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Archive for October, 2008

Missouri turning

Monday, October 27th, 2008

Deciding where to observe campaigning in battleground states isn’t easy these days. At the end of September, Pennsylvania seemed to be swinging, as did Ohio and Colorado. Florida wasn’t. Now Florida is a toss up and all others mentioned seem to be leaning towards Obama or even solidly behind … Continue Reading…

Concluding the Doha Development Round: A Global Response to a Global Crisis

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008

When the subprime crisis started to turn into a full-blown financial crisis for the United States, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück claimed that the crisis was principally a U.S. problem and that Germany’s banking system was robust enough to cope with potential losses. Unfortunately, Mr. Steinbrück was wrong … Continue Reading…

After the Debates, Reading the Electoral Map

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008

I watched last week’s final presidential debate with GMF colleagues in town from Germany, Romania, and Serbia, which was fun and fascinating.  Without attributing anything to them, they seemed to me to respond most to Obama’s demeanor:  he appeared calm at a … Continue Reading…

Engage Iran if we can, deter and contain it if we must

Monday, October 20th, 2008

President Eisenhower is reported to have said that one way to solve problems is to expand them. This is an insight worth recalling as the United States and Europe try to stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon.

Europeans and Americans share vital interests in the Middle East and have pursued … Continue Reading…

Will Beijing bail the West out – or is China going down too?

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

Commentators have been jumping over each other to spell out the likely implications of the geopolitical power shift brought about by the global financial crisis. And there’s one big winner. In a recent paper, Brad Setser compares today’s United States and China to Great Britain and the United States … Continue Reading…

Euronews: GMF’s Lafond on the upcoming U.S. election

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

Francois Lafond, GMF’s Paris office director, was recently on Euronews to discuss the upcoming U.S. elections. The video is embedded below.

Euronews video

Trade Liberalization in a Post-Doha Environment

Monday, October 6th, 2008

History tells us that multilateral trade rounds never die, and Doha is no exception. If the negotiations cannot be concluded this year, they will enter a period of hibernation, and things will pick up again when conditions are ripe to engage in a meaningful negotiation (probably during the second half … Continue Reading…