digital moms February 16, 2009
Posted by Bradley in : Uncategorized , comments closedI have been reading about “digital moms”:
Digital moms are multidimensional in their online behaviors, and their interests extend beyond parenting. Digital moms are more likely to connect with friends than with family using digital technologies, and they are not afraid to seek advice or companionship from known or anonymous friends. Additionally, interests like Clothing/Fashion and Cooking/Food remain the most popular, and consistently so, regardless of a woman’s age; while other category interests like Baby/Parenting, Telecommunications, Medication/Medical Condition are lifestage-oriented and change as their children grow.
Multidimensional, and with interests which “extend beyond parenting” – really ?? What about the transnational financial crisis and financial regulation? Don’t we want to know about that? I suppose it’s not relevant as it doesn’t help with marketing stuff. Or maybe the focus comes from the “survey group”: (more…)
reindeer welfare February 16, 2009
Posted by Bradley in : Uncategorized , comments closedAlthough the EU is concerned about animal welfare, that won’t stop financial aid to reindeer slaughterers in Norway (a member of the EEA, not the EU). The EFTA Surveillance Authority recently said that such aid wouldn’t constitute unlawful state aid under the EEA Agreement:
Reindeers and products processed from reindeers, in so far as they do not fall under Chapters 25 to 97 of the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (HS) or are specified in Protocol 3 to the EEA Agreement, fall outside the general scope of the application of the Agreement.
cheese or onions? February 10, 2009
Posted by Bradley in : Uncategorized , comments closedVia feminist law professors I just read about a study of underarm sweat – it seems that male underarm sweat smells like cheese and female sweat smells like onions, and the independent smell assessors (a job I don’t think I’d like to have) liked the cheesy smell better. We can’t even get that one right. But really – how do we know the smell assessors were really independent ? Perhaps they suffered from a pro-cheese bias.
basic bank accounts February 6, 2009
Posted by Bradley in : Uncategorized , comments closedNow that keeping money under the mattress is looking like a sensible financial strategy, the EU Commission is consulting on ensuring access for Europeans to a basic bank account.
consumers and financial regulation February 2, 2009
Posted by Bradley in : Uncategorized , comments closedIn a speech the other day, Luis Aguilar of the SEC argued for greater representation of consumers’ interests in the rule-making process (which is one of my preoccupations):
A complementary proposal is the formation of a federal advisory committee to make recommendations for improving retail investor participation in Commission business and for improving the usefulness to retail investors of Commission rules. As we seek to improve our regulatory process and adopt better rules, I think it is important to provide retail investors with an active voice in our policymaking, since much of what we do often affects retail investors who do not routinely have contact with members of the Commission or its staff, too often do not submit comment letters, may not be well-versed in the securities or administrative laws, and may not effectively be represented by industry groups. Establishing a federal advisory committee under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (or FACA) consisting mostly of retail investors to provide advice and guidance on our rules and on our ways of interacting with these investors could be very useful. I believe direct retail investor input would be helpful toward restoring the confidence of retail investors in the SEC — they can again know that we work for them and are their advocate. Such a committee also could play a key role in our efforts to address issues of importance to retail investors and provide a useful forum for their views to be more effectively incorporated into the Commission’s work.
friday question January 30, 2009
Posted by Bradley in : Uncategorized , comments closedOne of Per Kurowski’s questions:
Why do we only have credit rating agencies and not any decent-jobs-creation ratings agencies or risk of climate change rating agencies?
fluency in english as an advantage in transnational policy-making January 29, 2009
Posted by Bradley in : Uncategorized , comments closedI assume that’s what this means. The eligibility criteria for membership in the EU’s Payment Systems Market Expert Group are:
(a) relevant demonstrable knowledge and expertise in the area covered by the mandate of the Group;
(b) recent practical expertise or experience;
(c) proficiency in a language which is customary in the sphere of finance, to a level which allows the expert to participate in discussions and draft reports in that language.
applying better regulation to the financial markets in 2009 January 28, 2009
Posted by Bradley in : Uncategorized , comments closedThe EU Commission published its latest strategic review of Better Regulation in the European Union (COM(2009)15 (EN) (28 January 2009)) today. But it’s unclear how this applies in the context of the financial markets right now. For example, the document states:
Improving the quality of new initiatives is an essential part of the better regulation agenda. In line with international best practice, the Commission believes that the most effective way of creating a better regulation culture is by making those people who are responsible for policy development also responsible for assessing the impacts of what they propose.
Better stakeholder consultation is an aspect of this, and the document states that “For complex or sensitive proposals, Commission departments are encouraged to go beyond the 8 week minimum consultation period”. But responding to crisis has been used recently as a justification for not consulting extensively (for example with respect to the regulation of CRAs). And Charlie McCreevy’s critique of the acceptance of the use of value at risk models in prudential regulation is an implicit critique of over-reliance on the sort of stakeholders who express views about proposals for financial regulation.
cheesy problems in the eu January 16, 2009
Posted by Bradley in : Uncategorized , comments closedIt seems to be hard to be a European cheese producer these days. Roquefort producers have sent some of their cheese to Barack Obama to protest the US tariffs designed to penalise the EU for not allowing hormone treated beef into the EU. Lithuania’s application to register a protected geographical designation for Germantas cheese (filed in the summer of 2005) was rejected (the decision was taken in December but it was officially published yesterday) by the Commission on the basis that the characteristics of the cheese were a result of its production method rather than of geography (seems like pretty standard stuff – but because only the Lithuanian text is authentic I don’t know if there’s anything I’m missing). And Italy is providing financial support to producers of parmesan.
i wish i could go to this conference January 16, 2009
Posted by Bradley in : Uncategorized , comments closedNext week the EESC is putting on a conference with the title: Rien ne va plus? Ways to rebuild the European Social Market Economy. I like the pun. The press release describes the event as follows:
The four speakers will present the two key objectives of the event: firstly to discuss measures to enable a rapid relaunch of the economy in order to avoid recession and other consequences for workers, and secondly to identify ways of redefining and improving the regulation of financial markets.
And it states an “assumption …. that self-regulation has proved to be a form of non-regulation” (which is perhaps a bit overstated, although I can understand the impulse).