Davos, Switzerland - Lo?c Le Meur has some videos from a blogging panel at the 2004 World Economic Forum.

You can just skip to the good bits. (Free registration may be required, but it’s worth your while.)
Italy’s Coming Credit Crunch
Sounds a lot like what Edward’s been describing. Glad BW agrees.
China is the Talk of Davos
If Europe can’t manage domestically driven growth, maybe China will. Or will American demand have to drive the world [...]

Olivier Guichard, one of ‘the Last Barons of Gaullism’ has died. New York Times has an obituary.

Well, well, what do you know: Paramalat’s real debt is much bigger than was first thought. What a surprise. According to the Financial Times Parmalat’s gross debt now stands between ?14.5bn and ?14.8bn ($18.08bn-$18.46bn). At the same time its main Italian operations barely made a gross operating profit last year. Meantime Italy’s unions are [...]

2003 was a good year for the Spanish banks, with interest rates at historic lows, lending boomed. News has it today that net profits at Santander Central Hispano, Spain’s largest bank, rose 29.6 per cent in the fourth quarter to ?681m ($857m) mainly on strong mortgage lending in Spain and growth in its consumer finance [...]

We were happy when AFOE was nominated for a Koufax Award, so we’re even happier to learn that we’re in the final seven for Best Group Blog. Thanks to everyone who’s nominated or voted for us and we hope to live up to your expectations over the next year!

Today, the NY Times features a review of recent books on the Bush administrations’ foreign policy.

Austere but elegant, and with fine views of an historic rococo church, this lovely building would make a fine weekend cottage. And you could be the lucky bidder when it comes under the hammer! There’s one thing you’ll want to have removed before settling in, though: the corpse of Franz Josef Strauss.

[...]

What harm does running a European-style high-spending welfare state do to a country’s GDP? The answer, surprisingly, turns out to be “none at all”. Peter Lindert’s paper, “Why the Welfare State Looks Like A Free Lunch”, shows that a welfare state doesn’t depress GDP in the way that conventional economic analyses predict. Why not? Over [...]

Joschka Fischer, visiting Ankara, comes out strongly for (eventual) Turkish accession to the EU, reports the S?ddeutsche:
Europa werde ?einen hohen Preis? daf?r zahlen, wenn es die T?rkei aus der Europ?ischen Union heraushalten wolle. F?r Europas Sicherheit sei die T?rkei wichtiger als ein ?Raketenabwehrsystem?…
[Europe will pay a high price if it wants to keep Turkey out [...]