Daily: Euro Summit Post-Mortem, Minsky’s legacy and Apple’s patent wars

By Edward Harrison On Jul 3, 2012

I have a ton of links so I am going to break them up into groups. Here’s the first bunch from late last week. Three topics are most interesting.

Topic 1: Euro

First are the post-mortems for the euro summit last week. I think the expectations for the summit were low and so it was a good thing that Europe was able to beat those expectations and deliver more. But universally, pundits say that there’s a lot more to do. Some focus on the fact that politically, Europe still seems willing to move forward to avert crisis. Others, however, focus on the tough slog during the road ahead. In my view the downturn in ISM data suggests economic weakness that will make coming to agreement harder rather than easier. Here are the articles I thought worthy of reading on Europe. The German ones are more critical of Merkel. She is seen as having caved to Spain and Italy and the German press is on her for that reason.

Topic 2: Minsky’s legacy

Brad DeLong, a well-regarded establishment economist from UC Berkeley and a former high ranking Clinton official wrote a piece at the Guardian and Project Syndicate which tried to assert that he and a bunch of his buddies got it right. This was a significant piece of historical revisionism because they did not have it right and DeLong even used Hyman Minsky’s name so as to wrap himself and his group in the warm glow of the mantel that now belongs to the late Hyman Minsky. None of these economists are Minsky followers. None of them. What’s more is they continually say things that are contra-Minsky and they were seriously wrong pre-crisis. Below are a number of article showing you why they were wrong and why this is just propaganda. My hope is that DeLong, who is a good economist, will actually move toward Minsky in thought and deed now that he has in word. I’ll leave it at that.

Topic 3: Patent wars

Apple’s patent wars are becoming tiresome. Apple may be winning the ‘look and feel’ battles to thwart competition in a way it did not against Microsoft Windows. But the patent wars are a sign that Apple feels threatened and that they are willing to do anything to keep Android from winning. I see Apple in a less and less favourable light as the macro takeaway from aggressively litigious behaviour is that the litigator needs litigation to maitain growth, margins or profits. To me, this is a bad sign about Apple.

I will leave it there. Here are the first batch of links.

Libor affair shows banking’s big conceit – FT.com

King attacks ‘deceitful’ banking culture – Telegraph

GMO’s Grantham warns against bullish markets: Thomson Reuters Business News – MSN Money

European Stocks Near Cheapest Ever as Invesco Buys Repsol – Bloomberg

Housing: Home is where the money is | The Economist

Le Mercosur suspend le Paraguay et va intégrer le Venezuela

Deal Profile: AB InBev, Modelo in $20.1 Billion Deal – Deal Journal – WSJ

Haushaltsdefitzit: Portugal hält die Vorgaben ein – International – Politik – Handelsblatt

Smartphone: Blackberry-Firma RIM liebäugelt mit Microsoft – Nachrichten Wirtschaft – Webwelt & Technik – WELT ONLINE

Landesbanken: Die WestLB ist nach 42 Jahren Geschichte – Nachrichten Wirtschaft – WELT ONLINE

MMT Basics: You Cannot Consider the Deficit in Isolation