The Baltic Times kindly authorized me to make my articles available in my homepage. If you’re interested, go to http://www.janisberzins.lv.
Popularity: 7% [?]
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I am against Latvia adopting the Euro, while it is an underdeveloped (developing, if you prefer) country. This is an interesting letter from a guy from the financial market, explaining why. If you want to read more, there is one editorial from The Baltic Times written by me, explaining more profoundly this question: “The Euro and its crisis: a financial or structural question?” – http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/25636/ From Mr Vincent J. Truglia. Sir, In article after article on the eurozone crisis, including opinion pieces, I have failed to find descriptions of the real problem. In the early 1990s I was the analyst handling the European Union’s rating. I remember clearly being told by various EU technocrats that they knew the system wouldn’t work, but it was a political decision to guarantee Germany remaining linked to western Europe post unification. It won’t work because there is no internal mechanism large enough to transfer gains from the core countries that gain from the euro to losing countries. By definition, peripheral members of any large currency bloc require large subsidies to keep their economies on an even keel. Countries such as Canada and Australia have explicit equalisation transfer mechanisms. The US handles the same problem indirectly. Unless the eurozone is willing to establish a large federal government with significant taxing powers, the euro is doomed. Since I assume a large federal government is not likely in the foreseeable future, the only solution is for the peripheral countries such as Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland and possibly others to leave the eurozone as soon as possible. They need to return to flexible exchange rates and interest rates, or their economies will not grow rapidly as they historically did. It is quite easy to exit the eurozone. A government simply needs to redenominate its existing debt in euros into its local currency. If it wasn’t a default when local currency debt was redenominated into euros, then denomination back to their former currencies shouldn’t be considered a default. Vincent J. Truglia, Popularity: 5% [?] Since January, I’ve been writing some editorials to “The Baltic Times.” Until now they are 5: The Euro and its crisis: a financial or structural question?; Houdini and immigration: Latvia’s solution for economic development; Oligarchs and Economic development or how to be a failed state; Does the state have a role in helping Latvia exit this crisis? This were four. The last one begins like this: Until now, Latvia still does not have a consistent plan for promoting economic development. Rather, the logic of Latvia’s civil servants and politicians is quite simple, not to say naive. It follows a very simple logic: 1) we will adopt the Euro, as we’re doing everything, 2) after adopting the euro, rate agencies will give us a better grade, 3) Latvia will experiment an investment boom resulting into economic sustainable economic development, as a result of investors trusting Latvia’s economy. A very simple model, giving a very simple answer. As with all simple answers, it is not useful. Nevertheless, Joseph Schumpeter in his forward to Frederik Zeuthen’s ‘Problems of Monopoly and Economic Welfare’ made this clear, when he wrote that the economist and the reader “will have to make up his mind, whether he wants simple answers to his questions or useful ones – in (…) economic matter he cannot have both.” This is Latvia’s most serious problem. As a result of the low level of economic sophistication of the people conducting Latvia’s economy, only simple, thus not useful, answers are contemplated. See more in The Baltic Times: http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/26084/ Popularity: 3% [?]
I just realized the guys are preparing one of the biggest swindles in Latvia’s recent History and, as usual, we are going to pay the bill. The deal is that the government will not get the money that was invested in Parex back. Not integrally. So, Parex will be divided: a ‘healthy’ part and a ‘rotten’ part. The ‘healthy’ part will be sold by an amount much smaller than invested by the government (by the government means by US). The politicians will say that in relation to what was sold the price was the best one could expect. That it was really a good business. Than, they will say that the ‘rotten’ part will be reformulated again, and that it will be sold by an amount sufficient to cover the investment made by the state. However, as it is ‘rotten’, so rotten as Latvia’s economy, nobody will be interested in buying it. Of course: Latvia’s crisis is structural and not simply financial. So, a real recovery is going to happen only after several years. Investors know that. Contrarily to Latvian economic specialists, they have really studied economics. They know the discipline. So, they are not going to buy the ‘rotten’ part. So, what will happen? The government will have to absorb it, becoming responsible for it. Than, the politicians will say: ‘The IMF said we have to use the money from the privatization of the ‘healthy’ part to reduce the budget’s deficits related to the ‘rotten’ part.’ As a result, just a very, very, very, tiny part of all that money will be recovered. Or, even worst. May be nothing. Than, the politicians will say (hoping in people’s very short memory to what happen in the country): ‘But we are not guilty! The IMF made us to do it.’ Yeah… ‘The voices… The voices in my head…’ It happened in Latin America and in Asia, it will happen in Latvia. By the way, Artis Kampars, our economic ministry, is a mechanic engineer, specialized in “Motor cars and car servicing.” Latvia’s economy is in the hands of a cars’ mechanic (together with two physicists, who don’t know that economics is a different discipline than crude mathematics). God help us. Popularity: 19% [?] Hi guys! This is one of my articles, this time to the Baltic Times. “It is commonly believed that the Chinese word for ‘crisis’ (Wei-Ji) is the combination of ‘danger’ (Wei) with ‘opportunity’ (Ji). Another interpretation is that the meaning of Ji in Wei-Ji is closer to the ‘crucial point.’ Whatever the correct meaning is, a time of crisis represents both ideas. It is a ‘crucial point’ in the sense that something is wrong and thus must be changed; at the same time it represents the opportunity to change.” Buy the print edition or read more at http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/24254/ Popularity: 23% [?] One Saturday, after hearing a conference at SSE Riga, Jānis Ošlējs and I started to talk how would be great to have a conference discussing economic development beyond the ideological approaches common to Latvia. So, we started working on it, we added Jānis Grēviņš to the team, and here we are. The conference’s speakers are high level academics in the field of economic development, with practical experience working with developing countries. As Latvia is intellectually very hermetic and monotonic, it is a great chance to hear other opinions about what is going on in Latvia and in the world, and possible solutions. The speakers are (in alphabetical order): Conference’s Speakers
Andrejs Berdņikovs Andrejs Berdnikovs is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Latvia. He is an editor for Eastern Europe and coordinator for Eastern European group at the journal “Interface: a journal for and about social movements”. During 2008-2009 he was a Fulbright Research Scholar at the University of Washington, Seattle.
Jānis Bērziņš teaches Political Economy, International Political Economy, and Economic Aspects of Globalization at Riga Stradins University’s Faculty of European Studies. His research is mainly focused in social and economic development problems, the relationship between economics and politics, and the role of ideology as determinant of economic mainstream, i.e., the process of masking agent interests to make them to appear to be “science” and/or part of a natural process, influencing the process of social and economic development.
Jānis Ošlejs Jānis Ošlejs is an entrepreneur and economist, based in Riga, Latvia. He is chairman and co-owner of Primekss, a European group of high-tech composite concrete contractors. Headquartered in Riga, Latvia, Primekss has subsidiaries in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Poland and Baltic States. Other ventures include molport.com, an online database and marketplace for scientists working for drug discovery, PrimeTeh –a R&D company created to pursue green concrete construction through better material science and PrimeThermos – a venture to exploit a patent in energy-efficient housing.
Erik S. Reinert is Professor of Technology Governance and Development Strategies at Tallinn University of Technology. His research area is the theory of uneven growth, i.e. the factors which – contrary to the predictions of standard economic theory – cause world economic development to be such an uneven process. The outlines of the particular framework of evolutionary economic theory to which Reinert subscribes can be found at www.othercanon.org . Reinert holds a He has worked as managing director of a multinational manufacturing firm with production plants in four European countries. The last fifteen years Reinert has dedicated to teaching and researching in the theory and history of uneven development, with particular attention to innovation and its absence and to the History of Economic Policy as an under-researched area, i.e. what kind of economic policy nations have actually carried out historically as opposed to what reigning theories told them to do. Reinert has worked as a consultant to various European Union organizations on innovation theory and policy. His book How Rich Nations got Rich and why Poor Countries Stay Poor (London, Constable & Robinson, 2007) was on Financial Times’ bestseller list. His edited books include Globalization, Economic Development and Inequality: An Alternative Perspective (Cheltenham, Elgar 2004) and (with Jomo K.S.) The Origins of Economic Development, How Schools of Economic Thought have Addressed Development (London, Zed 2005). His works have been translated into 12 languages.
2004-2008 Coordinator of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation for the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, established in Riga
Professor Alfredo Saad-Filho has taught and researched in universities in Brazil and Mozambique as well as the UK. He has published widely on the political economy of development, industrial policy, Latin American political and economic development, inflation and stabilisation. He held the position of head of department of Development Studies at SOAS between January 2007 and December 2009.
Jeffrey Sommers Jeffrey Sommers is visiting lecturer at SSE Riga. He is the co-director of the Silk Roads Project at SSE Riga, and creator and curator of the Andre Gunder Frank Memorial Library at the school. His research centers on economic history, global studies, global governance, and hegemonic transitions. Embedded within this work is research on European Studies, with emphasis on labor migration in Europe within the framework of a wider political economy and regulatory regimes. Recent empirical studies have been on Baltic labor migration from new EU Member States in the context of European integration. Publications are both solo and collaborative interdisciplinary monographs, along with international peer-reviewed journal articles, published and in progress. Interdisciplinary methodological research consists of employing qualitative approaches (interviews and archival work) while making use of extant quantitative data sets. He divides is primarily based in the US, but has several years experience in the Baltics on Fulbright and other grants.
Jan Toporowski worked in fund management and international banking before becoming and academic at the end of the 1980s. In 2003-2004, he was an Official Visitor in the Faculty of Economics and Politics at Cambridge University. In 2005 he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Bank of Finland. He currently teaches in the Economics Department of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and is a Research Associate in the Research Centre for the History and Methodology of Economics at the University of Amsterdam. Jan Toporowski has published widely on financial and monetary economics and is currently engaged on a study of the economist Michal Kalecki.
1969: Laurea in Economics, University of Torino. Alessandro Vercelli is Full Professor of Economics at the University of Siena, Italy. He is Vice President of the Executive Committee of the International Economic Association. He is author and editor of several books and articles in the fields of economic policy, economic methodology, cycle theory and environmental economics. Conference Program Latvia at Crossroads: Scenarios and Strategies for Socio-Economic Development When: Friday, January 15, 2010 at 9.00 Where: RTU Riga Business School, Skolas iela 11 Organizers: RTU Riga Business School and RBS Alumni Association Supported by: European Commission in Latvia Program 8:30 – 9:00 – Registration 9:00 – 9:20- Opening remarks
9:20 – 10:50 Development Crossroads: Development of Underdevelopment
“Neoclassical Economics: a Trail of Economic Destruction Since the 1970s”
“”Neoliberalism, Crisis, and Prospects for Development”
“Neoliberalism and the Development of Underdevelopment in Latvia: perspectives for the future” 10:50 – 11:10 Coffee Break 11:10 – 12:40 Sustainable Development: Society and Economics (moderator: Jānis Grēviņš)
“Latvia’s development: past, present, and future directions”
“Challenges to Sustainable Development in Latvia”
“Crisis, Social Movements and Alternative Knowledge Production: an International Comparison with Latvia” 12:40 – 13:00 Coffee Break 13:00 – 14:30 Development vs. Postponed Capitalism (moderator: Mihails Hazāns)
“’Capitalism Postponed: Eastern Europe after Communism”
“A Perspective on Minsky Moments: The Core of the Financial Instability Hypothesis in Light of the Subprime Crisis”
“Strategies for development: winning the crisis in Latvia”
To register: e-mail: ilze.arklina [at] rbs.lv Participation fee: Ls 20, payable to “Rīgas Biznesa skolas Absolventu asociācija” Registration No. 40008061874; A/s “Swedbanka” Account No.:LV51HABA0551007259646 NO participation fee for active students and academic staff (of any institution), politicians and press! Popularity: 24% [?] One of my papers will be published on the next issue of the Journal Humanities and Social Sciences. There I analyse the term Knowledge Society refering to a peculiar form assumed by the capitalist system in the last forty years, also representing its specific social, economic, ideological, and political systems. Although there is a strong rhetoric denying it, it is quite obvious that politics and economics are interconnected, at the same time their relationship influences the social dynamics, establishing specific patterns of ideological dominance. One characteristic of the knowledge society is the negation of any form of connection between these variables, denying at the same time its ideological character. The alleged separation of the political from the economic and the social forms the base to Schumpeterian democracy to becoming Knowledge Society’s political model, which is based on neoliberalism by the economic side. Want to read more? CLICK HERE to download the full paper. Popularity: 19% [?] Tautas Partija and its leader Andris Šķēle represent what is wrong with Latvia. Šķēle, Segliņš, Rozentāle, Demakova, Slakteris, Kalvītis, Veldre, just to cite a few, are very responsible for Latvia being in the situation it is nowadays. Of course the other parties also have their share of guilty. But none never united such a big quantity of people only thinking about capture the state to enrich themselves than Tautas Partija. The biggest favour these people could do for Latvia is to get out from public life. But they can’t.
My life is a money racing. The next will change our people, I was chosen when I was born I’m the schemes’ king, I don’t know how this is going to end. This is not a simple lottery, I don’t differentiate friends from enemies anymore, Ah, how I would like to have only one free day, Popularity: 14% [?] Hi everybody! As you know, I am very busy writing my doctoral dissertation to write an exclusive post to the blog right now. Anyway, as I am discussing the ideological question in the postmodern approach, I just found this debate between Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault, which I would like to share with you. Have a nice time hearing the men.
Popularity: 79% [?]
The first lecture in this series focuses on: The lecture discusses how Finland has developed as a state, society and culture between the 1910s and the turn of the millennium. How were the international threats handled? How have values and the national identity been formed in a sometimes rapidly changing world, and how this has dictated the construction of the Finnish society? The lecture will be given by Professor Henrik Meinander, University of Helsinki. The lecture will take place on Tuesday, November 10, 16.00 – 18.00 at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, Strelnieku iela 4a. Please register for the lecture at: http://www.sseriga.edu.lv/node/681 Popularity: 12% [?] |
 
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Watching Domburs’ Show while making some exercises, made me realise that Kampars’ voice is practically the same of Homer Simpson in ‘The Simpsons’ Brazilian version. Although an interesting discovery, this is not the most important thing one can realize watching tonight’s Kas Notiek Latvija.
Erik Reinert
Alfredo Saad Filho
Jan Toporowski
During the academic year 2009/2010 the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga in cooperation with the Embassy of Finland and the Embassy of Sweden intend to offer a series of lectures on various aspects of the ”Nordic Model” and its eventual relevance for the Baltic countries.
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