1.Slow Growth and Short Tails
Project Syndicate DEC 31, 2013
NEW YORK – The global economy had another difficult year in 2013. The advanced economies’ below-trend growth continued, with output rising at an average annual rate of about 1%, while many emerging markets experienced a slowdown to below-trend 4.8% growth. After a year of subpar 2.9% global growth, what does 2014 hold in store for the world economy?
The good news is that economic performance will pick up modestly in both advanced economies and emerging markets. The advanced economies, benefiting from a half-decade of painful private-sector deleveraging (households, banks, and non-financial firms), a smaller fiscal drag (with the exception of Japan), and maintenance of accommodative monetary policies, will grow at an annual pace closer to 1.9%.
Moreover, so-called tail risks (low-probability, high-impact shocks) will be less salient in 2014. The threat, for example, of a eurozone implosion, another government shutdown or debt-ceiling fight in the United States, a hard landing in China, or a war between Israel and Iran over nuclear proliferation, will be far more subdued.
Still, most advanced economies (the US, the eurozone, Japan, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada) will barely reach potential growth, or will remain below it. Households, banks, and some non-financial firms in most advanced economies remain saddled with high debt ratios, implying continued deleveraging. High budget deficits and public-debt burdens will force governments to continue painful fiscal adjustment. And an abundance of policy and regulatory uncertainties will keep private investment spending in check.
The outlook for 2014 is dampened by longer-term constraints as well. Indeed, there is a looming risk of secular stagnation in many advanced economies, owing to the adverse effect on productivity growth of years of underinvestment in human and physical capital. And the structural reforms that these economies need to boost their potential growth will be implemented too slowly.
2. Germany's fear of job seekers from new EU members
DW.DE Jan. 03, 2014
Germany has tried to keep Romanian and Bulgarian job seekers out as long as possible. Other countries seem to be a lot more comfortable with integrating new EU citizens into their labor market.
It's one of the fundamental rights of EU citizens that they can look for work in any of the member states. By joining the bloc, the people of any new member are granted this right - though not necessarily with immediate effect. Other countries in the 28-member bloc have to the option to somewhat restrict that freedom of movement for a maximum of seven years. In the case of members Romania and Bulgaria, nine of the older members have done so - among them Germany and the United Kingdom.
Since the beginning of the year, this restriction has been lifted, which has reignited a debate in Germany over the country's immigration laws. It's a discussion triggered by the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union. Prominent party members have been warning of what they described as "poverty immigration." UK Prime Minister David Cameron has raised similar concerns, warning of social welfare "tourism."
Poor woman with pram
Many Germans are concerned, immigrants will abuse the country's welfare system
3. Michael Schumacher in critical condition after skiing accident
CNN December 30, 2013
Seven-time Formula 1 champion Michael Schumacher gives a news conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 2011. The German driver was hospitalized December 29 after suffering "severe head trauma" from a ski accident in the French Alps. Here's a look back at his personal and career highlights: Seven-time Formula 1 champion Michael Schumacher gives a news conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 2011. The German driver was hospitalized December 29 after suffering "severe head trauma" from a ski accident in the French Alps. Here's a look back at his personal and career highlights:
(CNN) -- Michael Schumacher, the most successful driver in Formula 1 history, is in critical condition after suffering severe head trauma in a skiing accident in the French Alps on Sunday, hospital officials said.
The 44-year-old German, who retired from the elite motorsport for the second time in 2012, fell and hit his head on a rock, said the director of the Meribel resort where Schumacher was skiing.
Schumacher was in a coma when he arrived at the University Hospital Center of Grenoble and required immediate brain surgery, hospital officials said in a written statement.
But doctors haven't released details about his injuries or his prognosis.
Michael Schumacher's condition unchanged What happened in Schumacher accident?
Resort director Christophe Gernignon-Lecomte said the incident happened while Schumacher was skiing off-piste (on unmarked slopes) Sunday morning in the mountains of Meribel resort between Georges Bauduis Piste and La Biche Piste.
Gernignon-Lecomte told CNN the racing star was wearing a helmet when he hit his head. Rescuers reached him minutes later and airlifted him to a nearby hospital, he said.
4. After Antarctic Drama, Chinese Rescue Ship Is Threatened by Ice
The New York Times January 3, 2014
A helicopter from the Chinese vessel, the Snow Dragon, was part of a dramatic operation on Thursday that displayed unusual international harmony in one of the world’s most remote and inhospitable places, plucking the passengers from a makeshift landing zone on the ice near the Russian research ship that had been lodged in ice for more than a week.
Images of the passengers being rescued from the Akademik Shokalskiy showed them smiling as they walked single file to a landing area on the ice that had been cleared by passengers and crew members. Other images on the Internet showed crew members hauling sleds laden with luggage.
The red-and-white Chinese helicopter transported the scientists, tourists and journalists to a waiting Australian icebreaker, the Aurora Australis, which had been expected to head to Australia’s island state of Tasmania and arrive there with its new passengers by mid-January.
But on Friday, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which has been managing the rescue, said it had been told by the crew of the Snow Dragon that the vessel could become icebound and that the Aurora Australis had been placed on standby in open water to help. The Chinese crew members had “concerns about their ability to move through heavy ice in the area,” the authority said.
The Snow Dragon, or Xue Long in Chinese, said it would try to move through the ice when tidal conditions were suitable early on Saturday, the Australian authority said in a statement on its website.
The 22 crew members of the Russian ship have said they will stay on board and attempt to sail the ship away from Antarctica when the ice eases.
The 233-foot blue-hulled research ship has been stuck fast since Dec. 24 near Cape de la Motte, about 1,700 miles south of Hobart, Tasmania. The ice is so thick that previous attempts to rescue the passengers using ice-breaking vessels failed.
The rescue was closely followed around the world by scientists and others, with journalists on board sending progress reports.
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