Post-Democracy

Imagine that you learnt that, in a Europeran country, very proud of its democratic history, a party had just massively won elections but, since the electoral system is mostly proportional and there are very many parties, it came just short of an absolute majority and needs a few seats from a coalition party to reach it.
And yet, absolutely no party accepts going into a coalition with them. In fact, almost all of them went as far as categorically stating, before the elections, that they would not join them in a majority.

Before learning any more, what would be your expectations about this party?
Categorically refusing to join the clear winner of a popular vote is a fairly strong statement. It might make sense if you are at the polar opposite, but here EVERY party refuses to enter into a coalition with them, so what do you think?

Romantic violin

I hadn't listened to it in years, but had no particular idea that morning and my eyes fell on it. It was a recording of the Bruch and Mendelssohn (second -his famous one is his second) violin concertos by Yehudi Menuhin.

And let's be honest, it is a far from faultless recording. It was 1994 and Menuhin (then 78) was far too old, he who experienced hand problems too. It is clear that his virtuosity, never what you really looked for in Menuhin anyway, no longer could spell out clearly the quicker passages of both third movements.
But it does not matter one bit. Sit yourself right in front of the speakers and just let fly, enjoy his musicality. Bruch is powerful, primal music, the notes seem written exactly to make the violin resonate to the maximum. Mendelssohn is etheral subtlety and obsessive melodies. And, of course, Menuhin, a superbly passionate player, plays a superb instrument. This is not an exam of hitting the right notes. It is performing music.

Though I had listened to both concertos (particularly the Mendelssohn) many times in the interval, I probably had not played this CD for many years. It carried an impressive passion. As the acceleration and then first chords of Bruch's third movement happened, they brought far stronger shivers than the recent London bout of cold could manage.

Sometimes you can only quote

Paul Krugman brings very clear light on a couple of data points that may go unnoticed to those who don't deeply follow macroeconomics.

I don't see much to add -or much to substract for that matter, which I feel compelled to do for it not to be a direct copy and paste (Mark Thoma told me in an email how difficult he sometimes found this exercise, in deference to him I will force myself to carry it too).

[...] One thing is not a risk, because it has already happened: the euro area has entered a Japan-style deflationary trap.

No, it’s not literally deflation at an EA-wide level, but that doesn’t matter — slightly positive and slightly negative inflation with interest rates already at the zero lower bound are essentially the same. Furthermore, southern Europe still needs substantial amounts of “internal devaluation” — that is, still needs to reduce costs and prices relative to Germany — so that a low overall euro area inflation rate means destructive deflation in much of the continent.

And if you look at the implied market forecast, it’s truly disastrous. Right now, German 5-year bonds offer a yield of zero — an implicit firm forecast that Europe will be in a liquidity trap for the foreseeable future, while 5-year index bonds are yielding about -0.35 percent. That’s telling you two things: investors see so little in the way of profitable investment opportunities that they’re willing to pay the German government to protect their wealth, and they expect something like 0.3 percent inflation over the next five years, which is catastrophically below target.

How is this supposed to end? [...] It’s really hard to see how the ECB could gain enough traction here to solve the problem even if it didn’t face internal dissent from the hard-money types.

So don’t think of Europe as having a tough but workable economic strategy, endangered by Greek voters and such. Europe is at a dead end; if anything, Greece is doing the rest of Europe a favor by sounding a wake-up call.

Still crazy after all these years

Quick (because the train home would not wait) visit to the Louvre during the holidays.

With little time there is no way to see many sections, so after the African rooms (mostly because the queue to get in there was shorter than at the main entrance), onwards to ancient Greece.

And, despite many previous sightings, it still comes as a shock. From the archaic, xoanon copies with strong Egyptian influence -which are by all means interesting by themselves- what a jump to the Hellenistic period, and their expressive attitudes!

In several of the rooms, you just want to stop in awe at many of the sculptures. No wonder artists of the Renaissance went crazy about them.So many incredible details were captured and are still visible -it makes me wonder how far some of the sculptors may have gone: Bernini's efforts in the 1600s are arguably much more delicate, but would also not have survived had they been carved in antique Athens (there is no way the small laurels there would have coped with the tumultuous destiny of Greek statues). We may not see their most ambitious efforts, and yet we are in awe.

It is such a contrast to the stability of Egyptian art (I know, there were religious reasons behind their stability and, in contrast, Greek evolutions) to witness this comparatively rapid change, laying the foundations for so much of later art.

Even a quick visit is always good use of your time. The Louvre may be oversized, often overcrowded, it certainly is not overhyped.