The Ticker >> Quick commentary on economics, politics & the world from Bloomberg View
To Cheer or Not to Cheer, a Republican Debate Question: The Ticker
Don’t worry, Newt Gingrich. The 1,200 audience members at tonight’s Republican debate in Jacksonville, Florida, will be allowed to cheer, clap and boo.
After the audience was asked to stay silent during Monday’s debate, Gingrich, whose debate performances have seemed to thrive on cheers and jabs to the media, threatened to skip future debates if the audience couldn’t participate.
Translating the Fed's New Inflation Policy: The Ticker
One can only squeeze so much into 850 words on a tight deadline. So here are some additional thoughts on the Federal Reserve's ground-breaking announcement yesterday of zero rates in perpetuity that didn't make it into today's column.
It's official (sort of): The Fed now has an explicit inflation target, expressed as a "goal," of 2 percent. That compares with an implicit target of 1.5 percent to 2 percent, as measured by the personal consumption expenditures price index. In other words, the Fed's inflation goal is higher than it was before.
Fed's Low-Rate Promise Lasts Well Into Next Presidential Term: The Ticker
How's this for managing expectations? Federal Reserve officials announced today that they expect short-term interest rates to stay close to zero until late 2014. That's where interest rates have been since December 2008, and 18 months longer than the Fed had previously promised to keep rates very low.
It's also nearly two years into the next president's term. If Barack Obama loses, a new Republican president may very well replace Ben Bernanke, based on the pounding the Fed chairman has been getting from Republican candidates on the campaign trail. “I’d like to have a Fed chairman that shares my views and that I have confidence in,” Mitt Romney said in a CNBC interview to air tonight.
Greek Default Looms With a Touch of Schadenfreude: The Ticker
Patience is running out. We are now in the third calendar year of Europe's sovereign-debt crisis and the region's No. 1 problem child, Greece, is looking more and more like a hopeless case. Without a new rescue package of 130 billion euros ($168 billion), the country might be bankrupt by March.
Calls for Europe's northern countries, notably Germany, to show more solidarity with their weaker neighbors have been based on the assumption that nations such as Greece are willing, but unable, to repay their towering debt. But what if austerity isn't in the Greek vocabulary and the government in Athens doesn't want to change? Surely that blunts any incentive for benevolence from foreign taxpayers. Some commentators in Germany, the only country that can save Greece from default, sense the need for more drastic action to solve the crisis in light of Greek recalcitrance and the country's failure to rein in its public debt.
Haitian Refugees Find Little Comfort in Brazil: The Ticker
It has been two years since a 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated large swaths of Haiti, the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. One consequence has been an exodus of people to points north and south. A rising number are heading to Brazil, whose booming economy makes it an appealing draw for Haitians seeking to escape.
Too often, though, rather than getting a fresh start, what Haitians encounter is nothing short of cruel and inhumane. This week, Brazil's TV Globo network did a long report on the Haitian migration. The conclusion: the conditions that many Haitians find themselves in are as bad, and perhaps worse, than in their own country.
Mitt Romney Is Not a Robot: The Ticker
From the very start of the Republican presidential contest last year, Mitt Romney was the most disciplined, best prepared and most articulate of the candidates. He experienced no loopy Michele Bachmann moments. He advocated no empty Herman Cain slogans. He had no Rick Perry bouts of stupefying ignorance or cringe-inducing "oops."
Romney's debate answers are sometimes astonishingly crisp. His stump speech rarely veers off message (and his message itself is usually on target). He has run such a highly professional campaign, and with such personal precision, that he is sometimes accused of being an automaton. I googled "Mitt Romney robot" this morning and got 2,170,000 responses.
How the Gold Standard Can Get You Drunk: The Ticker
Here's a fun game to liven up tonight's debate of Republican presidential hopefuls in South Carolina: Down a shot of some potent beverage each time one of the candidates mentions the need to return to the gold standard.
A word of warning: You might not make it through the evening.
GM Back on Top Among the World's Automakers: The Ticker
Attention taxpayers: Pat yourself on the back. General Motors Co., one-third of whose shares are owned by you, sold 9,025,942 vehicles last year, up 7.6 percent from 2010. The accomplishment is probably enough to restore GM's place as the king of automakers.
And it's only been two years since you bailed the company out -- to the tune of $50 billion.
Imagining Headlines From New AP Bureau in Pyongyang: The Ticker
Depending on your view of the world, sense of adventure and love of life's creature comforts, it's the best job in journalism or the worst: Pyongyang bureau chief.
For now, The Associated Press is staffing international newsgathering's first full-time North Korea office with two locals. It may be a reach to think the Hermit Kingdom would welcome two foreigners so soon after Kim Jong Il's death.
On Keystone Pipeline, Denial Need Not Lead to Delay: The Ticker
The Obama administration's announcement that it will reject TransCanada Corp.'s application to build and operate the Keystone XL pipeline through the Great Plains may do nothing to slow the project. At least, it need not.
Two months ago, the State Department announced it would consider a new route for the pipeline, as Nebraska state lawmakers were about to demand, in order to skirt the wetlands and other sensitive ecosystems in their state's Sandhills region. The Obama administration said that it would take 14 months to devise a new route; Republicans in Congress demanded a decision by Feb. 21 and included the deadline in the payroll tax bill passed last month.