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To: Alex who wrote (22384)	10/28/1998 6:04:00 PM
From: Enigma	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 116753

Alex - good article - who's to say they're wrong either - the laissez faire approach has led to huge excesses at the top and bottom. I think we've seen in Ontario a copy of the 'Contract with America' harsher really, because there are few checks and balances here - the CWA never quite made it. E

To: Alex who wrote (22384)	10/28/1998 7:07:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116753

US Offers Help on Caspian Oil Route Wednesday, 28 October 1998 A N K A R A , T U R K E Y (AP) A U.S. energy envoy expressed confidence Wednesday that oil companies would pick a proposed Turkish route for oil from the petroleum-rich Caspian Sea over an alternative through the Black Sea. Turkey has been in intense negotiations with energy companies to push them to pick its route from the Caspian, whose reserves are believed to be the world's largest outside the Middle East but remain largely untapped. The companies are expected to announce their decision Nov. 12. Richard Morningstar, U.S. envoy for Caspian energy development, stressed U.S. support for the Turkish-backed route, which would take oil from the Azerbaijan capital of Baku across Georgia to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. "All the companies agreed that Baku-Ceyhan should be the route. The concerns that the companies raised were commercial issues that we think are being worked out," Morningstar said. The chief alternative is an existing pipeline from Baku to the Georgian Black Sea of Supsa. Oil companies reportedly have been favoring that route, showing reluctance to invest in the estimated $2.5 billion cost of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline. Turkey's main argument against other routes is the already heavy oil tanker traffic through the Bosporus strait, which has led to hundreds of accidents. Morningstar insisted that the financial concerns of the oil companies were being addressed by Turkey. Turkey is offering to build its own stretch of the pipeline; Morningstar said the Turks also were offering tax exemptions. He outlined planned U.S. financial support for Baku-Ceyhan, including backing from the Export-Import Bank, political risk insurance from the Overseas Private Investment Corp., and government-sponsored feasibility studies.

To: Alex who wrote (22384)	10/29/1998 4:12:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116753

No sign of let-up in Bonn assault on central banks 01:54 p.m Oct 29, 1998 Eastern By Douglas Busvine BONN, Oct 29 (Reuters) - The war of words between Germany's new government and the Bundesbank and the European Central Bank just won't die down -- if anything it is intensifying. Social Democrat Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine has kept up his verbal barrage against central bankers since last month's election triumph, urging them to ease monetary policy to boost demand-led growth and create new jobs. Both the Bundesbank and the ECB, which will take charge of monetary policy after the launch of the euro currency in January, have rebuffed the political salvoes. So now Lafontaine's lieutenants have entered the fray to add new firepower to his offensive. Heiner Flassbeck, the intellectual father of Lafontaine's neo-Keynesian brand of economics, said on Thursday that, with government finances already under strain, monetary policy should do more to stave off a looming economic slowdown. Germany is on the verge of deflation, he said, and ''if there is a deflationary risk, the Bundesbank must cut interest rates.'' Flassbeck, who has made his name at the German Institute for Economic Research by swimming against the tide of monetarist orthodoxy under Germany's old conservative government, is set to take charge of international affairs as finance state secretary. His future fellow state secretary Claus Noe, meanwhile, accused Bundesbank President Hans Tietmeyer of trying to ''depoliticise'' money and seeking to evade accountability for monetary policy. ''That is an absolutely pre-democratic, absolutist policy,'' he wrote in an article for Die Zeit weekly. ''It's motto is: don't interfere in the business of the experts, because it doesn't concern you.'' Independent economists say that the new government's bold calls for a monetary policy rethink arise from the limited scope it has to give the economy a boost by loosening fiscal policy. European countries are still grappling with budget deficits on the eve of monetary union, while the United States, which has brought federal finances back into surplus, has more room to administer an expansive mix of fiscal and monetary policies. ''In Western Europe monetary policy is more significant than in the U.S. because we simply do not have the instrument of fiscal policy,'' Norbert Walter, chief economist at Deutsche Bank Research, said. But Michael Groemling, an economist at the Institute for the German Economy (IW) in Cologne, warned that monetary policy would achieve little if it did not go hand-in-hand with measures to fight structural barriers to growth and employment. ''Monetary policy is not a cure-all,'' he told Reuters. Groemling was speaking after the IW published a new forecast that German economic growth would fall to two percent next year, down from an expected 2.75 percent this year. That is below the joint forecast of 2.3 percent growth next year published by Germany's six leading economic institutes -- which include the IW -- just last week. Other analysts see a more sinister agenda behind Lafontaine's hard line. The thinking goes something like this: If interest rates stay put and the economy then slides into recession, politicians will be able to blame the central banks for not helping out. On the other hand, if central banks do bow to political pressure, politicians will gain power. That would dovetail well with the ambitions of the left-wing governments in Germany and France to build up a political counterweight to the ECB. ''I don't know exactly what Lafontaine's thinking is, but you certainly can't rule out such motives,'' one analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. Whatever the long-term thinking, the outspoken line taken by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government marks a dramatic break with half a century during which politicians have honoured the independence of the Bundesbank. Former Finance Minister Theo Waigel has scented a conspiracy by what he called the ''Socialist International'' to undermine the independence of central banks. That sentiment was echoed on Thursday by Erwin Teufel, the conservative premier of Baden-Wuerttemberg state. ''It's a devastating signal for international financial markets and Germany's economy when the new government casts overboard one of the central pillars of German stability,'' Teufel said. Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.