Debate on the crisis organized by Krytyka Polityczna, April 24, Poznan

I will take part in the second debate organized by Krytyka Polityczna, this time in Poznan.

Poznań: Wokół „Kryzysu”
Goście: Ryszard Bugaj, Tomasz Wróblewski, Marcin Piątkowski. Prowadzenie: Adam Leszczyński.24 kwietnia, piątek, godz. 17.00, Gmach Główny Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego, ul. Niepodległości 10, sala 111

Details here: http://www.krytykapolityczna.pl/Poznan/Poznan-Wokol-Kryzysu-/menu-id-174.html

Krugman - make banking boring again!

Fully agree: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/10/opinion/10krugman.html?_r=1

"Poland - Key to Europe" by Buell

Now reading a book on "Poland - Key to Europe" by Buell published in 1939.

The book is fascinating. The main message I am getting so far is that Poland today is in unbelievably better political, social, military, and economic position than before 1939.

There is a couple of cool historical quirks that I like so much. For instance, in 1927 Poland, in return for a stabilization loan from the US, had to appoint a foreign financial advisor to the Council of the Bank of Poland, apparently to "watch over us". Charles Dewey, an American assistant secretary at the Treasury, assumed the position for three years. Sounds like a banana republic...

Debate on the crisis organized by Krytyka Polityczna, April 9

09.04.2009
Materiał audio i fotorelacja z debaty wokół książki Kryzys. Przewodnik Krytyki Politycznej.Spotkanie odbyło się 8 kwietnia 2009 na Wydziale Nauk Ekonomicznych UW. Goście: Witold Gadomski, Piotr Kuczyński, dr Marcin Piątkowski, prof. Jan Jakub Michałek. Prowadzenie: Jacek Żakowski.

http://www.krytykapolityczna.pl/Aktualnosci/Warszawa-Relacje-z-debaty-wokol-Kryzysu-/menu-id-1.html

My presentation at PTE (Polish Economics Association) on April 23, 16:30

It will talk on corporate tax competition and its implications for Central and Eastern Europe based on the IMF paper I co-authored wih Mariusz Jarmuzek back in 2008: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2008/wp08203.pdf

Here are the slides and the transcipt of the panel discussion (in Polish), which also featured Dr. Maciej Grabowski, deputy minister of finance responsible for taxes, and Dr. Jaroslaw Neneman, former tax deputy minister of finance.

Simon Johnson's tour de force on financial sector's capture of the US administratin

This is a must read: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/imf-advice

I agree with practically everything that Johnson says. It wil be extremely hard to change the way the financial sector works without a forceful state intervention, including nationalization.

Martin Wolf from FT also noticed the article: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/09f8c996-2930-11de-bc5e-00144feabdc0.html

I am back after a long break...

Ready to blog again. This is a great a way of organizing my thoughts, presentations, articles, and agenda. Readers welcome!