Tax Co-operation: Towards a Level Playing Field - 2008 Assessment by the Global Forum on Taxation notes that a number of countries have improved the availability of ownership information and access to bank information for tax purposes. However, only a small number of offshore financial centres have expanded their network of exchange-of-information agreements. The Isle of Man which today announced the signing of a new tax information exchange agreement with the United Kingdom leads the way and has now signed 11 such agreements.

Significant restrictions on access to bank information for tax purposes remain in three OECD countries – Austria, Luxembourg and Switzerland – and in a number of offshore financial centres, including Liechtenstein, Panama and Singapore. Further, a number of offshore financial centres that committed to implement the standards on transparency and the effective exchange of information developed by the OECD’s Global Forum on Taxation have failed to follow through.

The 2008 Assessment is the third in a series of reports by the OECD’s Global Forum on Taxation reviewing how far the OECD’s standards of transparency and effective exchange of information are being implemented in 83 OECD and non OECD economies. Among other things, it notes that:

• Sixty-six new Double Tax Conventions (DTCs) and four new Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs) have entered into force. In addition, 17 TIEAs have been signed since the beginning of 2007, including nine signed by the Isle of Man.
• Eleven of the 83 economies still do not have tax information exchange agreements in the form of DTCs or TIEAs that are either signed or in force.
• Seventy-eight of the 83 economies are able to obtain and provide banking information in response to a request for information in criminal tax matters in some or all cases.
• Belgium now exchanges bank information on request for civil and criminal tax matters under its new DTC with the United States. Under legislation that took effect in January 2008, tax authorities in Malta can now access bank information for the purpose of exchanging information in tax matters where reciprocal arrangements.
• Bearer shares, which are often used as a way of avoiding taxation by concealing ownership, have been eliminated in Cyprus, Belgium and the United States, while Samoa immobilised bearer shares with the result that their owners can now be identified.
• In Andorra, new laws require all companies to file accounts with a government authority. Public and limited companies must have their accounts audited where they exceed certain thresholds with respect to assets, turnover and numbers of employees.

The Global Forum and individual countries will now need to consider how countries that are making progress have their efforts recognised and responded to positively and countries that are not making progress do not benefit as a result.

Source: http://www.mondovisione.com/ September 30, 2008

Das ganze Interview in der Süddeutschen Zeitung Online

Having made our promises you might assume we'd be upping our contributions to meet the target. Sadly not. Levels of aid actually fell between 2005 and 2007. (The reasons for that are complicated, and mainly because 2005 was such a good year, but it still doesn't look good). Last week's summit in New York hoped to reverse that and get aid back on track. Here's a graph of total aid given since 1990, and the ground we need to cover to meet our commitments. 

Given that we've just renewed our promises again, let's see what the 2008 statistics show before we start making very loud noises. 

• The reality of aid reports
• OECD stats summary

Det er faktisk rigtig pæne ting om den danske uddannelsesmodel, der kan trækkes frem og som bliver trukket frem i rapporten. Som direktør på en erhvervsskole glæder det mig især, at man i rapporten netop fremhæver erhvervsuddannelserne og navnlig vekselvirkningen mellem skole og virksomhed, som ruster eleverne til arbejdsmarkedet og sikrer at uddannelserne rent faktisk kvalificere til jobsene på arbejdsmarkedet.

Derfor er det så enormt vigtigt at holde den faglige fane højt (rapporten baserer sig på 2005 tal) og værne om kvaliteten på Erhvervsuddannelserne! Det skylder vi dansk erhvervsliv og det skylder vi danske elever på Erhvervsuddannelserne.

Le continent compte au moins 17 millions de migrants. Si la plupart vivent paisiblement dans leur pays d’accueil, les situations de rejet sont fréquentes. L’Afrique doit apprendre à gérer ses propres mouvements de populations si elle veut être crédible dans son combat contre le repli européen.

Le monde entier l’a vu mourir. Arrosé d’essence, mains et genoux à terre, un immigré zimbabwéen a été immolé dans un township sud-africain avec pour seul tort de ne pas vivre chez lui. Il était « étranger » et donc responsable de tous les maux. Les violences xénophobes ont fait soixante morts en mai dernier en Afrique du Sud et ont terni pour longtemps les couleurs métissées de la nation Arc-en-Ciel. De nombreux chefs d’État africains se sont indignés et ont obtenu des excuses du président Thabo Mbeki, d’autant que cette flambée de violence était prévisible. En 1998, une enquête menée par le Southern African Migration Project, un groupe d’études sur les migrations en Afrique australe, dénonçait « un sentiment hostile vis-à-vis des étrangers », principalement les immigrés d’Afrique francophone et lusophone, ostracisés à cause de la barrière de la langue et de la différence culturelle. Mais la xénophobie n’est malheureusement pas rare sur le continent. Quant aux traitements infligés aux populations immigrées par les autorités en place, ils versent souvent dans l’arbitraire. Pas de quoi, en tout cas, donner des leçons de morale à l’Europe.

Tout récemment, le gouvernement angolais a voulu faire « place nette » à la veille des élections du 5 septembre en expulsant plus de 72 000 Congolais. Selon le dernier rapport de l’Ocha (Bureau de coordination des affaires humanitaires de l’ONU), ils seraient plus de 140 000 à avoir regagné la RD Congo entre 2003 et 2007 « dans un état de grande vulnérabilité ». Bien que panafricaniste affiché, le « Guide » Mouammar Kaddafi a lui aussi décidé de limiter la présence subsaharienne, qui représente plus de 20 % de la population libyenne.

La méthode est radicale. Tripoli lance régulièrement des « chasses aux étrangers » et bénéficie depuis 2000 du soutien financier de l’Union européenne pour les renvoyer chez eux (voir p. 30). « La Libye n’est pas un pays sûr pour les migrants, les demandeurs d’asile et les réfugiés », estime l’organisation Human Rights Watch, qui dénonce de graves violations des droits de l’homme. Plus généralement, au Maghreb, que dire du sort réservé aux Subsahariens en partance pour l’Europe ? Le refoulement en plein désert marocain - « pratiquement sans vivres et sans eau », selon Amnesty International - des clandestins après les assauts contre les deux enclaves espagnoles de Melilla et Ceuta, en octobre 2005, est encore dans toutes les mémoires. En Algérie, les candidats à l’exil, déjà épuisés par la traversée du Sahara, vivent le plus souvent dans des conditions déplorables, à l’instar de ceux qui s’entassent dans le camp de Maghnia, en plein Sud, le long d’un oued asséché.

Afrique nomade

L’Afrique centrale n’est pas en reste. En 1995, Libreville avait exigé le départ de 150 000 immigrés. Des « boat people » avaient erré le long des côtes béninoises, attendant que Cotonou accepte de les accueillir. Dans la capitale gabonaise, on s’attristait de ne plus trouver de pain frais le matin : tous les boulangers camerounais ou équatoguinéens étaient partis ! Pour sa part, Malabo a bien du mal à intégrer une main-d’œuvre étrangère attirée par ce qui fait figure de nouvel eldorado pétrolier. À un degré moindre, au Congo, les Ouest-Africains du quartier de Poto-Poto de Brazzaville ont parfois le sentiment, à juste titre, de ne pas être vraiment de la famille. Les expatriés de l’Union africaine sont, eux, accueillis avec froideur par une partie des habitants d’Addis-Abeba, en Éthiopie. Venus des pays voisins, les réfugiés au Kenya parqués dans les bidonvilles autour de Nairobi craignent constamment d’être renvoyés sans ménagement. Décidément, la liste est longue. Et non exhaustive.

L’Afrique ne serait donc plus ce grand continent nomade ? Nelly Robin, chercheuse à l’Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD), basée à Dakar et spécialiste des migrations, veut encore y croire. Elle a parcouru toute l’Afrique de l’Ouest à la rencontre de ces migrants et de leur famille. « Je demandais à des mères combien de leurs enfants étaient partis à l’étranger. Elles me répondaient aucun, raconte-t-elle. Et puis, un jour, j’ai compris que tant que les enfants n’étaient pas en Europe, ils n’étaient pas à l’étranger, c’était normal ! »

La population africaine est la plus mobile au monde. Avec les échanges encouragés par la mondialisation, l’explosion démographique et l’instabilité politique sur le continent, le phénomène s’est intensifié. Ces migrations sont loin d’être orientées uniquement du Sud vers le Nord. L’image d’une Europe « forteresse assiégée » doit être largement nuancée si l’on s’attarde sur les chiffres. La seule Afrique de l’Ouest compte 7,5 millions d’immigrés. Ils sont officiellement plus de 1 million en Afrique australe mais, selon des estimations englobant les clandestins, il y en aurait 3 millions dans la seule Afrique du Sud. Les pays riches de l’Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques (OCDE) ne comptent officiellement que 7,2 millions de ressortissants africains. On en recense 17 millions sur l’ensemble du continent. À chacun son histoire et son parcours.

Libre circulation imparfaite

« Il y a encore quelques années, les flux migratoires étaient très figés, explique Laurent Bossard, directeur adjoint du Club du Sahel de l’OCDE. Aujourd’hui, les flux sont mouvants et les personnes se déplacent en fonction des nouvelles routes vers l’Europe ou des crises politiques, sans que l’on puisse clairement les identifier. »

D’anciennes terres d’émigration comme le Sénégal ou le Burkina sont devenues des pays d’accueil pendant la crise ivoirienne. Grande terre d’immigration, la Côte d’Ivoire (voir p. 28) est désormais aussi touchée par le départ d’une partie de sa jeunesse, attirée par « l’eldorado européen ». Le Zimbabwe, dans les années 1990, accueillait des ressortissants zambiens et malawites. Aujourd’hui, plus d’un quart des Zimbabwéens vivent à l’étranger, essentiellement en Afrique du Sud. « À long terme, les violences de mai dernier n’auront pas d’impact sur le nombre de personnes qui arrivent », assure Frans Cronje, de l’Institut des relations raciales à Johannesburg. « Mais si le gouvernement ne contrôle pas le phénomène, il ne faudra pas s’étonner si ça éclate à nouveau ! Le Botswana et l’Afrique du Sud ne peuvent pas absorber à eux seuls les flux de population du Zimbabwe ou du Mozambique », conclut-il. Plus inquiétant, une étude révèle que 84 % des Sud-Africains pensent qu’il y a trop d’immigrés dans leur pays.

En théorie, les pays de la Communauté de développement d’Afrique australe (SADC) ont signé des accords de libre circulation. Mais, en pratique, ils ne sont pas appliqués. De ce point de vue, nous retrouvons une situation analogue au sein de la Communauté économique et monétaire de l’Afrique centrale (Cemac). Le passeport régional est officiellement entré en vigueur, mais il est encore très loin du sésame espéré. En Afrique de l’Ouest en revanche, s’il est encore trop tôt pour parler de parfaite intégration, l’espace sous-régional commence à devenir une réalité. Les tracasseries administratives aux frontières n’ont pas toutes disparu, loin s’en faut, mais le passeport de la Communauté économique des États de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (Cedeao) se généralise.

Menaces européennes

Mais cet héritage des empires et royaumes africains, ce prolongement naturel des échanges commerciaux sont aujourd’hui menacés par la politique restrictive du Nord et le recours à une approche bilatérale. En 2006, la France et le Sénégal ont par exemple signé un accord « pour une gestion concertée » des flux migratoires. Depuis, Dakar, sous la pression exercée par Paris, participe au dispositif européen pour la sécurité aux frontières extérieures (Frontex) : plus de 4 200 clandestins ont été interpellés. « Si ce phénomène s’amplifie, cela risque d’engendrer des tensions, dénonce Nelly Robin. Le Sénégal se retrouve à faire le gendarme de l’Europe sur son propre territoire. » Avec le risque que Dakar décide un jour de fermer ses frontières, fragilisant ainsi l’ensemble du processus d’intégration régionale.

« Les migrations en Afrique de l’Ouest sont pourtant un facteur de stabilité », soutient Nelly Robin. Les exemples ne manquent pas. Cela va de la croissance ivoirienne en partie due aux travailleurs burkinabè dans les plantations de café et de cacao à la construction du Transgabonais, dans les années 1970, assurée par une main-d’œuvre nigériane, camerounaise et ouest-africaine. Pas sûr que ces arguments pèsent lourd dans les négociations en cours. L’Afrique pointée du doigt comme terre d’émigration se retrouve bien seule pour gérer sa propre immigration. Avec le risque du repli identitaire et de la xénophobie.

01. Austria
02. Belgium
03. Denmark
04. Finland
05. France
06. Germany
07. Greece
08. Iceland
09. Italy
10. Japan
11. Korea
12. Netherlands
13. New Zealand
14. Norway
15. Portugal
16. Sweden
17. UK
18. US

The study calls for investments totaling over US$13 billion a year to achieve gender equality and women empowerment.

Danny Leipziger, World Bank Vice President for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management, said, "gender equality is key for poverty reduction and growth. Progress on women’s education is essential but not enough if we don’t improve women’s access to good jobs and credit lines, to land ownership and to income-generating activities."

The study Equality for Women: Where Do We Stand on Millennium Development Goal 3? looks at the achievements made by the developing world as laid out by the Millennium Development Goals (MD). These goals are eight international development goals that 189 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve by the year 2015. They include halving extreme poverty, reducing child mortality rates, fighting disease epidemics such as AIDS, and developing a global partnership for development.

Education has improved in 82 countries out of 122 and are on track to meet their MD goals. However, 19 countries, 13 of which are in Sub- Saharan Africa, are seriously off track to meet their target.

The United Nations will hold a conference on Thursday at the annual session of the UN in New York to discuss the Millennium Development Goals.

Transfer Pricing Guidelines

Final Report on the Attribution of Profits to Permanent Establishments:

Report on the Attribution of Profits to Permanent Establishments

In May 2006 and January 2008 respectively, the OECD released for public comment a series of issues notes on comparability and a series of issues notes on transactional profit methods. These two discussion drafts, which related to the OECD’s Transfer Pricing Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and Tax Administrations, attracted very detailed responses from the business community (see comments received on the May 2006 discussion draft on comparability and comments received on the January 2008 discussion draft on transactional profit methods).

Working Party No. 6, which is the OECD body responsible for the Transfer Pricing Guidelines, started discussing the comments received. Given the comments’ extent and complexity, Delegates felt that the reviews of comparability and profit methods could greatly benefit from a face-to-face discussion with the commentators. Accordingly, it was decided to organise a consultation with the organisations that provided written comments. The consultation, attendance at which is by invitation to the relevant organisations, is scheduled to take place on 17 and 18 November 2008 at the OECD Conference Centre in Paris. See draft agenda for the consultation.

The OECD Committee on Fiscal Affairs has released for public comments a discussion draft on the Transfer Pricing Aspects of Business Restructurings.

Business restructurings by multinational enterprises have been a widespread phenomenon in recent years. They involve the cross border redeployment of functions, assets and / or risks between associated enterprises, with consequent effects on the profit and loss potential in each country. Restructurings may involve cross-border transfers of valuable intangibles, and they have typically consisted of the conversion of full-fledged distributors into limited-risk distributors or commissionnaires for a related party that may operate as a principal; the conversion of full-fledged manufacturers into contract-manufacturers or toll-manufacturers for a related party that may operate as a principal; and the rationalisation and / or specialisation of operations.

As evidenced by a January 2005 OECD Centre on Tax Policy and Administration Roundtable, these restructurings raise difficult transfer pricing and treaty issues for which there is currently insufficient OECD guidance under both the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and Tax Administrations (the “TP Guidelines”) and the OECD Model Tax Convention on Income and on Capital (the “Model Tax Convention”) (see outcome of the January 2005 CTPA Roundtable. These issues involve primarily the application of transfer pricing rules upon and / or after the conversion, the determination of the existence of, and attribution of profits to, permanent establishments (“PEs”), and the recognition or non-recognition of transactions. In the absence of a common understanding on how these issues should be treated, they may lead to significant uncertainty for both business and governments as well as possible double taxation or double non-taxation. Recognising the need for work to be done in this area, the Committee on Fiscal Affairs (“CFA”) decided to start a project to develop guidance on these transfer pricing and treaty issues.

In 2005 the CFA created a Joint Working Group (“the JWG”) of delegates from Working Party No. 1 (responsible for the Model Tax Convention) and Working Party No. 6 (responsible for the TP Guidelines) to initiate the work on these issues. At the end of 2007, having taken stock of the progress made to that point, the CFA referred the work on the transfer pricing aspects of business restructurings to Working Party No. 6 and the work on the PE threshold aspects to Working Party No. 1. The discussion draft being released today has resulted from the work done on the transfer pricing issues by the JWG and Working Party No. 6. Working Party No. 1 intends to consider PE definitional issues under Article 5 of the Model Tax Convention, both in the context of business restructurings and more broadly, as part of its 2009-2010 programme of work, which will result in a separate discussion draft.
This discussion draft only covers transactions between related parties in the context of Article 9 of the Model Tax Convention and does not address the attribution of profits within a single enterprise on the basis of Article 7 of the Model Tax Convention, as this was the subject of the Report on the Attribution of Profits to Permanent Establishments which was approved by the Committee on Fiscal Affairs on 24 June 2008 and by the OECD Council for publication on 17 July 2008. The analysis in this discussion draft is based on the existing transfer pricing rules. In particular, this discussion draft starts from the premise that the arm’s length principle and the TP Guidelines do not and should not apply differently to post-restructuring transactions than to transactions that were structured as such from the beginning.

This discussion draft is composed of four Issues Notes.

In light of the importance of risk allocation in relation to business restructurings, the first Issues Note provides general guidance on the allocation of risks between related parties in an Article 9 context and in particular the interpretation and application of paragraphs 1.26 to 1.29 of the TP Guidelines.

The second Issues Note, “Arm’s length compensation for the restructuring itself”, discusses the application of the arm’s length principle and TP Guidelines to the restructuring itself, in particular the circumstances in which at arm’s length the restructured entity would receive compensation for the transfer of functions, assets and / or risks, and / or an indemnification for the termination or substantial renegotiation of the existing arrangements.

The third Issues Note examines the application of the arm’s length principle and the TP Guidelines to post-restructuring arrangements.

The fourth Issues Note discusses some important notions in relation to the exceptional circumstances where a tax administration may consider not recognising a transaction or structure adopted by a taxpayer, based on an analysis of the existing guidance at paragraphs 1.36-1.41 of the TP Guidelines and of the relationship between these paragraphs and other parts of the TP Guidelines.

The Committee invites interested parties to send comments on this discussion draft before 19 February 2009. Comments should be sent electronically (in Word format) to jeffrey.owens@oecd.org.

Unless otherwise requested at the time of submission, comments submitted to the OECD in response to this invitation will be posted on the OECD website.

The Tories point to a recent OECD report warning that such tariffs, which are being mused about in many capitals, might start a damaging trade war. Why would Canada, a big trading nation, want to contribute to a wave of enviro-protectionism?

As far as I can tell, Dion hasn’t talked up the notion of Canada imposing a carbon tariff on the hustings, although he often mentions the risk that Canadian exports might soon face such barriers, imposed by other countries, if we fail to create a credible climate-change regime.

The Liberal green shift policy book, however, does indeed briefly state that “goods from countries that are not pricing carbon will face a tariff reflective of carbon content” when they enter Canada. So fair enough to take a shot at Dion over this dubious proposal.

But since we’re citing the OECD, what does the Paris-based club of modern trading nations have to say more broadly about global warming and carbon taxes?

Well, the 2008 OECD Environmental Outlook report urges “green taxes, efficient water pricing, emissions trading, polluter-pay systems, waste charges, and eliminating environmentally harmful subsidies (e.g. for fossil fuels and agriculture).”

And in case there’s any doubt about what “green taxes” means, the outlook report looks closely at the possibility of a global carbon tax. The OECD’s forecasters did a simulation study to see what it would take to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions—an extraordinarily ambitious aim—and found it could be achieved by a carbon tax equal pegged at half a U.S. per litre of gasoline in 2010, rising to 12 cents in 2030, and about 37 cents in 2050.

This is not an endorsement of the Liberal plan, of course. It’s just another sign among many of how the carbon tax mechanism is widely seen, by all sorts of experts, as a sensible, perhaps indispensable, part of the policy mix if climate change is ever to be seriously addressed. And not “insane.”

----

Once again, there seems to be a heavier hand in editing Statistics Canada’s releases.  This morning The Daily reported that:

“Spending on research and development in the higher education sector amounted to $9.6 billion (current dollars) in the fiscal year 2006/2007.”

but there was no word on whether this was an increase or decrease from the previous period, which Statscan releases almost always have.

The year 2006/7 was the first year that the Harper government was in office.  Investment in research and development is essential to increase our economy’s productivity, which hasn’t increased since the start of 2006 (and has grown at a dismal rate since 2000).

Canada has some of the most generous tax incentives for private R&D in the world, yet Canada has one of the lowest rates of investment in R&D among OECD countries thanks to both low rates of government and business investment in R&D, accoridng to Industry Canada’s Science and Technology Data tables.  Canada’s investment in higher education R&D had recently been relatively good, but it looks like the current federal government may soon rectify that.

The Harper government is laying off federal scientists and forcing departments to slash their R&D budgets .  It is deregulating food safety inspection and transferring or selling off federal labs to the private sector, intent on further commercialization and privatization. They eliminated the national science advisor and have instead appointed Preston Manning among others to help advise on science issues.  This approach to science recently earned the Harper government scathing criticism in an editorial in Nature, one of the most respected science publications in the world.

Read more

 '연합뉴스'

 "자영업자가 많은 이유는 퇴출된 사람들의 재취업의 어려움으로 인한 것도 있겠지만,  회사에서의 대우도 생각해봐야 될 것 같다. 회사에서의 부당한 대우와 많은 근로시간,  위로부터 오는 여러 요구들과 아래로부터 올라오는 요구들로 인한 스트레스... 이런 상황속에서 돈 많이 못 벌어도 마음 편히 자영업을 하면서 살아가는 것이 더 낳다고 이들은 생각할지도 모르겠다."

Many national statistics offices have launched fascinating initiatives based on local data. Take, for instance, CommuterView from the British ONS, or Statistics Netherlands's CBS in uw burt (Statistics Netherlands in your neighborhood). And all the work done around Mapresso, a Java applet for generating cartograms, sponsored by the Swiss Federal Statistics Office. (here are some interesting examples with official data).

Official data providers are not the only ones to showcase sub-national data, see for instance the works of Dataplace.

Presenting data at a sub-national level is relevant, because for most indicators, variations within one country are comparable to variations between countries. Take the GDP per capita of the UK, for instance. That of its richest region is much greater than Luxembourg's, whereas that of its poorest region is comparable to Poland's. 

The OECD publishes Regions at a glance, which provides an answer to these problems. The organization is now about to go one step further in partnership with Linköping University who has developed the GeoWizard application. When I first saw the GeoWizard in action, it was an offline client.

Professor Mikael Jern and his team have turned it into a web application and loaded it with OECD regional data. It will be shortly available on OECD Regional Statistics portal. The GeoWizard combines several data visualizations, a choropleth, a parallel coordinates chart and a third panel which can be a data table or a scatterplot which can display three variables (x- and y- axis, plus radius). 

Here are a few maps obtained with OECD data:

Bush: Economy On Solid Foundation

http://acnn.wordpress.com/2008/01/04/bush-economy-on-solid-foundation/

Mar 7, 2008

Bush: it’s clear our economy has slowed

http://article.wn.com/view/2008/03/07/Bush_Economy_has_slowed_5g/?template=cheetah-article%2Fdisplayarticle.txt

Mar 8, 2008

Bush insists US not in recession

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7283512.stm

Mar 13, 2008

Dollar’s tumble rattles markets

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/mar/13/currencies.marketturmoil

Mar 14, 2008

Bear Stearns gets emergency funds

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7296678.stm

Mar 20, 2008

OECD slashes US growth forecast

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7306791.stm

Mar 20, 2008

Economist says Fed acted too late

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Business/2008/03/20/economist_says_fed_acted_too_late/6714/

http://joejolly.wordpress.com/2008/03/28/evading-the-r-e-c-e-s-s-i-o-n-word/

August 22, 2008

Kansas Bank is 9th to Fail in 2008

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=5637065

August 22, 2008

Buffett says economy’s troubles will continue

OMAHA, Neb. - Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said Friday the economy continues to be in a recession (sic), by his definition, and will continue to be for at least several more months.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26330135/

September 6, 2008

U.S. Nears Rescue Plan For Fannie And Freddie

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/05/AR2008090503351.html

September 15, 2008

Greenspan: This Is The Worst Economy I've Ever Seen

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan offered a woeful outlook of America's economic situation on Sunday, saying the crisis with the country's financial institutions was as dire as he had ever seen in his long career, and predicting that one or more of those institutions would likely collapse in the near future.

"Oh, by far," Greenspan said, when asked if the situation was the worst he had seen in his career. "There's no question that this is in the process of outstripping anything I've seen and it still is not resolved and still has a way to go and, indeed, it will continue to be a corrosive force until the price of homes in the United States stabilizes. That will induce a series of events around the globe which will stabilize the system."

Appearing on ABC's This Week, Greenspan would not definitively say whether the government should come to the rescue of Lehman Brothers, which has been forced to consider a possible sale after its stock shares plunged drastically this past week. Instead he called the situation surrounding the investment bank -- and the bailout that occurred this past spring of Bear Stearns -- as a "once in a half century, probably once in a century type of event."

The circumstances for Lehman may, as Greenspan noted, be different. Bloomberg News reported on Friday: "Rising speculation that Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. may fail is generating less concern among investors than when Bear Stearns Cos. imploded in March."

Much of the issue, Greenspan added, was the trouble in the housing market, which he predicted would become stabilized by next year. Pressed by host George Stephanopoulos as to whether another major financial institution -- such as the struggling Washington Mutual, American International Group, or Merrill Lynch -- would fail in the interim, the former Fed chair responded in the affirmative.

"I suspect we will [see one fail]," he said, "but in and of itself that does not need to be a problem. It depends on how it's handled and how the liquidations take place. And, indeed, we shouldn't try to protect every single institution. the ordinary cost of financial change has winners and losers..."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/14/greenspan-this-is-the-wor_n_126274.html

[Copy And Paste to visit the link]

September 15, 2008

Lehman Bros files for bankruptcy

http://news.bbc.co.uk/

October 8, 2008

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The world economy will slow sharply this year and next, with the United States likely sliding into recession reflecting mounting damage from the most dangerous financial jolt in more than a half-century.

The International Monetary Fund, in a World Economic Outlook released Wednesday, slashed growth projections for the global economy and predicted the United States — the epicenter of the financial meltdown — will continue to lose traction.

"The world economy is now entering a major downturn in the face of the most dangerous shock in mature financial markets since the 1930s," the IMF said in its report...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27083134/[copy & paste]

Jan 4, 2008

Bush: Economy On Solid Foundation

http://acnn.wordpress.com/2008/01/04/bush-economy-on-solid-foundation/

As previous entries in GlobalHigherEd (see here and here and here, as examples) argue, global indicators increasingly matter, not because they are always able to tell us much that is useful, but they work as a powerful disciplinary tool on nations. This, in turn, provides the issuing agent, in this case the OECD - ostensibly a 'collective learning machinery' - with an important mechanism for influencing the form and scope of education policies and programs around the globe. This is the tangible stuff of globalization – but this problem/solution toolkit is not without its own epistemological problems. Let’s take a look at two countries reported on this week – which headlined the OECD's Report in the following way.

In the UK, the BBC and the Telegraph focused on the graduate league table, and the fact that the UK has not fared particularly well. The evidence? In 2000, the UK ranked 4th in the world in the number of school-leavers going to university. By 2006, this had plummeted to 12th.

Graeme Paton of the Telegraph reported on an interview with Andreas Schliecher, the OECD’s architect of Education at a Glance. According to Dr. Schliecher, the UK has major problems in producing school leavers with sufficient quality of credentials, whilst other countries have managed to sort out these problems and were already in the fast lane, leaving the UK behind.

Ministers canvassed by the Telegraph, however, insist that they were tackling the shortfall by encouraging more pupils to go to university and by pointing out the OECD good news story for the UK, that university graduates in the UK aged 25-64 earned 59 per cent more than other people – well above the national average.

In Canada, the influential Macleans magazine reported that in the OECD Education at a Glance comparisons, Canada was one of the few countries with the highest percentage of its population having completed post-secondary education. However, we are also given another statistic, and that is that the earnings advantage gained from completing post-secondary education in Canada had decreased in recent years and was quite low compared to other OECD countries. This is reflected in the lower average private rate-of-return on investment in post-secondary education relative to other nations in the OECD.

Let’s dwell, and not just ‘glance’, at these figures for a moment, and ask what is being reported here by the OECD:

• competitive economies need a more highly educated workplace to perform more demanding work;
• all countries need to encourage their young people to go to university and complete a degree; and
• the incentives for this expenditure (which is increasingly being paid by families) are that there will be a higher rate-of-return to the student than if the student had not gone to university.

However, as we can see from our example above, countries with high levels of graduation (which the OECD says is good) report increasingly lower returns to graduates (ah...and is this not bad?).

Now, this is where the underlying human capital/homo-economicus rationale underpinning the OECD’s Education at a Glance begins to falter – for it cannot explain why it is that following the OECD’s prescriptions – of a high level of enrolment in higher education - reduces the overall earnings to the individual rather than increasing it.

While not one that is acknowledged in the repertoire of the OECD’s 'problem/solution toolkit' approach, this is where a sociological analysis is particularly helpful. As sociologists of education (see Phil Brown and Simon Marginson) have shown using Fred Hirsch’s insights on 'positional goods' tied to social status in his book The Social Limits to Growth, an advantage will only have economic value when no-one else has it. That is, its value depends on its scarcity. In other words, if we all have a graduate degree, then its value is diminished in the marketplace compared with when only half of us have one. This is part of the dynamic, for example, underlying degree inflation.

There's also another issue, and this is the assumption that jobs in the 'new knowledge economy' will require us all to have graduate qualifications. However, the Confederation of British Industries (reported in the UK Guardian newspaper on the 17th Sept), disagrees, arguing that universities were producing far too many graduates leaving more than a million people in jobs for which they were overqualified. They argue that there are currently 10.1 million graduates in the UK, but only 9 million graduate jobs.

The deeper, and more tricky, question for policymakers now becomes: do we encourage everyone to hop onto the same credential treadmill with fewer and fewer returns and potentially higher levels of indebtedness? To be sure, there are important outcomes for individuals of a university education. However this experience is becoming more and more expensive, and the promised lifetime earnings are likely to be less and less. And who will shoulder the cost? Families? Employers? The State? And, how might the state and interrnational organizations, like the OECD, legitimate more and more credential inflation when the current 'knowledge economy' discourse is showing it to be somewhat hollow?

Or, ought we not think through what a range of trajectories might be that distributes talent/skills/training and investments over a wider portfolio of education/training/career options than is currently being presented to us?

Susan Robertson

Raport  OECD  - Edukacja w zarysie – 2008: wskaźniki OECD

Education at a Glance 2008: OECD Indicators

Polska wydaje na studentów dwa razy mniej niż Europa

Polska

W USA, które na edukację wydają o połowę więcej niż cała Europa, student dotowany jest kwotą 24 tys. dol. Słynąca z najlepszych inżynierów Finlandia na jednego studenta wydaje mniej, ale też dużo - ponad 12 tys. dol. Niemcy na jednego studenta mają 12,4 tys. dol., Czesi - 6,6 tys. dol.

Ogłoszony właśnie raport Organizacji Współpracy Gospodarczej i Rozwoju (OECD) o stanie edukacji "Education at a Glance 2008" pokazał, że w ciągu ostatnich 10 lat kraje członkowskie OECD zwiększyły nakłady na edukację o ponad 20 proc., a przeżywające burzliwy rozwój Korea i Irlandia ponaddwukrotnie.

Podobnie jak Węgry, które pierwsze efekty solidnych inwestycji już odczuły: zdołały sprzątnąć Polsce sprzed nosa lokalizację Europejskiego Instytutu Innowacji i Technologii.

Polski budżet na szkoły, uczelnie i badania naukowe przeznacza 5,9 proc. PKB. Z pozoru nieźle, bo to na poziomie średniej OECD. Ale gdy przełożymy procenty na konkretne kwoty, są powody do niepokoju.

Niedoinwestowanie widać też w polskiej oświacie. Na jednego ucznia w szkole podstawowej mamy dwa razy mniej pieniędzy niż średnia dla krajów OECD, która wynosi 6,2 tys. dol.

Premier Donald Tusk zapowiada, że edukacja będzie jednym z trzech priorytetów finansowych w budżecie na 2009 r. Nakłady na naukę mają wzrosnąć o ponad 18 proc., na oświatę - o 7,6 proc.

Ale to może nie wystarczyć. Polski system edukacyjny pilnie potrzebuje racjonalizacji wydatkowania publicznych pieniędzy. Eksperci alarmują, że zbyt dużą część przejada rozdęta administracja

Problemem Polski jest także to, że edukacyjne nakłady przejada rozbudowana do monstrualnych rozmiarów administracja. Doktor Jerzy Lackowski ze Studium Pedagogicznego UJ wyliczył, że co czwarta budżetowa złotówka z edukacyjnego funduszu płac idzie nie na nauczycieli, ale na urzędników.

Jedenfalls sind die Statistiken der OECD von allererster Güte, was diese sich auf dem (Buch-)Markt teuer bezahlen läßt. Bestimmte Statistiken, beispielsweise Länderstatistiken, kommen periodisch heraus; ebenso Bände mit "...at a glance" im Titel ("... auf einen Blick"), in welchen sozusagen die Basiszahlen zu Kernthemen zusammengefaßt werden. Gerade kam Bildung auf einen Blick des Jahres 2008 heraus, was läppische 65 € kostet, es sei denn, man ist Leser/in in einer Hochschulbibliothek, welche die ganzen OECD-Datenbanken und eBooks ("Source OECD") abonniert hat, dann hat man auch diesen Bericht gratis. Aber man kann ja auch erst einmal in die Inhaltsangabe des BMBF schauen, von dort wird man, wenn man weiter Interesse hat, zu einer zweiten Seite geleitet, die die Inhalte knapp zusammenfasst und eine PDF-Datei zum Herunterladen anbietet, die dann auf 15 Seiten wesentliche Aussagen des statistischen Kompendiums referiert.

Wenn Sie mich fragen: Der Inhalt bezieht sich auf Schulen, er bezieht sich auf Hochschulen. Daneben kann ich nichts entdecken, was auf die ganze Infrastruktur deutet, die um Bildung drumherum notwendig ist. Oder habe ich etwas überlesen?

Use of migrant workers to supplement an already low supply of workers in OECD countries has been a fact of life for many years. This is especially true Europe where ageing service providers need them to be able to maintain enough workers to care for their residents.

According to a recent BBC article on the OECD, rich countries are trying to encourage permanent migration by highly skilled migrants while restricting less-skilled immigrants to temporary status. As noted in the report, ‘cycling repeated waves of temporary workers in and out of a country to work at the same jobs is inefficient.’

Cycling of temporary workers, coupled with the fact that many countries are tightening their immigration policies due to political pressure and concerns about economic slowdowns, complicates the situation and puts a greater strain on companies in need of workers.

Deutschland bildet zu wenig Hochqualifizierte aus
Deutschland fällt bei Akademiker-Ausbildung zurück
Deutschland gehen die Akademiker aus
Arme deutsche Bildungselite
"Patient Bildung" - Herumdoktern bringt nix
Um die Mängel wissen
Bildungsnotstand: Deutschland verliert weiter an Boden
Deutschland hinkt hinterher
Wirtschaft drängt auf Bildungs-Reformen
Für Bildung mehr auf die Tube drücken

Zitat aus dem Artikel "Die Bildungsrepublik" (Spiegel-Online vom 26.08.2008)

Das wahre Problem des deutschen Bildungssystems ist jedoch nicht der Schimmel oder der Rost, der manche Schule und Hochschule verunstaltet. Das lässt sich mit Geld reparieren.

Das wahre Problem des deutschen Bildungssystems liegt darin, dass es auch im übertragenen Sinne von Schimmel und Rost überzogen ist. Viel zu lange wurde viel zu wenig getan.

Dem ist wohl nichts mehr hinzuzufügen.

In der letzten Bürgerschaftssitzung war auf Antrag der Fraktion DIE LINKE die erste und zweite Lesung des Gesetzes zur Einführung der nachgelagerten Studiengebühren getrennt worden. Im Verlauf der Debatte hatte die wissenschaftspolitische Sprecherin Dora Heyenn noch einmal auf die abschreckende Wirkung von Studiengebühren - gleich welcher Art - hingewiesen.

Diese Warnung wird durch die in der OECD-Studie genannten alarmierenden Zahlen bestätigt: Mit einer Quote von 21% Hochschulabsolventen eines Jahrgangs liegt Deutschland im weltweiten Vergleich um 16 Prozentpunkte hinten. Nur noch Griechenland, Slowenien und die Türkei haben eine geringere Quote an Hochschulabsolventen.

"Es muss alles getan werden, um mehr Abiturienten für ein Hochschulstudium zu motivieren. Studiengebühren bewirken genau das Gegenteil. Deshalb müssen sie in Hamburg abgeschafft werden", fordert Dora Heyenn.

Sie hofft, dass die durch DIE LINKE erwirkte Denkpause bei dem Studiengebührengesetz auch tatsächlich von den Bürgerschaftsabgeordneten genutzt wird:

"Die Verfassungsväter und -mütter haben sich ja was dabei gedacht, ein Gesetz zeitlich verschoben in mehreren Durchgängen zu debattieren, bevor es verabschiedet wird. Wir setzen darauf, dass alle Abgeordneten noch einmal darüber nachdenken. Die OECD-Studie sollte nicht abgeheftet, sondern genau gelesen werden", so Dora Heyenn.
Am 17. September stehen Studiengebühren erneut auf der Tagesordnung der Bürgerschaft.

Britain 'to fall into recession'

Many exporters have been hit by the stronger euro

The UK, Germany and Spain will fall into recession in 2008, the European Commission has predicted.

Brussels said the three countries would see two negative quarters of economic growth in a row, which is the technical definition of a recession.

In its latest economic forecast, the commission also downgraded its outlook for eurozone growth again.

It said the 15-nation bloc would now grow by 1.3% this year, against previous projections of 1.7%.

Earlier this month, data showed the region's economy shrank by 0.2% between April and June - the bloc's first decline since its creation in 1999.

The contraction was driven by a slowdown in exports and consumer spending.

But high inflation in the region led policy makers at the European Central Bank to keep interest rates at 4.25% at its latest meeting, allowing no relief for the eurozone's slowing economies.

In its latest report, the commission believed that inflation was now likely to creep up to 3.6% in the eurozone - above its previous predictions of 3.2% and way above the government's target of 2%.

Gloomy outlook

Shaken by a housing slump and volatile financial markets, the Brussels-based organization predicts that the UK economy, which is not a member of the eurozone, will shrink by an annual rate of 0.2% in each of the next two quarters.

The grim outlook echoes forecasts from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) out earlier this week, which were even worse.

According to the latest official figures, the UK economy did not grow at all in the second quarter of 2008.

The European Commission said the UK economy would grow by 1.1% in 2008 - much less than the 1.7% previously forecast and a sharp reduction from the official Treasury forecast of 2.5%.

A second quarter of negative growth is also expected in the German and Spanish economies, which are expected to contract by 0.2% and 0.1% respectively.

Stubborn inflation

Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia blamed ructions in the financial markets, soaring commodity prices and the housing slump for the gloomy outlook.

"In a context of an unusually high degree of uncertainty, the external headwinds not only had a direct adverse impact on inflation and capital costs, but also an indirect one on confidence," he said.

Stamping out hopes of an interest rate cut in the near term, Mr Almunia said even if economic activity were to slow further, inflation risks were still "tilted to the upside".

"The risk of second-round effects can not be excluded, although there is no evidence of any widespread such effects so far."