone else slowed down, bonjour la France!

But it gets even weirder if you go further back. During the Middle Ages, a quarter of Europe’s population was French.

That’d be 185 million people today – three times France’s actual population!

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Benjamin Wolf

@benbawan

7 Dec

Wenn sogar eine Pandemie und ein wochenlanger Lockdown die Leute nicht dazu bewegt ihre Geschenke online zu kaufen, kann die Zukunft des stationären Handels nicht so düster ausschauen wie immer wieder einmal suggeriert wird.

Ich unterstütze auch gerne lokale Geschäfte – geht übrigens auch online.

Aber warum man sich heute auf der Mahü zig Minuten vor einem Geschäft anstellt um etwas zu kaufen, das man die letzten Wochen auch jederzeit online bestellen hätte können muss ich nicht verstehen, oder?

Ich geh auch lieber “in echt” einkaufen. Aber grad jetzt ist es weder besonders entspannt, noch lustig, noch empfohlen. Also was bewegt einem dazu es doch zu tun? Ich versteh’s echt nicht.

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Benjamin Wolf

@benbawan

30 Nov

“What the fuck happened in 1971?”

Well, we all know correlation is not causation – and there are many potential causes: deregulation, the oil shocks, the end of Keynesianism, China entering the world trade system, technological change etc.

wtfhappenedin1971.com

But I happen to think that the end of the Bretton Woods system did play a key role. However, not because it untethered currencies from gold – that was anyway mostly a fictional tether – but because it untethered them from one another and the global trading system in general.

I tend to believe that you could have taken gold out of the equation entirely but crucially, could have kept a coordinated system of currency movements, trade rebalancing and capital controls – when the moves are too extreme – in place.

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Benjamin Wolf

@benbawan

11 Oct 19

Ich muss zugeben, ich weiß zu Handke politischer Haltung gar nichts und zu seiner Literatur recht wenig. Daher fällt es mir auch extrem schwer, mir ein Urteil zu bilden.

Kriegsverbrechen zu verharmlosen & und einen Kriegstreiber zu verteidigen geht natürlich gar nicht. Es gibt jedoch auch kluge & progressive Leute die ich kenne, die Handkes Haltung mit scheinbar guten Gründen differenzierter zu sehen scheinen.

In deren Sicht ist er anscheinend vor allem ein Schreiber gegen den blinden Nationalismus, der sich eifrig, naiv und blind auf eine Seite (die der Zentralregierung, also Serben) geschlagen habe, jedoch nicht Völkermord oder Verbrechen befördern oder befürworten wollte.

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Benjamin Wolf

@benbawan

16 Oct 18

@davidallengreen

@davidallengreen @FT It's a good article and interesting questions. Some thoughts:

Yes, the backstop per se was not something the EU insisted on from the beginning - but it insisted from the beginning on there being no hard border in Ireland, and that's what the backstop is for.

@davidallengreen

@davidallengreen @FT After the referendum, it still seemed plausible that the UK might stay in the customs union (Norway or Turkey model), in which case a backstop of course wouldn't have been needed and or become an issue.

@davidallengreen

@davidallengreen @FT Only when it became clear that the UK was intent on ultimately leaving the customs unions, the question of how to ensure a soft border in Ireland became really salient. And that's where the idea of the backstop popped up.

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