Word: begg
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...while most conspiracy theories are overblown, some experts believe there is at least some kernel of truth to them. "They are correct to say there has been massive short-selling against the euro," says Iain Begg, an associate fellow at the London think tank Chatham House. "Speculation is what markets are about. It is simply an opportunity to make money. Financial markets are amoral, feral beasts. If they see a weakness, they go for it. And Greece was seen as weak." He admits that the role of Goldman Sachs and other major banks in helping Greece disguise its mounting debts...
...Begg sees a deeper purpose behind the blame game, as politicians try to mitigate the public criticism that will accompany the inevitable austerity measures needed to fix the Greek and Spanish economies. "There is an Italian concept of vincolo esterno, or external constraint," he says. "It is a device a canny politician can use to say, 'We must do this or we will be eaten alive.' Although the conspiracy theories are preposterous, they help prepare for the reforms which are needed...
...explain the fact that longtime Ronald Reagan admirers are suddenly starting to sound like a union activist's picket sign? Has the Great Recession of 2008-09 effectively sapped all the energy from Europe's post-1989 wave of economic neoliberalism? "Quite clearly, the state is back," notes Iain Begg, a professor of European political economy at the London School of Economics. "In front of the failures of the Anglo-American model, we are seeing a revival of Keynesian approaches to react to the crisis...
...There are reforms that have begun, which must still be completed," says Andrea Moltrasio, head of European affairs at Confindustria, the Italian employers' association. "No longer is Europe divided into the politics of left and right, but between populist and reformist. What we need most of all is realism." Begg agrees and warns against the risk of pursuing bad policy for short-term electoral advantages. But, he adds, "the huge ideological disputes of the '70s and '80s are simply not on the agenda. Mitterand vs. Thatcher, talk of renationanlizing industry - that's gone. Instead, the debate will ultimately be around...
...Begg wrote poems in Guantanamo, several of which were included in the collection Poems from Guantanamo, published last fall. But for Guantanamo detainees, for whom "getting a pen required an Act of Congress," he says, paint and clay were out of the question. "When I see what these [British detainees] were allowed, I think, 'Fantastic, I'd love to be in a prison where people could make these things," says Begg, who recalls fellow inmates fashioning tiny sculptures of spiders and scorpions out of toilet paper doused in cold tea. All were taken and thown away, says Begg, as potential...