This Tuesday, Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States of America (and thanks to Chief Justice Rogers had to be sworn in again on Wednesday).
In Norway, and most other countries in Europe (let alone the world), this has been heralded as a historic moment which finally will bring change to US policy and the world in general.
I don't necessarily think this will come true, although Obama has been busy making good on campaign promises already. Obama has been hyped to extents never before seen, much because of his eloquence, charisma, and race (yes, I said it). In his inauguration speech he actually used a lot of American presidential clichés, but he did this rather more convincingly than his predecessor (who's probably able to mispronounce the word "no"...). It will be interesting to see if Obama brings any substance in policy to the words he used in his speech. I think he will be hard pressed to deliver very much.
The main reason is that the all-consuming issue of his first (and possibly last) term as president will be the global financial crisis. And I don't think Obama's policies (Keynesian in every respect) will be able to deal sufficiently with the underlying reasons for the problem: debt and an economy based on bubbles.
No amount of hope or change can change that.
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Saturday, January 24, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Happy New Year - a word on the ongoing global recession
I am not going to apologize for not updating this blog for a while. Period.
Lately I have thought a bit about this ongoing global recession we're experiencing. Norway isn't the worst affected country, but we're far from being in the clear.
There seems to be a large global consensus that the best approach to dealing with this is by bailing out just about anyone who asks for money. That, and everyone seems to be a Keynesian now (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynes).
To me this is deeply troublesome, because the bottom line is that if we follow this approach, we will just build up a new credit/real estate bubble. The real problem is excessive debt, and the encouragement of this by banks and politicians. We will never get out of this mess if we do not try to return to a society where (excessive) debt is discouraged.
I think we need to rethink how we let credit and real estate prices (well, actually, land prices) fuel the bubble, and we have to make the economy more resilient and less dependent on these two factors.
For a lot more reading on this subject, check out some of the links on this page (not all are relevant to the economy, but I think you're smart enough to manage).
61
Lately I have thought a bit about this ongoing global recession we're experiencing. Norway isn't the worst affected country, but we're far from being in the clear.
There seems to be a large global consensus that the best approach to dealing with this is by bailing out just about anyone who asks for money. That, and everyone seems to be a Keynesian now (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynes).
To me this is deeply troublesome, because the bottom line is that if we follow this approach, we will just build up a new credit/real estate bubble. The real problem is excessive debt, and the encouragement of this by banks and politicians. We will never get out of this mess if we do not try to return to a society where (excessive) debt is discouraged.
I think we need to rethink how we let credit and real estate prices (well, actually, land prices) fuel the bubble, and we have to make the economy more resilient and less dependent on these two factors.
For a lot more reading on this subject, check out some of the links on this page (not all are relevant to the economy, but I think you're smart enough to manage).
61
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