Protectionism a la carte

From the Financial Times, an excellent report of the many temptations of European politicians to revert to protectionism.

We see things like: capital controls of various kinds, repatriation of international capital, "buy Spanish/Swedish/French etc" pleas, a devaluation war of sorts (between the pound and the Euro), a competition among national governments for the biggest stimulus plan, attempts to bribe companies to continue operations within national boundaries and not shed off jobs and, finally, money siphoned off to non-competitive companies on the basis of nationality.

Things are not that gloomy, I hope. Even the French and the Italians seem to see the benefits of free trade. We cannot go back to the pre-Single European Act situation. Capital controls and Keynesian stimuli are hardly the equivalent of tariffs. However, the current chaos in financial markets is very unhealthy and unsustainable. Seriously, there would be no bigger disaster if the frantic government activity of national governments that blatantly protects the financial sector spills over into other domains of the economy creating huge disincentives for economic integration of the EU. This is not about salvaging neo-liberalism - it is about saving European unity in order to be able to face crises in the future in an effective way. Then again if you tell Central and Eastern Europeans about European unity these days, they will laugh at you, having seen all their euro and pound reserves evaporate in a matter of months.

Funny informercial of the week

I wanna hang out / with the History of Art crowd

Below is the average weekly budget and the average parental income of the undergraduates at the University of Cambridge, based on their major of study. The survey was conducted by the student newspaper and reproduced for the Times:

By Subject:

Average weekly budget/Average Parental Income

History of Art £182, £118k
Management £171, £67,500
Architecture £155, £83,100
Land Economy £153, £74,000
Geography £148, £104k
Classics £137, £84,600
Economics £137, £117k
Maths £134, £78,000
Philosophy £129, £57,700
Computer Science £127, £50,900
Oriental Studies £125, £87,800
English £122, £61,200
SPS £119, £77,600
Law £112, £80,000
Music £107, £80,000
MML £106, £62,200
History £106, £74,800
ASNaC £104, £63,300
Theology £103, £74,900
Engineering £92, £68,100
Natural Sciences £90, £64,600
Arch & Anth £89, £52,200
Medicine £86, £62,300
Education £78, £46,500
Vet. Medicine £76, £64,600

My initial reaction: I pity the poor management guys who really stretch the family budget to buy expensive cocktails for the History of Art girls. Then again, the strange dynamics eventually come back to haunt the poor History of Art girls as this highly alarming NYT article reveals:

Dawn Spinner Davis, 26, a beauty writer, said the downward-trending graphs began to make sense when the man she married on Nov. 1, a 28-year-old private wealth manager, stopped playing golf, once his passion. “One of his best friends told me that my job is now to keep him calm and keep him from dying at the age of 35,” Ms. Davis said. “It’s not what I signed up for.”