Green Shoots Turn to Weeds: Or at least that's how the Financial Times interprets the minutes from the last Federal Reserve meeting, which were bleaker than expected. Warren Buffett is feeling a bit of the bleakness himself, now that Moody's, a ratings agency he part-owns, downgraded his investment vehicle, Berkshire Hathaway. Felix Salmon doesn't think this is such a bad thing.
Rotting Apples: The Treasury Department wants to regulate venture capitalists as if they were hedge funds in order to protect against systemic risk. But a Wall Street Journal editorial asks, what systemic risk? VCs fund companies like Apple and Google in their early years; they don't engage in complicated derivatives transactions with multiple counterparties. Will regulation choke a vibrant source of innovation?
"Lehman Shock" in Japan: Unemployment has always been low by world standards in Japan -- even during the country's "lost decade" unemployment never broke 5.5 percent. That may change this year. The jobless rate will reach 5.7 percent by next March, according to a Bloomberg survey, and homelessness is on the rise. Some are calling it a ripple effect of "Lehman Shock."
Is the U.S. Causing Global Hunger?: Poor nations need investment, not aid, says Foreign Policy.
What About the IMF?: Dan Rodrik asks, what would it take to make international finance safe? A true lender of last resort, he says. But didn't the IMF just get another $1.1 trillion in funding at the G20 Summit? "It still remains to be seen how the IMF will operate and whether the new resources at its disposal will be adequate in light of the scale of the financing needs emerging and developing countries face."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
