The Netherlands has played a major role in shaping the world economy, and is now bringing to light the need to steer innovation away from technology and products and toward services. Change management and customer empathy are critical to creating services that will be adopted. Designing services is also a question of systems innovation.

How has a country with just 16 million inhabitants become the 15th-largest economy in the world? Answer: through a combination of resourcefulness, hard work, and acute foresight for what might make the nation rich. Since the 14th century, the Netherlands has played a major role in shaping the world economy. Now the country that brought us such major innovations as the stock exchange and the insurance industry has identified another big opportunity: the services sector.

Read more >> | Sci-Tech Today | The Netherlands Sets a Service-Economy Example.

bama wanted to bridge the divides among Americans that George W. Bush had opened. But now those divides are wider. His attempts to please everyone, so evident in the last few weeks, are likely to mollify no one.

By Joseph E. Stiglitz

Read more >> | Muddling Out of Freefall – Project Syndicate

ictor Muller, the man behind Spyker’s acquisition of Swedish car maker Saab deal, has never been shy to put other people’s money to use, sometimes losing it in the process.

Dutch sports car manufacturer Spyker last week bought Saab from its American owner General Motors, saving the Swedish auto maker from certain demise. The deal is considered so important, even the Dutch prime minister felt inclined to comment on it during his weekly press conference on Friday. „A tour de force by Victor Muller”, is how Jan Peter Balkenende called the takeover. “You need guts to pull a move like this,” said the prime minister, a long-time friend of Muller’s and fellow car aficionado.

Read more >> | nrc.nl – International – Saab’s new owner has history of unpaid debt

iny Dutch Spyker will buy the once mighty Saab, with help from the Swedish government. If it goes wrong, Swedish tax payers have to foot the bill.

The question on everybody’s lips at the press conference in Stockholm on Tuesday was raised by Spyker chief executive Victor Muller himself. “How can such a small Dutch company take over Swedish Saab?” He answered it by saying these are abnormal times in the car industry during which unusual transactions take place. “Under normal circumstances, probably Saab would have been buying Spyker,” Muller told reporters.

Read more >> | NRC-Handelsblad

e iconic Swedish carmaker has been saved from closure after the Dutch carmaker Spyker announced an 11th hour deal

Saab, the iconic Swedish carmaker, has been saved from closure after the Dutch carmaker Spyker announced an 11th hour deal to buy its operations from its US parent company General Motors.

GM, which has been seeking to offload the loss-making Saab operations for a year, confirmed the deal, but would not disclose the price, which is thought to be in the region of $74 million.

Read more >> | The Times Online

pain’s prime minister sees special role for electric cars in Europe’s economic growth over the next decade.

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain’s prime minister, today suggested that energy, technology and education and electric cars should serve as the cornerstones for economic growth in Europe over the next decade.
Presenting his economic vision to the European Parliament on Wednesday (20 January), Zapatero, whose government currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, also called for a new “social pact” between trade unions and companies to help ensure social stability.

Read more >> | Zapatero sets out economic vision  |  Policies  |  Economics  |  Management | European Voice

hree parties have shown interest in the Swedish car manufacturer Saab, a subsidiary General Motors is trying to sell. The Dutch Spyker Cars is one.

Read more >> | nrc.nl – International – Europe – Last minute bids for Saab

ealth care reform is almost (knock on wood) a done deal. Next up: fixing the financial system. I’ll be writing a lot about financial reform in the weeks ahead. Let me begin by asking a basic question: What should reformers try to accomplish?

Read more >> | The New York Times Paul Krugman

his is a tough time to be a decision-maker. We live in an era of low predictability. The world appears in constant flux. The challenges are immense. And most of all, there is, in many instances a clash between the correct short term politics and the correct long term policy.

On the economy, the climate debate and security, the immediate pressures pretty much run one way: increase the role of government in the economy; put the climate deal off to more congenial financial times; and get out of substantial military commitment to fighting global terrorism. Yet in each case the right long-term policy almost certainly points to the opposite course.

What is the way to bridge this gap between short and long term? To decide how to do that is to decide fundamentally what we believe in and what we want from our future.

Tony Blair

Read more | Project Syndicate – A Time of Tests

new exhibition at Amsterdam’s City Archives chronicles its tumultuous history as one of the world’s main financial centres.

A handwritten document banning the sale of stock not yet in one’s possession is currently on display at the Amsterdam City Archives. The document dates back to 1610, a mere decade after the first share of stock ever was issued in Amsterdam.

Read more | NRC- Handelsblad

t’s the season when pundits traditionally make predictions about the year ahead. Mine concerns international economics: I predict that 2010 will be the year of China. And not in a good way.

Actually, the biggest problems with China involve climate change. But today I want to focus on currency policy.
(…)
The bottom line is that Chinese mercantilism is a growing problem, and the victims of that mercantilism have little to lose from a trade confrontation. So I’d urge China’s government to reconsider its stubbornness. Otherwise, the very mild protectionism it’s currently complaining about will be the start of something much bigger.

Paul Krugman

Read more | The New York Times Paul Krugman

ENEVA – Global trade contracted in 2009 at a rate not seen since the Great Depression, and those paying the heaviest price are those who can least afford it. So, when trade ministers from the World Trade Organization’s 153 members gather in Geneva later this month, the issue of how the WTO and the global trading system can help the poorest countries will be high on the agenda.

Driven largely by collapsing domestic demand and production levels, but also by a shortage of affordable trade finance, trade volumes will fall by more than 10% this year. Whether trade will recover next year is an open question. Despite some evidence that trade volumes grew over the summer, recovery has been patchy – and so fragile that a sudden shock in equity or currency markets could once again undermine consumer and business confidence, leading to a further deterioration of trade.

Pascal Lamy

Read on |Project Syndicate – Trading Our Way Out of Crisis

Posted using ShareThis

he economist John Maynard Keynes wrote The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936) to “bring to an issue the deep divergences of opinion between fellow economists which have for the time being almost destroyed the practical influence of economic theory…” Seventy years later, heavyweight economists are still at each other’s throats, in terms almost unchanged from the 1930’s.

Robert Skidelsky

Read on | Project Syndicate – Keynes versus the Classics: Round Two

Posted using ShareThis