Sve najbolje i ministrici Martini Dalić. Nisam ni prijazno ni neugodno iznenađen postavljanjem Martine Dalić za ministricu financija. Uglavnom, reakcije su pozitivne po medijima jer za razliku od Šukera, Dalić ima više stručnosti. Svi se slažu, i ja to ne dovodim u pitanje, da je Dalić stručna i dovoljno kompetentna, pozna makroekonomsku situaciju, bankarski sektor kao i unutarnju organizacju ministarstva i Vlade na račun svog prijašnjeg rada u Vladi. Ipak, ništa od toga nije impresionirajuće niti na čemu treba bazirati velika očekivanja. Ništa drugačije, nikakav kvalitetan potez ne očekujem. Makroekonomiju pozna i svaki ekonomist u HNBu. Što posebno treba isticati da Dalić pozna makro situaciju kao nekakav plus? Poznavao ju je i Šuker pa opet ništa. Dalić je stručna ekonomistica u odnosu na koga? Šukera ili Matu Crkvenca? Vidim da se ističe kako Dalić

“svoje stavove obrazlaže čvrstim ekonomskim objašnjenjima i da za razliku od dosadašnjeg ministra izbjegava političke fraze. U stanju je, navode, okupiti stručnjake, napraviti bolne rezove, te vjeruju kako Hrvatskoj pod njenom palicom ne bi trebao MMF.”

Živi bili pa vidjeli. Stav treba i prodati i provesti, ne samo obrazložiti. To je ono što se očekuje od ministrice. Ipak, pokazalo se više puta da se sve svede na dobro diagnosticiranje problema i “trebamo” politika, a bez provedbe. Slično kao sa onim programom oporavka. Ništa više, nažalost, ne očekujem ni od nove ministrice financija. Proračun je donesen i bez rebalansa sa dobim razlogom ne treba očekivati veće promjene u proračunu. Već smo imali 15 rebalansa u 12 godina i još jedan zbog izbora nam stvarno ne treba. Bolje se ne nadati, nego razočarati.

Da li je prisan odnos sa bankovnim sektorom zapravo dobra stvar u ovo vrijeme? U vrijeme kada je Hrvatskoj potrebna fiskalna konosolidacija kroz smanjenje potrošnje i reforme javnih financija, Dalić bi u mjesto toga, zbog svojih odnosa sa bankarskim sektorom, možda mogla imati olakotne okolnosti u refinanciraju javnog duga. Financijski sektor uostalom i nju dobro zna. Za političare, linijom manjeg otpora je uvjek lakše ići, pogotovo kad si u lošem političkom okruženju prije izbora. Možda je to i jedan od razloga zašto je upravo ona sada postavljena za ministricu financija. Samo kažem.

O Martini Dalić i njenim pogledima sam jednom davno nešto i napisao. Bilo je to prije posljednjih izbora, vezano za onaj njen komentar ako investitori žele otići u susjedne zemlje “treba ih pustiti.” Od onda mi je to bilo dosta za Martinu Dalić, njenu kompetentnost i stručnost.

Uglavnom, ekonomski problemi ostaju isti i u 2011. Dalić je bolji tehnokrat što bi joj trebalo olakšati identificiranje problema, a u vezi provedni bolnih rezova ne treba puno očekivati.  Ipak, Dalić vjerojtno ima više iskrenosti i realnosti u ophođenju sa javnosti od Šukera.

Ništa drugo, nego Stankoviću u emisiju pa nek odgovoi na par pitanja, razjasni stanje državnih financija i pojasni kako fiskalno konsolidirati državu.

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2011. godina bi mogla biti prekretnica. Ponajviše zbog izbora. Jedan ciklus političke ekonomije bi trebao mogao završiti, a drugi započeti. Sve ekonomije i društva prolaze kroz nekakve cikluse. Barem povjesničari tako vole razmišljati. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. je za SAD deifnirao cikluse političke ekonomije između što ih mi zovemo social-demokrata (Demokrati tj. liberali) i konzervativaca (Republikanci). Razdoblje vladavine jednih na kraju uvijek podlegne nekoj vrsti pretjeranosti koju onda druga stranka iskoristi za dolazak na vlast. Ideja “krize” je centralna kako piše Skidelsky.

Hrvatska je još premlada da bi mogli identificirati nekakav ciklus. Sigurno postoje razdoblja tranzicije i potom konsolidacije političke scene. Ali tek negdje nakon normalizacije politike sa koalicijskom Vladom, HDZ započinje ciklus nekakve političke-eknomije. HDZ je sada definitivno u krizi i svojom gramzljivošću i korupcijom doveo je cijelo društvo u krizu. Izgubio je legitimitet i sposobnost. Jedino prirodno je da izgubi izbore (prekriži se i prekriži prste ovdje). Političko-ekonomski model HDZove vladavine je potrošen, bez puno za pokazati. Uglavnom se temeljio na vanjskoj politici i okrnjenoj ekonomiji. Ostavština? Ulazak u EU je na dobrom putu, a ekonomija puna problema.

Dolaskom nove stranke na vlast i nove Vlade, predovođene SDPom u nedostatku jače alternative, te ulaskom u EU krenuo bi novi političko ekonomski ciklus. Kako će izgledati teško je znati. Gledajući alternativu u politici teško je za očekivati samo dobro i bolje. Ipak, bolje od HDZ danas je gotovo sve. HDZ se koncentrirao na vanjsku politiku i postigao neke uspjehe, ali je oportunitetni trošak za ekonomiju bio daleko veći nego što je to itko htio platiti i što je vrijedilo platiti. Drugi zamah u ciklusu će vjerojatno dakle okrenuti ploču i staviti, kao šti bi i trebao, veći prioritet na ekonomsku politiku i rješavanje ekonomski problema. Uostalom kad uđemo u EU, što isto zahtjeva riješavanje ekonomskih problema, ništa drugo više neće ostati kao prioritet veća samo ekonomija.

Heath, imenjak, je mladi profesor filozofije na Sveučilištu Toronto. Čuo sam samo pohvale za par njegovih knjiga, ali  nisam uspio pročitati niti jednu do sada iako zvuče prilično zanimljivo. Ova neće pasti u tu kategoriju. Ipak, pošto je nisam pročitao ne znam koliko je dostupna jednom istočno europskom polit-ekonomskom miljeu. Po pod-naslovu reklo bi se da definitivno jest, i to pronto, te određene lekcije sigurno razjašnjavaju određene probleme kako u Sj. i Ju. Americi, tako i u Istočnoj Europi.

Why do we need a philosophy professor to explain economics to capitalist-hating lefties? Why are we failing to do it ourselves? I asked him this question, and he gave two answers.

…..

His second answer, speaking more generally from the experience of those who approach economics from the left of the political spectrum, was a less familiar complaint. The assumption of self-interest, usually introduced very early in the teaching of economics, is a real turn-off for lefties especially. Their reaction is: “Economics is based on the assumption that everyone acts selfishly; well that’s obviously false, as well as bad, so I might as well ignore this rubbish!”

He argues that though there is economic illiteracy on the right, economic illiteracy on the left, especially left-wing intellectuals who ought to know better, is much deeper ingrained. He blames the self-interest assumption for this.

Joseph Heath’s own views on the selfishness assumption are nuanced. He believes that people can and do act for other than selfish reasons, but getting them to act this way in certain contexts takes a lot of coaching. His answer to the Coasian question of the boundaries between firms and markets rests on the tension between this coaching people to play for the team and giving their self-interest free-rein. (Read the book if you want to know more).

My own take is that what is key to economics is not selfishness, but the assumption that different people want different things. If we all wanted the same thing (i.e. exactly the same allocation of resources), there would be no conflict, most of the “economic problem” of scarcity and choice would be reduced to production engineering, and there simply wouldn’t be very much for economists to talk about.

If all people were perfect altruists, who also shared all values, we would all want the same thing. Any other case will almost certainly result in some conflict from different people wanting different things, so we might as well call it “self-interest”, even if it isn’t.

Čitajte dalje ovdje. Knjigu razgledajte ovdje.

Calomiris i Wallison ukazuju da su u razdoblju 2004.-2007. ta dva poduzeća bila najveći kupci subprime i Alt-A hipoteka (Alt-A su niša iznad subprime ali još uvijek ne Prime ‘A’, hipoteke. Naziv je kratica za Alternative A). Na taj način izrazito su stimulirala razvoj tržišta nekvalitetnih, suboptimalnih hipoteka koje su se poslje pretvorile u “toksički” dug. Korijeni takvih odluka Fannie & Freddie sežu iz više faktora. Oba poduzeća su imala implicitnu državnu garanciju dugova, što ima je u očima tržišta dozvoljavalo da posuđuju po povlaštenom tretmanu i taj novac koriste za kupovinu hipoteka i hipotekarnih izvedenica. Nakon što su 2003/04. otkriveni skandali u obje firme, Kongres ih je pritisnuo da objasne svoju vrijednost društvu zbog koje uživaju povlastice poreznog novca i državne zaštite. No, nisu samo skandali bili razlog pritiska. Ekonomske studije su pokazale da Fannie i Freddie nisu postizale svoje nominalne ciljeve, tj. svojom kupoprodajnom aktivnošću na hipotekarnim tržištima omogućavale smanjenje kamatnih stopa na hipoteke za kupce. Neki od uzroka današnjih problema, po nekim komentatorima i analitičarima, je i Community Reinvestment Act kojeg je Kongres donio 1995. Cilj je bio spriječiti diskriminaciju u bankovnom poslovanju protiv siromašnijih četvrti i obavezati banke na poslovanje kroz čitavo tržište. Banke i ostale financijske institucije su zbog toga bile primorane posuđivati i stvarati mogućnosti za hipotekarno kreditiranje i kreditno nepodobnim klijentima, a uz to dozvoljena je sekuritizacija subprime hipoteka.

Argument koji su Fannie & Freddie dale u svoju obranu je da vrijednost koju pružaju je cijenovno dostupno stanovanje (affordable housing). Argument je bio hvale vrijedan – obitelji koje se ne bi kvalificirale za hipoteke jer nisu kreditno sposobne će ovako dobiti šansu za kupiti kuću, i ispuniti Američki san, jer će Fannie i Freddie kupiti njihove riskantnije hipotekarne zajmove na sekundarnom tržištu. Kongres je to pozdravio, progledao kroz prste i nastavio politiku implicitne državne zaštite. No da bi Fannie i Freddie potvrdile tu vrijednost za društvo pod čijom izlikom su se provukle, trebale su agresivnije kupovati subprime i Alt-A hipoteke. Kao što već čitatelji znaju, te hipoteke se izdaju (pogotovo subprime) riskantnijim kupcima, nižeg prihodovnog razreda i većeg kreditnog rizika, čija vrijednost je klabirala nakon prsnuća nekretninskog mjehura. Subprime i Alt-A su 2003. činile 8% svih postojećih hipoteka. U 2006. taj postotak je već bio na 20%. Zbog povećane potražnje za tim vrstama hipoteka primarni izdavatelji su srozavali standarde pod kojima su posuđivali novac sve riskantnijoj klijenteli. To je bilo vrijeme kada su nastali ninja loans – No Income, No Job, No Asset; kada su klienti bili primamljeni vrlo niskim početnim kamatama i uplatama, neznajući da će kasnije vrijednost tih uplata naglo skočiti i staviti ih u situaciju da ne mogu uplaćivati mjesečne rate.

Kao što i priliči izbornoj sezoni, autori iznose i neke politčke optužbe na račun Demokrata (oba imaju mjesto u konzervativnom AEI), koji sada pozivaju na pojačanu regulaciju dok su 2005. prešutili, uključujući Obamu, predloženi regulacijski paket za Fannie i Freddie. Demokrati optužuju i deregulacije za sadašnje probleme. Postoji razlika između deregulacije u raznim ekonomskim sektorima – nema potrebe da država regulira veličinu sendviča u avio kompanijama – i deregulacije u bankarskom sustavu ili pak postojanje zastarijelog regulativnog okvira za financijski svijet nekog drugog vremena. Drugim riječima, nepostojanje ikakvog regulativnog okvira, kao što je jučer iznio Christopher Cox, za određene instrumente (over-the-counter derivatives) kao faktor u današnjoj krizi nije isto što i smanjivanje postojećih regulacija. Neke vrste deregulacije su se pokazale i dobrodošlim u posljednje vrijeme – da Glass-Steagall Act nije ukinut 1999. i tako dopušteno spajanje komercijalnih sa investicijskim bankama, Merrill Lynch ne bi bio kupljen od BoA, već bi bankrotirao. Zanimljiv je i podatak da su 4 najveća primatelja Fannie Mae i Freddie Mac doprinosa u predizbornoj kampanji u razdoblju 1989.-2008. četiri Demokrata: Christopher Dodd, John Kerry, Barack Obama i Hillary Clinton.  (Članak u nastavku)

OPINION     *SEPTEMBER 23, 2008

Blame Fannie Mae and Congress For the Credit Mess

Many monumental errors and misjudgments contributed to the acute financial turmoil in which we now find ourselves. Nevertheless, the vast accumulation of toxic mortgage debt that poisoned the global financial system was driven by the aggressive buying of subprime and Alt-A mortgages, and mortgage-backed securities, by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The poor choices of these two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) — and their sponsors in Washington — are largely to blame for our current mess.

How did we get here? Let’s review: In order to curry congressional support after their accounting scandals in 2003 and 2004, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac committed to increased financing of “affordable housing.” They became the largest buyers of subprime and Alt-A mortgages between 2004 and 2007, with total GSE exposure eventually exceeding $1 trillion. In doing so, they stimulated the growth of the subpar mortgage market and substantially magnified the costs of its collapse.

It is important to understand that, as GSEs, Fannie and Freddie were viewed in the capital markets as government-backed buyers (a belief that has now been reduced to fact). Thus they were able to borrow as much as they wanted for the purpose of buying mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. Their buying patterns and interests were followed closely in the markets. If Fannie and Freddie wanted subprime or Alt-A loans, the mortgage markets would produce them. By late 2004, Fannie and Freddie very much wanted subprime and Alt-A loans. Their accounting had just been revealed as fraudulent, and they were under pressure from Congress to demonstrate that they deserved their considerable privileges. Among other problems, economists at the Federal Reserve and Congressional Budget Office had begun to study them in detail, and found that — despite their subsidized borrowing rates — they did not significantly reduce mortgage interest rates. In the wake of Freddie’s 2003 accounting scandal, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan became a powerful opponent, and began to call for stricter regulation of the GSEs and limitations on the growth of their highly profitable, but risky, retained portfolios.

If they were not making mortgages cheaper and were creating risks for the taxpayers and the economy, what value were they providing? The answer was their affordable-housing mission. So it was that, beginning in 2004, their portfolios of subprime and Alt-A loans and securities began to grow. Subprime and Alt-A originations in the U.S. rose from less than 8% of all mortgages in 2003 to over 20% in 2006. During this period the quality of subprime loans also declined, going from fixed rate, long-term amortizing loans to loans with low down payments and low (but adjustable) initial rates, indicating that originators were scraping the bottom of the barrel to find product for buyers like the GSEs.

The strategy of presenting themselves to Congress as the champions of affordable housing appears to have worked. Fannie and Freddie retained the support of many in Congress, particularly Democrats, and they were allowed to continue unrestrained. Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass), for example, now the chair of the House Financial Services Committee, openly described the “arrangement” with the GSEs at a committee hearing on GSE reform in 2003: “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have played a very useful role in helping to make housing more affordable . . . a mission that this Congress has given them in return for some of the arrangements which are of some benefit to them to focus on affordable housing.” The hint to Fannie and Freddie was obvious: Concentrate on affordable housing and, despite your problems, your congressional support is secure.

In light of the collapse of Fannie and Freddie, both John McCain and Barack Obama now criticize the risk-tolerant regulatory regime that produced the current crisis. But Sen. McCain’s criticisms are at least credible, since he has been pointing to systemic risks in the mortgage market and trying to do something about them for years. In contrast, Sen. Obama’s conversion as a financial reformer marks a reversal from his actions in previous years, when he did nothing to disturb the status quo. The first head of Mr. Obama’s vice-presidential search committee, Jim Johnson, a former chairman of Fannie Mae, was the one who announced Fannie’s original affordable-housing program in 1991 — just as Congress was taking up the first GSE regulatory legislation.

In 2005, the Senate Banking Committee, then under Republican control, adopted a strong reform bill, introduced by Republican Sens. Elizabeth Dole, John Sununu and Chuck Hagel, and supported by then chairman Richard Shelby. The bill prohibited the GSEs from holding portfolios, and gave their regulator prudential authority (such as setting capital requirements) roughly equivalent to a bank regulator. In light of the current financial crisis, this bill was probably the most important piece of financial regulation before Congress in 2005 and 2006. All the Republicans on the Committee supported the bill, and all the Democrats voted against it. Mr. McCain endorsed the legislation in a speech on the Senate floor. Mr. Obama, like all other Democrats, remained silent.

Now the Democrats are blaming the financial crisis on “deregulation.” This is a canard. There has indeed been deregulation in our economy — in long-distance telephone rates, airline fares, securities brokerage and trucking, to name just a few — and this has produced much innovation and lower consumer prices. But the primary “deregulation” in the financial world in the last 30 years permitted banks to diversify their risks geographically and across different products, which is one of the things that has kept banks relatively stable in this storm.

As a result, U.S. commercial banks have been able to attract more than $100 billion of new capital in the past year to replace most of their subprime-related write-downs. Deregulation of branching restrictions and limitations on bank product offerings also made possible bank acquisition of Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch, saving billions in likely resolution costs for taxpayers.

If the Democrats had let the 2005 legislation come to a vote, the huge growth in the subprime and Alt-A loan portfolios of Fannie and Freddie could not have occurred, and the scale of the financial meltdown would have been substantially less. The same politicians who today decry the lack of intervention to stop excess risk taking in 2005-2006 were the ones who blocked the only legislative effort that could have stopped it.

Mr. Calomiris is a professor of finance and economics at Columbia Business School and a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Wallison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, was general counsel of the Treasury Department in the Reagan administration.

Članak je Američki pogleda na pitanje nuklearki, pa nije posebno kompatibilan sa energetskim potrebama malih zemalja poput Hrvatske. Ali neka pitanja su podjednako važna oko odluke o izgradnji nukleaki. (Našoj javnosti, čini mi se, nije ni jasno tko bi uopće trebao donjeti tu odluku za čitavo društvo. Netko od naših političara? Neki vrli tim energetskih intelektualaca? Tržište? O tome se baš i ne priča.) Uglavnom, sigurno da ovo nije detaljno razmatranje svih aspekata nuklearne energije/nuklearke, poput The Future of Nuclear Power by MIT, ali je dovoljno informativno sa DA i NE strane po pitanjima:

-Nuklearka kao odgovor na globalno zatopljenje (Iako Hrvatska kao mala zemlja tu ne može puno ili išta napraviti. Nešto o tome sam već pisao.) NE ne emitiraju ni živu ni sumpor.

-Ekonomije (troškovima) izgradnje NE i ekonomičnosti usporedo sa drugim izvorima poput ugljena i alternativnih izvora vjetra i sunca. BTW, ne zaboravite da nema besplatnog ručka. Na veliku žalost, mnogo zeleni upravo imaju takvo razmišljanje i tako predstavljaju alternativne izvore. (O ekonomiji NE je nedavno pisao i BusinessWeek.)

-Sigurnosti NE, tehnologiji, nesrećama i stavovima javnosti zbog slika Černobila ili “The China Syndrome” filma. Zašto je fokus samo na šteti/smrtnosti zbog NE? Stotine ljudi godišnje pogine u rudnicima ugljena, no tome se ne priča. Koja je potencijalna stopa smrtnost zbog nesreće u NE, a koja zbog globalnog zatopljenja? U borbi protiv globalnog zatopljenja NE pomaže, a opet fokus je samo na rizicima nesreće NE.

-Nuklearnim otpadom i skladištenjem, što je i u Hrvatskoj, kao i Americi, više politički problem, nego tehnički. -Bojazni oko proliferacije nuklearnog materijala (i.e. plašenje javnosti sa slikama mushroom cloud).

Is nuclear power the answer for a warming planet? Or is it too expensive and dangerous to satisfy future energy needs?

Interest in nuclear power is heating up, as the hunt intensifies for “green” alternatives to fossil fuels like coal and natural gas. Even some environmentalists have come on board, citing the severity of the global-warming threat to explain their embrace of the once-maligned power source.

But the issue is far from settled. Proponents insist that nuclear is a necessary alternative in an energy-constrained world. They say that the economics make sense — and that the public has a warped image of the safety risks, thanks to Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and “The China Syndrome.” Opponents, meanwhile, are convinced that the costs are way too high to justify the safety hazards, as well as the increased risks of proliferation.

Has nuclear’s time come? The debate rages on.

NUCLEAR’S THE ANSWER

The argument for nuclear power can be stated pretty simply: We have no choice.

If the world intends to address the threat of global warming and still satisfy its growing appetite for electricity, it needs an ambitious expansion of nuclear power.

Scientists agree that greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide, are building up in the atmosphere and contributing to a gradual increase in global average temperatures. At the same time, making electricity accounts for about a third of U.S. greenhouse emissions, mostly from burning fossil fuels to produce power.

Nuclear power plants, on the other hand, emit virtually no carbon dioxide — and no sulfur or mercury either. Even when taking into account “full life-cycle emissions” — including mining of uranium, shipping fuel, constructing plants and managing waste — nuclear’s carbon-dioxide discharges are comparable to the full life-cycle emissions of wind and hydropower and less than solar power.

Nuclear power, of course, isn’t the only answer. We need to get more energy from other nonpolluting sources such as solar and wind. Conservation is crucial. So is using technology to make more efficient use of fossil-fuel power.

But we have to be realistic about the limits of these alternatives. As it is, the 104 nuclear power plants in the U.S. generate about a fifth of the nation’s energy. Wind accounts for about 1%, and solar even less than that. Any increase in the number of nuclear power plants can help — even if they won’t solve the whole problem.

More important from the standpoint of displacing fossil fuel, nuclear can meet power demand 24 hours a day. Solar and wind can’t do that. Nuclear is the only current technology that fits the bill.

Getty Images

YES TO NUKES Dominion Resources’ Kewaunee nuclear plant in Carlton, Wis., on Lake Michigan.

The Real Economics

So, what’s the case against nuclear power? It boils down to two things: economics and safety.

Neither holds up to scrutiny.

First, economics. Critics argue that the high cost of building and financing a new plant makes nuclear power uneconomical when compared with other sources of power.

But that’s misleading on a number of levels. One reason it’s so expensive at this point is that no new plant has been started in the U.S. since the last one to begin construction in 1977. Lenders — uncertain how long any new plant would take because of political and regulatory delays — are wary of financing the first new ones. So financing costs are unusually high. As we build more, the timing will be more predictable, and financing costs will no doubt come down as lenders become more comfortable.

Loan guarantees and other federal incentives are needed to get us over this hump. They are not permanent subsidies for uneconomical ventures. Instead, they’re limited to the first half dozen of plants as a way to reassure investors that regulatory delays won’t needlessly hold up construction. It’s important to remember that although nuclear energy has been around a while, it’s hardly a “mature” industry, as some critics say. Because of the lack of new plants in so many years, nuclear in many ways is more like an emerging technology, and so subsidies make sense to get it going.

It’s also true that a shortage of parts and skills is raising the cost of new plants. But if we start building more plants, the number of companies supplying parts will increase to meet the demand, lowering the price.

Most important, nuclear power appears economically uncompetitive primarily because the price of “cheaper” fossil fuels, mainly coal, don’t reflect the high cost that carbon emissions pose for the environment. Add those costs, and suddenly, nuclear power will look like a bargain.

That’s likely to happen soon. Governments are expected to assign a cost to greenhouse gases, through either a direct tax (based on the carbon content of a fuel) or a so-called cap-and-trade system, which would set a limit on emissions while allowing companies whose discharges are lower than the cap to sell or trade credits to companies whose pollution exceeds the cap.

Suddenly, big carbon polluters like coal-produced electricity are going to look a lot more expensive compared with low-carbon sources — in particular, nuclear, wind and hydropower.

It’s estimated that a carbon “price” of between $25 and $50 a ton makes nuclear power economically competitive with coal. That should be enough to ease investor concerns about utilities that build new nuclear plants.

Even without a carbon tax, rising natural-gas prices are beginning to make nuclear power more competitive. That’s true even in some deregulated markets, such as Texas.

NRG Energy Inc., based in Princeton, N.J., has filed an application to build a reactor adjacent to an existing plant in Texas. Though it’s too early to know how much the plant will eventually cost — or even if it ultimately will get built — high natural-gas prices alone are enough to justify construction, according to NRG.

One other point on cost: Solar and wind advocates say these sources are cheaper than nuclear — and getting cheaper. But again, even if true, the intermittent nature of these sources make them flawed replacements for carbon-emitting sources. Nuclear is the only clean-energy way to address that gap.

No ‘China Syndrome’

Let’s turn to the critics’ other argument: safety. We’re still living in a world whose viewpoints have been warped by the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania and the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl plant in the Ukraine, as well as by the anti-nuclear movie “The China Syndrome.”

The truth is that there’s little doubt that in the U.S., at least, plants are much safer now than they were in the past. Those accidents led regulators and the industry to bolster safety at U.S. nuclear plants. There are more safety features at the plants, plant personnel are better trained, and reactors have been redesigned so that accidents are far less likely to occur. For instance, every U.S. plant has an on-site control-room simulator where employees can hone their skills and handle simulated emergencies, and plant workers spend one week out of every six in the simulator or in the classroom.

The next generation of plants is designed to be even safer, using fewer pumps and piping and relying more on gravity to move water for cooling the hot nuclear core. This means fewer possible places where equipment failure could cause a serious accident.

And even if a serious accident does occur, U.S. plants are designed to make sure that no radiation is released into the environment. Reactors are contained inside a huge structure of reinforced concrete with walls that are as much as four feet thick; the Chernobyl reactor lacked such a structure.

What’s more, you can’t look at safety in a vacuum. Consider the hazards of the world’s reliance on coal-fired plants: Coal mining world-wide results in several thousand deaths every year, most of them in China, and burning coal is a leading source of mercury in the atmosphere.

Furthermore, look at safety more broadly — from an environmental perspective. The death and destruction stemming from global warming far exceed what is likely to happen if there is a nuclear accident. And yet, when we talk about safety, we seem to focus only on the risks of nuclear power.

Politics of Disposal

The long-term disposal of nuclear waste is also a problem — but it’s mainly a policy issue, not a technical one.

Most experts agree that the best way to dispose of waste is deep underground, where radioactive materials can be prevented from entering the environment and where it can be guarded against theft or terrorist attack. In the U.S., the Energy Department picked Yucca Mountain in southwestern Nevada for a repository, but political wrangling has so far blocked proceeding with the site, and final approval is considered a long shot. Even if approved, it won’t be able to begin accepting waste for a decade or more.

In the meantime, interim storage in deep pools next to nuclear plants is considered sufficiently safe to meet the industry’s needs until well into the future. The amount of waste produced is relatively small; all the waste produced so far in the U.S. would only cover a football field about five yards deep. Older, cooler fuel can also be stored for decades in dry casks.

Longer term, advanced fuel recycling and reprocessing can reduce the amount of waste that needs to be stored. While reprocessing wouldn’t eliminate the need for a long-term repository, it can reduce the amount, heat and radioactivity of the remaining waste.

Stopping the Spread

Finally, critics say that an expansion of nuclear power will increase the danger that potentially hostile nations will use nuclear material from a power program to develop atomic weapons, or that rogue states or terrorists will steal nuclear material to make bombs.

While nonproliferation is an important consideration, the proliferation problem won’t be solved by turning away from nuclear power.

To curtail these risks, governments need to strengthen current international anti-proliferation efforts to, among other things, give the International Atomic Energy Agency more information about a country’s nuclear-related activities and IAEA inspectors greater access to suspect locations. Further, current fuel-reprocessing techniques are limited and new processing technologies are being developed to limit the amount and accessibility of weapons-grade materials (by, for instance, producing a form of plutonium that needs further reprocessing before it could be used in bombs).

One final point about security: One of the biggest dangers to our security is from oil nations providing support to anti-U.S. terrorist groups. The faster we can move away from carbon-based energy, the faster we take away that funding source. Nuclear energy offers the fastest and most direct path to that safer future.

NO TO NUCLEAR

Nuclear power isn’t a solution to global warming. Rather, global warming is just a convenient rationale for an obsolete energy source that makes no sense when compared to the alternatives.

Sure, nuclear power generates lots of electricity while producing virtually no carbon dioxide. But it still faces the same problems that have stymied the development of new nuclear plants for the past 20 years — exorbitant costs, the risks of an accident or terrorist attack, the threat of proliferation and the challenge of disposing of nuclear waste.

The cost issue alone will mean that few if any new nuclear power stations will get built in the next few years, at least in the U.S., and any that do will require expensive taxpayer subsidies. Instead of subsidizing the development of new plants that have all these other problems, the U.S. would be better off investing in other ways to meet growing energy demands and reduce carbon-dioxide emissions.

In fact, the sheer number of nuclear plants needed to make a major dent in greenhouse emissions means the industry hasn’t a prayer of turning nuclear power into the solution to global warming. One study from last year determined that to make a significant contribution toward stabilizing atmospheric carbon dioxide, about 21 new 1,000-megawatt plants would have to be built each year for the next 50 years, including those needed to replace existing reactors, all of which are expected to be retired by 2050. That’s considerably more than the most ambitious industry growth projections.

Getty Images

NO NUKES Greenpeace demonstrators wave an anti-nuclear banner as they stand on the roof of a truck near a nuclear treatment facility in western France.

Too Expensive

But let’s start with the biggest problem with nuclear power: the cost.

While no one knows what a new reactor will cost until one gets built, estimates for new construction continue to rise. Building a new plant could cost as much as $6,000 a kilowatt of generating capacity, up from estimates of about $4,000 a kilowatt just a year ago. FPL Group, of Juno Beach, Fla., estimates that two new reactors planned for southeast Florida would cost between $6 billion and $9 billion each.

Part of the reason for the rising cost estimates is the small number of vendors able to supply critical reactor components, as well as a shortage of engineering and construction skills in the nuclear industry. Perhaps the biggest bottleneck is in the huge reactor vessels that contain a plant’s radioactive core. Only one plant in the world is capable of forging the huge vessels in a single piece, and it can produce only a handful of the forgings a year. Though the plant intends to expand capacity in the next couple of years, and China has said it plans to begin making the forgings, this key component is expected to limit development for many years.

The only way to make nuclear power economically competitive would be the imposition of steep “prices” on carbon-emitting power sources. Nobody knows precisely how high those prices would have to go — there are too many variables to consider. But estimates range as high as $60 a ton of carbon dioxide. This imposes an unacceptably high price on consumers.

More important, though, there are less-costly ways of weaning ourselves off these carbon-emitting energy sources. Even if a high price of carbon makes nuclear economic, the costs of renewable energy such as wind and solar power are cheaper, and getting cheaper all the time. By contrast, nuclear is more expensive, and getting more expensive all the time.

Solving a Problem

And yes, it’s true that wind and solar suffer from the problem of not being available 24 hours a day. But new technology is already beginning to solve that problem. And we’d be better off — from both an economic and safety standpoint — if we used natural gas to fill in the gaps, rather than nuclear.

Subsidies to the industry distort the financial picture further. In the U.S., Washington assumes liability for any catastrophic damages above $10.5 billion for an accident, and has taken on responsibility for the disposal of nuclear waste. The 1995 federal Energy Policy Act also provides loan guarantees for as much as 80% of the cost of new reactors and additional financial guarantees of up to $2 billion for costs arising from regulatory delays.

The 1995 act saw subsidies as a way to prime the pump of a nuclear-energy revival in the U.S.; increased demand and a stable regulatory environment would ultimately reduce the cost of building new plants. However, the industry for 50 years has shown only a trend toward higher costs, and there’s no evidence that subsidies will spur any reduction in those costs.

And besides, if nuclear power is such a great deal, it should be able to stand on its own, and not require such subsidies from the taxpayer. Government subsidies should sponsor research and development into new or emerging energy technologies where prices are already falling and the subsidies can jump-start demand to help further bring down costs. They’re inappropriate for mature industries, like nuclear power, where market forces should be allowed to do their work.

The Safety Issue

Cost isn’t the only reason an expansion of nuclear power is a bad idea.

The safety of nuclear plants has certainly improved, thanks to changes adopted in the wake of the Three Mile Island accident. But safety problems persist, because the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission isn’t adequately enforcing existing safety standards. What’s more, countries where nuclear power is likely to expand don’t have a strong system for regulating nuclear safety.

The important thing to remember about safety is this: The entire nuclear power industry is vulnerable to the safety standards of its worst performers, because an accident anywhere in the world would stoke another antinuclear backlash among the public and investors.

There’s also the question of waste disposal. Proponents of nuclear power say disposal of the industry’s waste products is a political problem. That’s true. But it doesn’t make the problem any less real. California, for instance, won’t allow construction of more plants until the waste issue is resolved.

Opposition to a long-term waste repository at Yucca Mountain shows how difficult it will be to come up with a politically acceptable solution. Yucca Mountain has been plagued by questions about the selection process and its suitability as a repository, and even if it is ultimately approved, it won’t be available for at least another decade — and it will be filled to capacity almost immediately. If it isn’t approved, any replacement site will face the same opposition from neighbors and local political leaders.

Proliferation Threat

By far the greatest risk is the possibility that an expansion of nuclear power will contribute to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Plants that enrich uranium for power plants can also be used to enrich for bombs; this is the path Iran is suspected of taking in developing a weapons program. An ambitious expansion of nuclear power would require a lot more facilities for enriching uranium, broadening this risk. Facilities for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel for reuse pose the danger that the material can be diverted for weapons.

Expansion of nuclear power in the U.S. doesn’t pose a great proliferation risk, but a nuclear renaissance will put a strain on the current anti-proliferation system. Most of the growth world-wide is expected to be in countries — such as those in the Middle East and Africa — where a nuclear-energy program could give cover to surreptitious weapons development and create the local expertise in handling and processing nuclear materials.

The dangers of nuclear proliferation would be heightened if a nuclear revival turned to reprocessing of spent fuel to reduce the amount of high-level waste that builds up and to maintain adequate fuel supplies. Reprocessing is a problem because it can produce separated plutonium — which is easier to steal or divert for weapons production, as North Korea has done, than plutonium contained in highly radioactive fuel. And commercial reprocessing plants produce so much plutonium that keeping track of it all is difficult, making it easier to divert enough for weapons without the loss being detected.

If nuclear power really were able to make a big dent in greenhouse emissions, then it would be worth the time and resources necessary to address all these problems. Instead, though, the magnitude of these difficulties will keep any nuclear renaissance too small to make a difference, and will require expensive government support just to achieve modest gains. Those resources are better spent elsewhere.

Write to Michael Totty at michael.totty@wsj.com⁹

Najveći svjetski investitori nisu više kompanije sa Wall Streeta, već državne investicijske kompanije u JI Aziji i Bliskom Istoku. Upravo su one pumpale novac u Wall Street tokom ove financije krize. Zbog straha od političkih agenda iza tih investicija, Zapad podiže prepreke. WSJ piše o svemu tome na naslovnoj stranici u ponedjeljak. Država se afirmira i vraća u određene domene individua, poslovanja i investicija. Iako se ne radi o klasičnom protekcionizmu više, Thomas Friedmanov “ravni svijet” je sve manje ravan. On vjeruje da se radi samo o epizodi, dok Daniel Yergin vidi kraj lake globalizacije.

Rise of Nationalism Frays Global Ties – Trade, Environment Face New Threats; Balkanized Internet

By BOB DAVIS, April 28, 2008

The world isn’t as flat as it used to be.

During the long march toward globalization, international borders and trade barriers came down. Communism fell. Protectionist walls in Latin America and elsewhere were dismantled. Governments — long prone to meddling in trade — took a back seat to broader market forces.

In a globalization manifesto, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman declared that the Internet and other planet-spanning technologies were erasing national boundaries. The world, he said in a 2005 best seller, was flat.

No longer. The global economy appears to be entering an epoch in which governments are reasserting their role in the lives of individuals and businesses. Once again, barriers are rising. Call it the new nationalism.

“The era of easy globalization is certainly over,” says Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Yergin, whose 1998 book, “The Commanding Heights,” detailed the triumph of markets over nations, starting with British deregulation under Margaret Thatcher. “The power of the state is reasserting itself.”

(Ostatak teksta niže)

Just a decade ago, Asia, Latin America and Russia were on financial life support from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. The U.S. was planning yet another round of global trade negotiations. The European Union was writing a constitution to shift power to Brussels from member nations.

Now borrowers shun the IMF and World Bank. Trade talks are shelved. Barriers to foreign investment are rising around the world. State-owned companies are expanding, particularly in oil and gas. Public support of immigration restrictions is growing in countries from the U.S. to India.

The rising influence of governments can be seen in massive state-funded investment pools, many backed by countries that were reeling financially a decade ago. Sovereign wealth funds from Asia and the Middle East are now propping up wobbly financial institutions in the U.S. and Europe, and may hunt next for real-estate bargains. The growth of state power may also serve to make dealing with global climate change — the most borderless of all issues — even more difficult.

Security Concerns

What accounts for governments’ bigger role? The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, refocused the world on security concerns that can be addressed only by national governments. Countries enriched by the commodity boom are increasingly asserting their power, with Venezuela nationalizing oil fields and Russia threatening to cut off natural-gas supplies to Western Europe. A backlash against economic integration has also pressured national governments to retreat from multilateralism: Big pluralities in 21 of 34 nations polled by BBC World Service in December said the “pace of economic globalization” is moving too quickly.

The changes don’t presage an era of full-blown protectionism. The 15 countries that have shared the euro since 1999 will, despite occasional grumbling, continue to do so. Governments continue to obey rulings by the World Trade Organization, even if they must rewrite their own laws to comply. Mr. Friedman, the flat-world theorist, says that the reassertion of state power may turn out to be an “episode” rather than a trend, and that technologies will continue to empower individuals across boundaries.

Even so, there are mounting indications that governments are on the ascendant.

National boundaries are going up even on the Internet, the emblem of the borderless world. The Internet was designed to be beyond the reach of governments, shifting power to individuals or private organizations.

Now, pressured by Russia, China, India and Saudi Arabia, the U.S. company that assigns Internet addresses is working on ways for countries to use characters from their home languages. The familiar .org, .com and country codes in Web addresses will be replaced with their equivalents in Chinese, Hindi and many other languages. While that should help locals navigate the Web, it would also put many sites behind curtains to users from abroad. That would spell the end of the days when anyone with a keyboard that produces Latin letters can see sites in any land — essentially taking the “world wide” out of the World Wide Web.

“We’re facing a step-by-step Balkanization of the global Internet,” says Columbia University law professor Tim Wu. “It’s becoming a series of national networks.”

The rising strength of national governments expresses itself in different ways. For rich countries, it generally means higher taxes and more regulation. In the 30 mostly rich countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, tax revenue as a percentage of the local economy was higher in 2005, the latest year surveyed, than a decade earlier. That’s because of the rising cost to governments of health care and social security.

In the U.S., the severity and scope of the current financial crisis has eroded the case for letting markets operate with ever-lower government guard rails. The current question is not whether regulation will increase, but by how much. All three presidential candidates say they would pass tougher financial-market regulation and would also boost government programs to retrain workers battered by the global economy.

In rich and poor countries alike, immigration has become a powerful political issue, as improved transportation makes it easier for people to move across borders and compete for jobs with locals. There are backlashes against Burmese in India, Haitians throughout the Caribbean, Bolivians in Argentina and Zimbabweans in South Africa. In 44 of 47 countries polled by Pew Research Center last fall, majorities supported further restrictions on immigration.

In poorer countries of Africa and Asia, meanwhile, rising global food prices are prompting governments to erect new export barriers. “There is no place in the world that grows the food we need if we’re forced to import,” says India’s finance minister, P. Chidambaram. “Therefore we have to be nearly self-sufficient in all food items.”

Growing Influence

Capitals that once had little sway on the global scene now have a lot. The influence of Brazil, for example, has grown along with its economy. A week after WTO trade talks collapsed in July 2006, U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab jetted to Brasilia to confer with the country’s foreign minister, Celso Amorim, who also handles trade issues.

Mr. Amorim has become an unlikely power broker in the bid to wrap up the negotiations, which began in 2001. The talks broadly involve a prospective deal: The U.S. and Europe would slash agricultural subsidies if developing nations would lower their tariffs for industrial goods and broaden foreign financial firms’ access to their markets.

In the past, developing nations essentially ratified global trade deals negotiated by the U.S. and Europe. But Brazil, India and China are no longer following that script. Mr. Amorim has put together a group of 20 developing nations that want to limit market openings at home while pressing for agricultural liberalization abroad. Their assent is essential to reaching a deal. So far they have withheld it.

“Brazil holds the key to getting this done,” says Ms. Schwab.

‘It Was a Party’

Citizens of poor countries feel exhilarated by their governments’ new power. In Rio de Janeiro, Maria Aparecida Lemos, an AIDS patient who lost her sight, says she “celebrated like it was a party” last year when Brazil’s president voided a Merck & Co. patent on an AIDS drug. A Brazilian company now makes the drug, Efavirenz, for a fraction of what Merck was charging. Under global trade rules, developing countries have the right to override patents in emergencies, but few had done so for fear of retaliation.

Merck says it had already reduced the price of Efavirenz and was willing to cut further, but not enough to satisfy Brasilia. “Brazil may not be the kind of place you want to invest in,” says Jeffrey Sturchio, Merck’s vice president for corporate responsibility. Brazilian officials shrug off such threats, figuring the country’s growing wealth makes it a magnet for investment.

Energy companies have been among the first to feel the new nationalism. Since oil prices started rising in 2004, Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador have nationalized foreign-owned oil assets, the first big wave of nationalization since the 1970s. After Venezuela’s state-owned oil firm doubled its ownership of heavy-oil projects along the Orinoco River last year, ConocoPhillips pulled out, taking a $4.5 billion charge. Exxon Mobil Corp. left as well, and is suing Venezuela for compensation.

Growing petro-nationalism has prompted Royal Dutch Shell PLC to change the global scenarios its economists create to help the company plot its next moves. In the 1990s, Shell’s scenarios assumed government power was diminishing. The company invested heavily in Russia’s Sakhalin oil fields, assuming it would see minimal interference. But as the Kremlin tightened its grip on the energy sector, Shell was forced to sell half of its stake in the project to Russia’s state-owned OAO Gazprom.

In this decade’s models, governments play a more central role. One of Shell’s two current scenarios envisions that government dominion over resources — nearly 80% of world oil reserves are controlled by state-owned firms — will continue. In the other model, governments are still at the center of decision making but recognize a common interest and agree to address climate change, says Jeremy Bentham, Shell’s vice president for global business environment.

Recognizing the powerful role of state-owned oil companies, Shell is investing heavily in unconventional oil sources, many of which have little prospect of expropriation. It recently announced a $10 billion expansion plan in the tar sands of Canada. It has also increased its focus on biofuels made from, among other things, algae and wood chips.

Pitney Bowes Inc., a postal-machine maker in Stamford, Conn., is also trying to adapt. Over the past decade or so, it had moved a lot of its production to China. It also had outsourced back-office computer operations to India.

But more recently, the company has started worrying about the security of those supply lines. “We’re always concerned that the nationalists there will come and take over” our suppliers in China, says Cynthia Schmitt, the company’s vice president for enterprise risk management.

So over the past three years, the company and its overseas suppliers have begun stockpiling more postage-machine components. Pitney Bowes also began insisting that its vendors in India have backup servers in other countries. So many U.S. companies do business in Bangalore and other Indian cities, Ms. Schmitt fears they could become terrorist targets.

Similar concerns are felt by other big companies. AMR Research Inc., a Boston consulting firm, says it surveyed supply-chain managers at big U.S. firms in March about how they would rank the risks they face doing business globally. About 30% of them rated “country risk” — geopolitical problems or natural disasters — as their most significant.

Some companies are seeking havens closer to home. As some U.S. corporations relocate operations from lower-cost spots in Asia, Mexico — which has a free-trade pact with the U.S. — has seen a surge in foreign investment, up 21% last year to $23.2 billion.

Some of the world’s biggest new investors are government-run investment funds. In the Middle East and Russia, sovereign wealth funds are powered by oil revenue; in Asia, they’re fed by other export earnings. In all, the funds have a total of $3 trillion in revenue and have used the money to buy stakes in Citigroup Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and other battered Wall Street firms. While the infusions have been lauded by the U.S. Treasury and capital-short Wall Street firms, they also aroused suspicions here and internationally that the investors could have political agendas.

Now, many national governments are raising barriers against such foreign investment. The U.S., Canada, Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Hungary and Greece are proposing or enacting restrictions on investment by state-owned firms from other countries, according to a forthcoming study by the Council of Foreign Relations. China and Russia, which have sovereign wealth funds, are staking out “strategic sectors” where foreign investment would be restricted, say the study’s authors, investment-law specialist David Marchick and Dartmouth economist Matthew Slaughter.

National Muscle-Flexing

Muscle-flexing by national governments has also made it more complicated to tackle global environmental issues. In 1987, governments sent environmental ministers to Montreal to negotiate a global ban on the chlorofluorocarbons blamed for opening an ozone hole over Antarctica. The ministers expected the treaty would be ratified at home and enforced world-wide through trade sanctions. It was.

A decade later, the Kyoto Protocol flopped because the U.S. didn’t sign, and China and India weren’t required to limit emissions. Now, with national governments wary of making commitments, negotiators and think tanks in the U.S. and Europe are grappling with how to persuade states to take strong efforts to curtail greenhouse-gas emissions. One possibility: encourage governments to take specific actions to cut emissions now, and hold off on a treaty until states are more confident that their rivals are taking global warming seriously.

New nationalism could play out over a lengthy span, says Michael Klein, chief economist at the World Bank’s private-sector arm, the International Finance Corp. “Disparate national interests may pull [countries] in different directions and render global actions more difficult,” Mr. Klein says. “We’re in for several decades of these centrifugal forces.”

• EU entry negotiations began in Oct 2005 and have progressed w/o major disturbances; thus far, negotiations have been opened on 14 of 35 chapters with two already completed
• Erste Bank: Sees current government’s goal of a 2009 entry as overly optimistic; as long as EU negotiations remain on track, expects Croatia will most likely enter the EU in 2010-11
• EIU: Most problematic short-term issue is Croatia’s support for a fishing and ecological zone in the Adriatic (known by its Croatian acronym, ZERP), which has brought Croatia into diplomatic conflict with EU members Slovenia and Italy
• FT: The Croatian Peasants’ party (HSS), which holds the tourism and agriculture ministries, could obstruct negotiations on some of the toughest chapters in the country’s EU accession talks, casting even greater doubt on Croatia’s EU entry by the end of this decade
• European Commission: Pointed out Croatia has made efforts on almost all chapters, but also stressed that further efforts are needed, especially in improving judicial capacities, fighting corruption, and the conduct of structural reform
• CPB: Consumption per capita in Croatia is estimated to rise by about 2.5% as a result of EU accession, while GDP per capita could rise by as much as 8%.

Analysis Erste Bank – Jan 25, 2008

Croatia Country Report

Analysis European Commission – Nov 06, 2007

Croatia 2007 Progress Report

Analysis Economist Intelligence Unit – Jan 30, 2008

Croatia/EU politics: Between a fish and a hard place

Research CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis – Arjan Lejour, Andrea Mervar, and Gerard Verweij – October 2007

The economic effects of Croatia’s accession to the EU

BlogsFistful of Euros Edward Hugh – Nov 26, 2007 (Scroll down)

Croatia and Economic Sustainability in Eastern Europe

News Financial TimesNeil MacDonald – Jan 12, 2008

Croatia set to form coalition government

News BloombergJames G. Neuger – Nov 21, 2007

EU Doubts Croatia’s Goal of Winding Up Entry Talks During 2008

Ja sam prvo uzeo Crveno-Plavi test i “položio” sam 50%. Znači, u mojoj interpretaciji, ni vrit ni mimo. Nisam baš iznenađen, jer to samo potvrđuje kako nema opcije za koju bi dao svoj glas. Ni crveni ni plavi mi ne valjaju. Očekivao sam da bi možda mogao/trebao biti malo na desno, ali ništa. Znači još treba čekati opciju.

Rezultat političkog testa, kompasa sa 60 pitanja, sa Jutarnjeg, je sljedeći. To je rezultat prvog puta.

Drugi put je bilo ovako. Mali pomak nagore, ali je rezultat zapravo isti. U istom sam kvadrantu.

Na engleskoj verziji testa koji sam “položio” više puta stanje je malo drugačije. Jednom kad sam uzeo test na proljeće (Svibanj čini mi se) sačuvao sam podatke i ispalo je ovako.

A danas sam ponovo odgovorio na pitanja i evo kako je ispalo. Isto drugačije od hrvatskih testova. Malo je čudno jer su pitanja ista i nisam odgovarao baš tako drugačije. Možda se Jutarnji igrao sa vrijednostima odgovora. Uglavnom, baš tamo gdje je i Friedman (iako ne znam da li je Friedman polagao test ili su autori tako ocjenili.)

    Uglavnom, zašto Mars i Jupiter? Fred Thompson, znate glumac iz serije “Law and Order” i bivši senator iz Tennesija, ih je spomenuo i to sa razlogom. Jedan od mogućih Republikanskih kandidata na predstojećim izborima pokazuje da NASA tvrdi da se Mars, Jupiter i Pluto zagrijavaju, isto kao i Zemlja. Sarkastično kaže da ni jedni nisu potpisali Kyoto pa su određeni ljudi, ne nužno znanstvenici, počeli misliti da vanzemaljci voze velike SUVe i drže A/C na minimumu, time zagrijavajući svoje planete. Cijeli kratki citati možete pronaći ovdje, na stranicama NYT. Naravno, iza toga se krije, oni koje prate i zanimaju se dublje o svemu u vezi globalnih klimatskih promjena znaju to, da je Sunce jedno od velikih faktora kod globalnog zagrijavanja (GZ u nastavku), koje se očito zbiva i na drugim planetima. Nije samo CO2 i ljudska ruka već i povećana Sunčeva aktivnost, a i jezgra zemlje. Mrak me tu malo preduhitrio kad je napisao o i ukazao na dobar dokumentarac “The Great Global Warming Swindle.” Ja sam ga imao već u favorites. Svakako treba pogledati, ali naravno kao sa svime uzeti i zrno soli. Ja spadam u onu skeptičnu manjinu koja ne prihvaća olako da se GZ događa isključivo zbog emisija CO2 i ljudske aktivnosti. Prije sam pisao o toj temi i rekao sam da GZ postoji, ja to ne osporavam i nemam se namjeru uzaludno prepucavati. No da li je zbog CO2 je druga priča. I u onom dokumentarcu a i u drugim sličnim medijskim izlaganjima znanstvenici i klimatolozi sa reputacijom, neki čak i iz famoznog Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) otvoreno preispituju teoriju i loše dokaze da CO2 uzrokuje klimatske promjene. I naš poznati i kredibilni znanstvenik, Velimir Pravdić (članak u Jutarnjem) kaže da nije potpuno jasno zašto se događaju klimatske promjene i otvoreno sumnja u CO2 kao glavni uzrok. Slično je i sa znanstvenicima koji su prije sudjelovali u IPCCu a sada su skeptični zbog nedostatka dokaza i krivog tumačenja.

    – Mislim da ne treba objašnjavati predugo i široko kako nema jasne uzročno posljedične veze između CO2 i GZ. Ako malo više i dublje pratite zbivanja oko primjetili ste taj argument u medijima, istim onim medijima koji bombastično pišu o GZ jer, pa mediji su jel tako, treba napuhati da bi se prodalo. Empirijski je prikazano i svaki klimatolog to zna da kroz povijest se level CO2 u atmosferi digne nakon što se temperatura povisi, znači potpuno suprotno od uobičajenog Gorovskog objašnjenja da je CO2 narastao od početka Industrijske Revolucije i sada to uzrokuje veće temperature i GZ. Zašto taj argument nema nikakvog utjecaja na debate znanstvenika i klimatologa ja ne znam. Znam samo da sam ga čuo puno puta. Isto tako sam čitao do prije koju godinu da u jednoj američkoj saveznoj državi, čini mi se Michigan no nisam 100% siguran sada, se nalazi čak 15 instituta za istraživanje klime! Svi dobivaj i lobiraju za novac iz Kongresa i svima je jedino u interesu da tako i ostane. Da li je potrebno 15 istih tipova instituta koji rade na istom problemu u jednoj saveznoj državi ja isto ne znam. Znam da je jako loše trošenje resursa, a i Kongres je to znap pa je zategnu malo “novčarku.”

    – Nadalje, prije se na široko koristio famozni graf hokejskog štapa, tkz. Hockey Stick. (Mala sličica ovdje Hockey Stick) Konstruirao ga je klimatolog Michael Mann sa University of Virginia i dugo je bio temeljni nosač dokaza da je GZ posljedica ljudske aktivnosti i jedan od povoda Kyoto ugovora. Prikazuje, kao što vidite, temperature u zadnjih 1000 godina i veliki swing na gore u zadnjem stoljeću. Graf, iako oku primamljiv i sa velikim impaktom na javnost i debatu, je manje više diskreditiran i sam UN koji ga je podržavao je preispitivo ispravnost grafa i njegovog izračuna. Problem se stvorio kad je kanađanin Stephen McIntyre, “konzultant za minerale” (valjda nekakav geolog kako bi ja rekao), počeo preispitivati ispravnost grafa i pronašao veće greške u izračunu. Tvrdio je 2005 da su Mann i njegovi suradnici koristili loše statističke metode i time dobili beznačajne rezultate. Naravno skepticizam je bio veliki, no ubrzo su znanstvenici i UN pregledali njegov rad i konsenzus je izašao da je “hokejski štap,” prije nikada provjeravan, uistinu loše konstruiran. Prije toga gosp. Mann je trebao ispraviti neke manje greške u izračunu i iako se uporno borio protiv diskreditacije grafa izgubio je. Problem je da graf u obliku hokejskog štapa se može proizvesti iz manje više bilo kojeg seta brojki koristeći određene statističke formule, iako se takav graf ne nalazi u setu. Ako pogledate zadnji IPPC Report nećete pronaći “štap” unutra, za razliku od prijašnjih izvještaja.

    To su samo dvije crtice o legitimnim problemima i debatama oko GZa. Ono što je sada zanimljivo nama koji prate ovo a i svima bi trebalo biti je nadolazeći (6.-8. Lipnja) G8 sastanak tokom kojeg će klimatske promjene biti jedna od glavnih tema. Raspravljati će se o njima jer treba sastaviti novi ugovor u nadolazećim godinama da nadomjesti Kyoto koji ističe 2012. Amerika je već odbacila neke pritiske Europe, konkretnije Njemačke, kako razmišljati i tretirati klimatske promjene. Jasno je da ne žele ponovo jedan ugovor poput Kyota koji je sa svojim striktnim vremenskim rasporedima i oštrim kvotama potpuno odvojen od realnosti i ekonomskih posljedica. Europska pozicija je da GZ treba napasti oštro, sa visokim ciljevima smanjenja emisije CO2 (50% ispod levela 1990) i valjda time temeprature, 2C stupnja manje do 2050. Merkelica tu podržava Blaira. Američka pozicija je da su oštri i arbirtalni ciljevi, grube kvote i vremenski rokovi štetni i ekonomsko “samoubojstvo”, a to pogotovo stoji kad se Kina i Indija ne obavezuju na ništa od toga. Kyoto upravo zbog toga i nije uspio u ničem predviđenome. Nije se znalo tko pije a tko plaća u svijetu.

    Ako niste svijesni kako je to ozbiljno ili mislite da je to samo Busheva pozicija, Al Gore je isto tako pričao 1997 upravo prije nego je Kyoto ugovor trebao biti potpisan. Tada je rekao da “Amerika neće ratificirati ugovor iz Kyota bez participacije ključnih zemalja u razvoju.” Evo linka vijesti iz 1997, pri dnu stranice, da ne bude da izmišljam. Za razliku od većine političara govorio je istinu. On i Clinton nikada nisu uputili ugovor na ratifikaciju. hehe…

    Zato onaj Hladni Rat u naslovu. Vodi se mali hladni rat izmeđi Europe i Amerike oko novog ugovora i načina kako se boriti protiv GZ. Svaka ima svoje ciljeve i kako ih postići. Europa tipično vuće više na idealizam i moral, misleći da je zalaganje dovoljno, Amerika na empiriju i ekonomiju, držeći da je primjena nove tehnologije jedini odgovor. Europa odlučno traži da se svi razgovori i ugovori održe unutar UN-a i svi se toga drže. “One size fits all” strategija. Amerika smatra da su samostalni putevi i strategije kako doći do dogovorenih ciljeva puno praktičniji put sa većom šansom uspijeha. Kyoto ugovor je potvrda toga, jer i oni koji su ga ratificirali nisu se držali dogovorenog i nisu postigli njegove ciljeve. 

    U jučerašnjoj najavi, upravo pred G8 sastanak, Bush je zatražio da se vodeće zemlje u svijetu, njih 15 uključujući Kinu i Indiju, sastanu i dogovore oko ciljeva (do kraja godine) i ispravnih načina borbe protvi GZa. Zatražio da se stavi na stol svo znanje o novim tehnologijama i kako ih koristiti. Rezale bi se i trošarine na razmjenu tih tehnologija. Svaka zemlja bi bila slobodna stvoriti svoje načine i politiku da dosegne ciljeve i ne bi bilo međunarodnog tijela ili ovrha, što znaći neće se ići na jedan isti standard za sve. To je bio slučaj do sada. Ono što odskaće na prvi pogled od prošlosti, kada se Busheva administracija nije pretjerano zalagala oko problema GZa i potpuno odbacila Kyoto, je da se sada pokazuje želja da se odrede određeni ciljevi i pokuša ih se dostići. Još uvijek se odbija Cap-and-trade sistem, no postoji želja da se dođe do dobrog lobalnog dogovora. Želi se biti dio globalnog poduhvata. Merkelica je zadovoljna, a i Blair hvali istup i misli da “po prvi put imamo šansu dobiti (urediti) ispravno global riješenje.” Naravno, treba se složiti oko načina i za to bi bili sastanci na koje je pozvao Bush. Bloger Is it Getting Warmer konstatira da je na kraju uvijek “bolje pričati nego ne pričati” kad se radi sa političarima.

    No nema se još puno šta reći i analizirati. Sljedeći tjedan je G8 gdje će više toga izaći u javnost. Do onda ću još nešto o ovome napisati, nešto malo usmjerenije, pa onda o samom G8. U svakom slučaju mislim da je potez na bolje i u dobro smjeru. Oni koji kritiziraju, zeleni, uvijek to rade na isti način, maloumno i kratkovidno. Predsjednik Friends of the Earth udruge, Brent Blackwelder, kaže da je ovo “samo pokušaj da se prikaže briga oko GZ bez išta učiniti u biti.” Ekspert za klimu Greenpeacea Charlie Kronick i dalje tvrdi da je “emsije CO2 jedino moguće smanjiti pomoću cap-and-trade mehanizma, a Bush je to odbio već u startu tako da postoje kontradikcije u ovoj njegovoj deklaraciji.” Zelene uvijek nešto smeta, koliko dobro namjerno bilo i usmjereno ka donošenju nekog konkretnog, izvedivog i ispravnog načina. Za njih postoji samo jedno radikalno riješenje, bez obzira i brige oko ekonomskog utjecaja, pa tako možemo i očekivati uvijek iste kritike. No ja ću se i oglušiti na to jer je jednostavno gubljenje vremena pratiti jedne te iste kritike i promašene radikalne prijedloge.

    Za kraj, do G8, ostavljam jedan video “zadatak” i jednu zanimljivost. Pošto će uglavnom Amerika imati odlučujući utjecaj, a odmah nakon nje Kina, na bilo kakav novi ugovor koji će nadomjestiti Kyoto, valjalo bi znati malo dublje kako se sve odvijalo 80tih i 90tih u vezi GZa i potom Kyota u Američkoj politici. Na stranicama tv kuće PBS možete pogledati čitav dokumentarac o “Vrućoj Politici” nedavno prikazan. Pa koga zanima neka pogleda, čisto informativno o tijeku događaja, akterima tri administracije, njihovim pozicijama i interesima. Isto tako ovdje možete pogledati poziciju današnjih kandidata u izborima za predsjednika 2008.

    A što se tiče zanimljivosti, prije sam rekao da mediji igraju jednu od najvećih uloga u napuhavanju i šok efektu GZa. E pa tokom 1970tih je bila ista priča, samo u suprotnom smjeru. Problem je bilo globalno zahlađenje i novo ledeno doba koje je prijetilo masovnom glađu. Mislite da izmišljam? Odite do sveučilišne knjižnice i pretražujte naslove na naslovnoj New York Timesa u bazi podataka tokom 1970tih. Ja ovdje prilažem samo jedan članak iz Newsweeka iz 1975. Newsweek Cooling World

    Jack Welch was in Zagreb, Croatia this week at the Adris Business Forum, the largest such forum in South-Eastern Europe, giving his usual pep talk and spreading management wisdom among “new” and eager Croatian managers. Tough luck if you don’t speak Croatian (or Serbian & Bosnian I guess) as all the coverage of the event is in Croatian, I didn’t find anything in English. There are some pictures you can check out (if you care that much). Among the bits of wisdom he “handed out” is telling the audience they are in “big shit” after he asked them if they think they can get support from banks for their ideas and the response was negative. The causation can run both ways here I guess.

    Now, that got me thinking what I wanted to say about WB case and why Mr. Welch should run it, if only for a year. I know, it’s a far fetched idea in some way, it won’t happen, we need someone to fight poverty, to know something about it, to be liked, to be a diplomat (Tony Blair maybe) and the entrenched bureaucratic interests within the Bank would raise hell to prevent another tough manager to come in. But exactly because of that, Welch should step in and “clean the house” for its own sake. In my view, this whole ouster of Wolfowitz from the WB is politically motivated by the staff (that tried to ambush him) and the board to get rid of a strong minded, if not always pleasant, manager, that threatened their interests. I take the WSJ‘s view here, not FT’s.

    Furthermore, the odium towards the “architect of the Iraq war” and as someone coming from the Bush administration, was obvious. Yes, it “was about” the stain on governance that Wolfowitz conduct in the matter of Shaha Riza left, about the Bank’s credibility and its ability to raise funds in the future. But, in the end, the board – composed of representatives from donor nations – exonerated him and acknowledged that he acted “ethically and in good faith.” So what was the point of the whole thing? Mr. Wolfowitz did ask to recuse himself from all matters regarding the the staff member Shaha Riza, but after that the Ethics Committee “ordered him” to dictate the terms of Riza’s compensation for leaving the bank so it can use it against him later. It does seem like an ambush, doesn’t it? The flap with Ms. Riza, not techincally of Mr. Wolfowitz making, was overblown and in the end used to oust the president. Graciously, they allowed him to resign without any condemnation of him behavior. Now, the WB board admits that “a number of mistakes were made by a number of individuals in handling the matter under consideration” so a review of procedures is necessary and hopefully coming. Timeline of the political lynch, from WSJ, can be found at the bottom.

    Well, now after the “victory” they admit there were serious procedural mistakes and the staff internal interests were exposed (“dirty laundry was aired” as David Wessel puts it) it should also be acknowledged the internal system and operations should be fixed and cleaned, and for good. Hey, they brought it on themselves by making a “5th degree” out of this flap. Lack of transparency and murky procedures in similar cases (the case of Mr. Scholar reported by Bret Stephens), inner bickering and bureaucratic interests, have all been exposed, in aggregate undermining the credibility of the Bank far more than Mr. Wolfowitz’s “controversy.” As the Economist states, another war of attrition is out of the question, especially now when the donors have to “put out” for the coming fiscal year. So, let’s fix the management crisis and clean the place up. Polish its image now by getting rid of more than just the president, he is not the cause of Bank’s woes. Economists there should know that, they study cause and effect of poverty and foreign aid, respectively, every day. In the immediate term the priority should be to clean the World Bank’s image and fix its current credibility. Get the gears going again by “letting go” some of the 8,600 not motivated (or not properly so) staffers, others that are in a conflict of interest situation, and others that are plagued by corruption allegations. Mr. Wolfowitz in fact was the one that put emphasis on the anti-corruption campaign, including the staff members at the Bank as well. I am sure that is not the majority of staff at the WB, but they still didn’t like it and wanted to turn it against him. Maybe they just took too strongly after prof. Joseph Stiglitz’s, previously the chief economist at the WB, proclivity to accuse people of corruption. (He accused an outstanding economist and individual Stanley Fischer, then at IMF, of corruption and further through his book Globalisation and its Discontents the whole IMF for lack of competence, prompting Ken Rogoff to defense.)

    That is why I think the legendary Jack Welch can do the job, in a year. He won’t loose sleep over firing some people, he does it for their own good and it would ultimately be for the greater good. Plus, he is an American that President Bush can pick and thus keep with the tradition. He is also not political as far as I know, so political dogfighting can be avoided. After that one year of management and organizational clean-up, have a transparent process of electing the president, based on merit, as Ken Rogoff says. A reformed management structure and properly functioning and credible World Bank is an asset to the developed world in the fight against poverty. This one now is a laughable “asset” in the eyes of countries that can get the funding from capital markets or even China. If the World Bank is to be the champion of the West in the war on poverty, U.S. won’t take its money elsewhere, because it needs to strengthen the institution in the face of coming competition for aid. But, just the money won’t do much good. Ashraf Ghani says for The Economist “The bank has a set rhythm and who masters it, runs the bank.” Unless that working rhythm and house culture, of which the current management and staff is the master, is changed don’t expect Bank’s woes to end soon enough. That is my 2 cents. Now, for my Croatian readers…

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    Drugi dio malo na Hrvatskom. Prvo sam na engleskom pisao kako ja mislim bi trebalo očistiti i vratiti bar malo sjaja Svjetskoj Banci. Prvo sam htio htio pregledati po našim medijima što se piše i kako se piše o ovome. U Srijedu je Večernjakov WashingtonRocks (Bojan Klima) pisao o trenutnim događanjima u SB. Ostalo, nije baš puno, čini se da je Jutarnji jedini napisao više i imao konstantnu seriju članaka. Pohvalno, pošto se ne radi o vijestima u Hrvatskoj. No naravno, ja ću kritizirati. Samo zato što je Jutarnji jedini koji je pisao više o tom “skandalu” ne znači da je i pisao ispravno. Čak štoviše, monopol obično umanjuje vrijednost usluge.

    “Promaklo” se stranim medijima pa kako ne bi našim, poznatim po šlampavom izvještavanju ili prepisivanju od Hine, što se to sve dogodilo. Kao što Jutarnji prenosi a ne slaže se sa time, WSJ ispravno kaže da se NE radi o Wolfowitzovoj etici već pikiranje na određene događaje kako bi se stvorio skandal i uklonilo nepoželjnog predsjednika, što od Europskih zemalja a što od zaposlenika Svjetske banke. U članku 13. Trav. Jutarnji prenosi da je Wolfowitz”premještaj Rize dogovorio kako bi izbjegao sukob interesa te da je za to dobio dopuštenje Odbora izvršnih direktora, direktora etičkog odbora te direktora ljudskih resursa. No preksinoć se ispričao.” Prvo, ništa nije dogovoreno, a predsjednik se ispričao tek za nevjerovanje svojim instinktima, vjerovao je da neće biti problema pošto mu je Etički Odbor dao zeleno svijetlo, iako se tome protivio, da riješi pitanje promocije Shaha Rize. Riza je bila u Svjetskoj Banci 8 godina i bila je na listi za promociju i prije nego je gosp. Wolfowitz postavljen za predsjednika. Taj isti dan, 13.4. Svjetska Banka (nadalje SB) je pustila u javnost dokument u “slučaj” Wolfowitzove etičnosti. Na ovim stranicama SBe možete pročitati citate iz dokumenta kao i dobiti čitav dokument (i druge ako vas baš zanima, sumnjam da će netko to čitati u sitne sate). No citati bi trebali biti dovoljni za sagledati stvar sa bolje i činjenično ispravnije prespektive, za razliku od šlampave Jutarnjeg Lista.

     Za razliku od novinara Jutarnjeg Viktora Vresnika koji slijepo optužuje i danas piše: “Kao više nego odličan povod zahtjevima za njegovu smjenu …. poslužila je afera koja je izbila nakon što je netko od više rangiranih službenika Banke, navodno anonimnim pismom, upozorio direktore institucije da je predsjednik Banke zabrljao koristeći osobni utjecaj, autoritet koji mu daje predsjednička pozicija i svoje odlične veze čvrsto ukorijenjenog washingtonskog političkog insajdera kako bi intimnoj prijateljici osigurao ogromnu financijsku povišicu. To je u razvijenom svijetu dovoljan razlog za ostavku.”

    Gosp. Wolfowiz je tražio prvo i prvenstveno da se ispriča ili povuče (pravni termin je recuse, a ja Hrvatsku riječ nisam pronašao) iz svih poslovanja i bavljenja vezana sa njegovom djevojkom Shaha Rizom, pošto predstavlja konflikt interesa. Citiram odvjetnika SB Robert Danino u to vrijeme “Prvo, htio bi priznati da je gosp. Wolfowitz objavio Odboru, kroz vas, da ima postojeću vezu sa zaposlenicom Banke i da on predlože rješavanje konflikta interesa, vezano uz Kadrovsko Pravilo 3.01, Paragraf 4.02, povlačenjem iz svih osobnih i profesionalnih kontakata vezanih uz člana kadra.” (zaposlenicu Banke Shahu Rizu) Da je ostalo na ovome čitave priče ne bi ni bilo. No naravno, Odbro za Etiku je rekao da ipak postoji, unatoč otovorenom priznanju, konflikt interesa i odredio da se gospođica Riza mora ukloniti iz Banke. Ok, pošteno. No, pošto nije njena krivica što mora prisilno napustiti Banku i tako “dobiti udarac na njenu karijeru” i pošto je već bila na listi za promociju, SB ju je morala kompenzirati za “ometanje” karijere”. 27.7.2005 Odbor za Etiku je posalo memo Wolfowitzu sa instrukcijama kako riješiti problem. Lijepo i detaljno su prikazani koraci i riješenja koje je Odbor za Etiku komunicirao Wolfowitzu (PW). Predsjednik se protivio, no dao upute uredu za ljudske resurse što napraviti, a odgovorio je da “još jednom želim ponoviti duboko nezadovoljstvo sa čitavim načinom rješavanja situacije koja je trebala biti riješena sa mojim povlačenjem iz nje.”

    Odbor za Etiku je 24.10.2005 poslao memo Wolfowitzu da potvrdi “rezoluciju konflikta interesa u skladu sa smjernicama Odbora 27.7.” A u studenom 2005 Odbor se još jednom zahvaljuje Wolfowitzu za “otvoreni i konstruktivan dijalog” kojim je riješen teški problem. Sve pokazuje da nema problema, nema etičkih dilema i nepravilnosti. Čak kad su i Veljači 2006. procurili neki dokumenti preko emaila “John Smitha”, Odbor za Etiku ih je pregledao i NIJE pronašao nikakvih etičkih nepravilnosti za daljne razmatranje. Uostalo, kronologiju događaja možete i sami pratiti na stranicama Banke, kao i na dnu posta. Više od godinu dana je sve to stajalo zaboravljeno i nitkome važno. Osim, izgleda, onima koji su jednostavno htjeli ukloniti predsjednika smatrajući da su oni po nečemu vlasnici i upravitelji Banke i čekali pravu priliku za to. Nije im se svidjela njegova volja da se bori protiv korupcije u siromašnim zemljama, ali i u Banci i njenim projektima. A ništa slično se nije pojavilo (još) sa trenutnim direktorom gosp. Scholar koji ima ljubavnicu u Banci i time konflikt interesa. Isto tako, problem se nije pojavio sa podpredsjednikom Shengmang Zhang (za vrijeme James Wolfensohna) čija žena je ubrzano napredovala radeći u Banci. Hmmmm…

    Čista politička farsa, sa potpuno neutemeljenim optužbama koje bi pale na prvi dan suđenja, čak i na Hrvatskom sudu. I nakon svega ovoga, kad je cilj postignut i “omraženi neokonzervativac” je dao ostavku, što kaže Svijetska Banka? Pa ništa! Nije bilo nikakvih etičkih nepravilnosti, time odbacujući sve optužbe i nalaze komiteta koji je vršio istragu. Zahvaljuju se Wolfowitzu na njegovim uslugama i postignućima u Banci, prvenstveno oštrim mjerama protiv korupcije. “Najgore” što kažu u posljednjoj Izjavi je da je “počinjen broj grešaka.” Najveća ironija u svemu je da je Wolfowitz forsiran na ostavku zbog moguće “ljage” koju je cijela afera ostavila na najmoćniju instituciju u borbi protiv svijetskog siromaštva. No upravo su određene grupe zaposlenika i direktora Banke stvorile aferu daleko nakon što je mogući konflikt interesa riješen i to sa odobrenjem Odbora za Etiku. I sad, imamo prozor u instituciju i sav njen prljavi veš kako Wall Street Journal kaže (video link). Oni koji su stvorili od ovoga primarnu vijest u svijetu u posljednjih tjedana su kriv za “loše i nepošteno svijetlo” bačeno na SB, ne Paul Wolfowitz koji se samo branio od smiješnih optužbi koje su sjedile u ladicama više od godinu dana i čekale prigodu za coup d’etat. Što je javnost dobila je pravu sliku dijelova institucije Svijetske Banke, kako funkcioniraju, i koji su prioriteti. Ništa negativnog ili obečašćujećeg o Paul Wolfowitzu kako bi nas mediji, pogotovo Hrvatski, htjeli uvijeriti.