How to Praise a Finance Minister

"The observed resilience of the Mauritian economy is a testimony to the positive impact of the reforms carried out since 2006, which favoured economic diversification and adaptation at the same time that it created fiscal space for expansionary macroeconomic policies and other innovative, timely, temporary and targeted responses to cushion the crisis impact".

-World Bank, Mr Fabiano Bastos, quoted in the Budget Speech

Assorted

Someone Take Away Thomas Friedman's Computer Before He Types Another Sentence

Dueling forecasts

Non sequitur on democracy

A Budget Riddle

The Stimulus in Brief

President Obama delivers Your Weekly Address;

No one policy or program will solve the challenges we face right now, nor will this crisis recede in a short period of time. But if we act now and act boldly; if we start rewarding hard work and responsibility once more; if we act as citizens and not partisans and begin again the work of remaking America, then I have faith that we will emerge from this trying time even stronger and more prosperous than we were before.

Related;
www.recovery.gov

Barack Obama’s Prose Style

Podcasts

International Economics - Lipsky

Fazzari on Keynesian Economics

Human Rights: An Analysis of Saudi Arabia and the Impact of Islam

Paul Krugman Sees Need to Get Stimulus Plan Out `Fast'

Thoreau and the American Idyll

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.” Thus wrote the American writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau in his seminal work, Walden, published in 1854.

A fierce opponent of slavery, a champion of the simple life, a lover of nature and an enemy of the modern, Thoreau has become emblematic of one version of American values. His work has been an inspiration to politicians and writers alike, from Martin Luther King to Gandhi, Yeats and Tolstoy. Yet in many ways Thoreau remains a mystery, a man of contradictions who advocated self-sufficiency but was happy to let others, including his mother, do his washing and cook his meals.

Your irrational mind

A Happy New Year???

“These people are nothing but thugs,” Gordon Johndroe, White House spokesman, said yesterday in comments to reporters in Crawford, Texas, where President George W. Bush is vacationing at his ranch. “Israel is going to defend itself against people like Hamas.”

via Angry Arab

Writing Deficiency Fact of the Day

American companies spend more than $3.1 billion each year to remedy writing deficiencies.

- Improve Your Writing Skills

*Determine Your Writing's Objective or Goal: Are you seeking a consensus on a project plan? Asking a client to clarify a concern? Knowing your goal will help you determine how to approach a piece of writing.
*Identify Your Audience: Is this for your boss? A colleague? Or, as sometimes happens, colleagues with both technical and nontechnical backgrounds? Your tone and message will likely differ depending on your audience, and you may need to revise your writing to address specific audiences. Iacone recommends crafting different summaries for different readers.
* Spell Out Words: Shorthand may be appropriate when IMing a colleague, but it's not in a client email.
*Edit: Read and reread your messages, especially those to managers and clients.
*Define Technical Terms in the Document: Placing definitions in parentheses, rather than in a separate glossary, will help maintain your document's flow.
*Use Headings, Subheads and Bulleted Lists: These help you organize your writing and guide readers.
*Get Help: Professional associations may offer writing courses, while community colleges and universities often provide business-writing classes suitable as well. And business writing references can help you learn the basics of syntax, grammar and good business writing.

Related;
Effective Technical Writing course

Books;

The Business Style Handbook: An A-to-Z Guide for Writing on the Job with Tips from Communications Experts at the Fortune 500
by Helen Cunningham and Brenda Greene

Effective Business Writing: A Guide for Those Who Write on the Job
by Maryann V. Piotrowski

The Elements of Business Writing: A Guide to Writing Clear, Concise Letters, Memos, Reports, Proposals, and Other Business Documents
by Gary Blake and Robert W. Bly

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
by Lynne Truss

The Elements of Style
by William Strunk and E. B. White

The New Well-Tempered Sentence: A Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed
by Karen Gordon

The Gregg Reference Manual: A Manual of Style, Grammar, Usage, and Formatting
by William A. Sabin

Descartes' Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict Between Faith and Reason

Descartes' Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict Between Faith and Reason by Russell Shorto

Words for the Depression Age

NINJA LOAN – a loan or mortgage made to someone who has ‘No Income, No Job, No Assets’

JINGLE MAIL – the practice of sending back one’s house keys to the mortgage company because of negative equity, or the inability to keep up with payments

IPOD – acronym for ‘insecure, pressured, overtaxed, and debt-ridden’

HOMEDEBTOR – homeowner with a very large mortgage, particularly one that they are unlikely to ever pay off

SPEED MENTORING – a style of career- or life-coaching modelled on speed dating, in which each participant has a few minutes to seek advice on career-related questions

FUNT – someone who is Financially UNTouchable

EXPLODING ARM – variable rate mortgage with rates that soon rise beyond a borrower’s ability to pay

GOING UNDERWATER – falling into negative equity

STAGFLATION – stagnant growth and rising inflation

-OUP UK’s Word of the Year is…

Assorted on Language

Analyzing the Language of Presidential Debates

Building the Ultimate Spelling Bee

Will vs. going to: a recount

On the Trail of "Bailing Out"

How 'Bailouts' and 'Golden Parachutes' Got Their Name

Sea of Poppies

Sea of Poppies: A Novel
by Amitav Ghosh

Volcker's remarks at World Bank Integrity Day

Paul Volcker at World Bank;

And my experience in writing reports is the connection between writing a report, reaching a conclusion, and having some implementation that is never very clear--until I came to the World Bank. Now, I'd like to think that this report, which really does read fairly well, that we produced a little more than a year ago has gone so far in its implementation in the Bank.

I was struck particularly by Bob's emphasis on trust, which is part of my usual speeches in a somewhat different context, because trust is important in this area, but it's important, and we are reminded so much, in financial markets now. I never thought I would live to see the day when the biggest banks in the world were unable or unwilling to deal with each other for more than overnight and sometimes not even overnight for some feeling of distrust as to what might happen.

And it's not just distrust in financial markets or the private financial markets that in some ways is so striking and has so complicated this current situation. What is really disturbing is the sense of distrust in governments, and I will give you an illustration of that.

When the United States Government says it will protect this or that kind of company, or it will protect these or those securities, it doesn't bring forth a response in terms of trading or in terms of pricing that you might expect if they really trusted the statement.

What do we see here? We see an erosion, I think, in trust in government, and I'm talking now of the United States Government, but it's probably applicable more broadly. There has been survey after survey in the United States, and one of these surveys asks the same question over the decades, and one of the standing questions is: Do you trust your government to do the right thing most of the time? That doesn't sound like the most difficult test to make--do the right thing most of the time, like 51 percent. The answer is 20 percent trust the government to do the right thing most of the time. Somebody told me the latest annual survey showed something less than 20 percent. That is what we are suffering from, I think, in a wider context than just corruption.

But let me say that a couple nights ago, Jim Wolfensohn was celebrating his 75th birthday--he's a young fellow, but it reminded me--and he spoke proudly of his going to the World Bank and his work with the World Bank, but it was just a little more than ten years ago when he made that speech where he mentioned the word "corruption" and said that was an important challenge for the World Bank, a "cancer on development." It was one paragraph in his speech, and obviously, this problem has gone on for some time, but I have not heard a more eloquent exposition of the point than you all just heard a few minutes ago from Bob Zoellick, and I'm glad I came to hear it.

I was handed by Leonard some remarks I made when we issued this report--I had no idea it went on for so many pages--but what I noticed with gratification was that there was a lot of underlining of particular points. Now, when you see a report like that underlined, it is one of two things. If it's underlined for emphasis, that's fine; if it's underlined with a big question mark in the margin or an exclamation point or two, or "That's dumb," that's another thing. I didn't see one question mark in the margin, Leonard, for which I am very grateful.

You know, it is timely and a pleasure for me to be here particularly when the new members of the Advisory Board are here. We consider that one of our critical recommendations. Why do we consider it so critical? Because this whole record, as I'm sure you realize, has been a bit of a struggle for the Bank in kind of acclimating itself to the importance of corruption and infusing it through the operations. And we had a feeling that to make sure the message got through and continued, having an outside group to oversee from two dimensions--one is to kind of keep interest, keep a little fire on, as to the importance of this subject, but also to provide some confidence that had not been there earlier that the program would be carried out in a fair, sensible, effective way, respecting the rights and conditions that are appropriate.

So I think from both directions, we thought that at least for the time being, this kind of outside group had a very important role to play, and I'm glad to see the kind of people who have accepted responsibility. I had a chance to work with Mark Pieth, who isn't here, on an earlier investigation in the United Nations, and he is, added to the talent you see before you and the experience you see before you, a man who has had very long experience, incredible experience, in the anti-corruption area.

Now, I am told--Mr. Daboub keeps me in track of these things, and he proudly calls me up every few months to say "We have adopted another recommendation"--you've got them all adopted now, with a couple that I know are still in process, and that's terrific, because it's not often that somebody in my position who has written a report can actually see it implemented in a substantial kind of way.

Now, it is also true--and I think Bob has addressed this point--that I'll never forget that one of the retired or ex-senior officials of the World Bank, commenting on a draft of our report, said the most important part was not those 18 recommendations or whatever, the specific recommendations--it was the kind of tone that was argued in the first ten pages. He said it's the first ten pages of the report that are really important and whether this whole kind of ethic and effort suffuses the operation generally. And I hope, and from what I hear, that that is beginning to take place and is taking place in a large organization where it is sometimes difficult to change.

I noticed in these remarks I made a year ago that I started off by saying something about the challenge before the World Bank, the sense that it was in not quite a crisis but a point of difficulty because what the World Bank was doing in supplying capital to developing countries has to some degree in many cases been superseded by private markets, and the World Bank had a smaller proportion of the whole, and whether it had the same leverage that it had earlier was questioned by a lot of people, I think rightly. But it's remarkable how that has changed in the past year. In the midst of financial crisis, suddenly, the deficiencies of the private market, the discontinuities of the private market, the lack of confidence that I mentioned are very apparent, and the potential for an institution in which people do have confidence, confidence in integrity and confidence in its competence, has suddenly become very important again in dealing with this, what is now a worldwide crisis, not just of economics but of confidence.

I am struck in that connection that while it's evident that the role of the Bank is risen and restored, I might say, during this period, it is very difficult to almost read the daily press without reading stories about corruption and how corruption is affecting development and how corruption is unfortunately undermining some of the trust I talked about in my own country and other developed countries, but it is really crucial, I think, as part of the development process, and that is becoming better and better understood, not just because of the--well, partly because of the crisis--that some of the cases of flagrant corruption are so evident, beyond anything the World Bank is doing, but its conflict with development and dealing with this crisis has become very evident.

So I just want to--I can't say it with the same eloquence--but the remarks that Bob just made about the critical role of integrating this effort about corruption into your operations and into your attitudes and into your performance seems to me if anything much reinforced from what we were able to say a year or two ago.

I can't tell you the degree to which this institution, which in some sense is a small part of the world economy important as it is, and the way you approach these problems will send a signal to other development institutions internationally and nationally, and I think the critical importance of that should not be forgotten. And I suspect that what has been going on in this institution is already affecting to some degree what other institutions are doing in this area, and I look at the World Bank to take a leadership role in making sure that happens, because it does have the respect of other development institutions and I think the respect of world leaders generally.

So I think I will cease and desist at that point and wish Leonard well in developing relationships with the rest of the Bank.

That other crucial recommendation that we made for the Oversight Board, the other one was that this isn't going to work unless the Management of the Bank itself takes responsibility for the anti-corruption program and for implementing the reforms that are proved necessary in particular countries as revealed by the investigations of INT. And to the extent that is happening, and I believe it is, I think the foundation is being laid for this institution assuming and maintaining the kind of leadership role that it really had earlier and can be strengthened and reinforced today in the midst of what is the biggest financial crisis of my lifetime, and my lifetime has been fairly long, so that covers a considerable range of activities.

Volcker Panel Full Report

Rising Demand for Rare Maps as Global Economy Is `Deteriorating Quickly'

Assorted Podcasts;

UC's Hamilton Says Global Economy Is `Deteriorating Quickly'

Arader, Art Dealer, Sees Rising Demand for Rare Maps
W. Graham Arader III of Arader Galleries, a rare map dealer, talks and Seymour Schwartz's book, ``The Mismapping of America.''

Grant Sees U.S. Working Toward `Disastrous Inflation'
James Grant, editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, talks with Bloomberg's Tom Keene about his new book, ``Mr. Market Miscalculates: The Bubble Years and Beyond,'' inflation risk in the U.S., business failures and financial history, and Federal Reserve monetary policy.

The Age of Austerity: Keynes and the Crisis
Speakers: Lord Robert Skidelsky, Emeritus Professor of Political Economy, University of Warwick, politician and prize-winning biographer of JM Keynes; Martin Wolf, Associate Editor, Financial Times; Dr Andrew Lilico, Managing Director, Europe Economics; Lord Meghnad Desai, economist, politician and author of Marx's Revenge: The Resurgence of Capitalism and the Death of Statist Socialism; John Naish, journalist and author.

Advising America`s Next President: The Future of American Leadership

Advising America`s Next President: Fixing Global Finance

The Economics of the Recession

Gut Feelings: short cuts to better decision making

From Poverty to Power: What will be the role of aid in 2020?

Generation Y and the financial crisis

The history of trade
William Bernstein in his new book A Splendid Exchange - how trade shaped the world argues that while most history is about raiding, in the form of wars, it ought to pay more attention to trading.

Myths of the Great Depression
The recent collapse in the value of the stock market has certainly evoked comparisons with earlier eras. But was it greed that caused the stock market in 1929 to overshoot then crash, or was it easy credit?
Andrew Wilson examines some of myths about the Great Depression.

Could the publication practices of scientific journals be distorting the scientific endeavour?

Economic gangsters
Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel spent years investigating the dark side of global economic development. They combined economic analysis with detective work and followed the foreign aid money trail into the hands of corrupt governments and shady underworld cheats. They labelled these characters economic gangsters. So who are they and why do they matter?

Stormy weather: climate change and Tuvalu

Climate pricing
As a resource economist, Michael Hanemann deals with the supply, demand and allocation of resources. This subfield of economics is interested in the primary sector of the economy, and is trying to better understand the role of all natural resources in the economy and plan how to manage them.

A miracle in the Indian Ocean
The Maldives have been advertised as a tourist paradise but, behind the luxurious image, the lives of its people have been crushed by an autocratic president. Last month everything changed, when the first ever democratic elections were held.

Boom and Bust

Extraordinary Cases in psychology: Part 1 of 4 - The story of Kitty Genovese

Extraordinary Cases in psychology: Part 2 of 4 - The wild boy of Aveyron

Extraordinary Cases in Psychology: Part 3 of 4—The man with the hole in his head

The philosophy of cold hard cash

Scapegoats and sacrifices - Rene Girard

Martha Nussbaum - Part 1 - The Social Contract

Martha Nussbaum - Part 2 - Thinking about Animals

Health care in the next US administration

Testosterone and low female libido

The meaning of life

I wish I had become a scientist
The Managing Director of Centurion Enterprise Management Services in Victoria, Dr Ron Harper, wonders what might have been if he had chosen a career as a scientist. However, he chose a career in management and today tells us what makes a good and efficient manager

Paracelsus
He became known as the Luther of medicine for his reformist medical practices, but Paracelsus, who was born in Switzerland in 1493, was also a religious man

Tel Dan and the Golden Calf
In northern Israel, the late archaeologist Avraham Biran discovered the ancient site of Dan, settled by the warrior tribe of Dan. Here, Biran discovered an ancient Canaanite Gate, the altar to the Golden Calf, and the only stone inscription of "The House of David". Archaeological tour guide, Walter Zanger tells the story on location

A Sufi Sheikh in Jerusalem

Peter Stothard, editor of the Times Literary Supplement

The poetry of Robert Adamson
The 'Huck Finn of the Hawkesbury' is how Robert Adamson was described by one reviewer when his first book was published in 1970. He's one of Australia's leading contemporary poets and a successful writer, editor and publisher. His autobiography Inside Out won the New South Wales Premier's History Award, and he received the Christopher Brennan Award for lifetime achievement in literature. Robert Adamson's new collection of poetry The Golden Bird brings together the best of his published work as well as many new poems.

The Irony Recession

via The Numbers Guy

Robin Hanson's Contrarian world view

Food isn't about Nutrition
Clothes aren't about Comfort
Bedrooms aren't about Sleep
Marriage isn't about Romance
Talk isn't about Info
Laughter isn't about Jokes
Charity isn't about Helping
Church isn't about God
Art isn't about Insight
Medicine isn't about Health
Consulting isn't about Advice
School isn't about Learning
Research isn't about Progress
Politics isn't about Policy