Subject: Share the View -- on Stimulus Spin and Netanyahu's Bluff
From: "Bloomberg View -- Tobin Harshaw" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2012 05:18:34 -0400

_Share the View_
   _Bloomberg View _

A Quick Look at Bloomberg News's Opinion Section for March 13,  2012

   Let's start the morning off with some conventional wisdom, shall we:

   1) The Obama stimulus package played a big factor in the improving economy;
   2) Israel is on the verge of striking Iran's nuclear sites;
   3) Students gain valuable experience studying abroad;
   4) A Greek default would set off an economic crisis

   Now, let's debunk it all:

   1) View columnist Ramesh Ponnuru: "Democrats say the economic recovery shows
   that the stimulus bill that President Barack Obama signed in 2009 worked.
   Republicans deny it. Although we can’t know how the economy would be faring
   if Congress hadn’t passed a stimulus, we have good reason to doubt that it
   did much good. Media fact-check organizations have no such doubts.
   Factcheck.org says it’s 'just false' to deny that the stimulus has created
   jobs. It cites the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that the stimulus
   had saved or created millions of jobs. But the CBO, as its director has
   explained, hasn’t really checked the effect of the stimulus. It has merely
   reported what the results of additional federal spending and tax credits
   would be if you assume that spending and tax credits are stimulative. In
   other words: If you assume that stimulus works, it must have worked."
   [2]Link.
     Links:
       2. http://bloom.bg/Al8WIC

   2) View columnist Jeffrey Goldberg: "I’m talking about the belief, advanced
   to me by a former senior Israeli military official, and echoed by other
   non-insane people, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is
   bluffing: He has never had any intention of launching air and missile
   strikes against Iran’s nuclear program, and is working behind the scenes
   with Obama to stop Iran through sanctions. In this interpretation, what
   Netanyahu has been doing -- for the past 15 years, in and out of office --
   is creating conditions in which U.S., Western and Arab leaders believe that
   they must deny Iran its dream of nuclear weapons or else suffer the chaotic
   fallout of a precipitous, paranoia-driven Israeli attack." [3]Link.
     Links:
       3. http://bloom.bg/xHkZfD

   3) Op-Ed contributor Richard Vedder: "Study abroad is a marketing tool and
   in some cases a cash cow for universities ... For all the talk about
   promoting global awareness and cultural diversity, these programs are
   arguably a financial racket. They free up space in dorms and classrooms on
   the home campus for other 'customers,' and are a marketing tool to convince
   parents (sometimes incorrectly) that their children are getting a superior
   education. Unfortunately, the pressures to study abroad are only increasing.
   Employers are starting to expect that experience to appear on resumes of
   college graduates."[4] Link.
     Links:
       4. http://bloom.bg/A20z2f

   4) The View editors: "The International Swaps and Derivatives Association, a
   trade group of large financial institutions, euphemistically calls Greece’s
   debt deal a 'credit event.' The rest of the world calls it what it is: a
   default. Still, no panic has ensued; no contagion has swept over U.S. banks.
   On Monday, the world’s bourses held steady. Yields on large, financially
   strapped sovereigns, including Spain and Italy, ticked up only slightly. The
   financial markets, it seems, are treating the CDS trigger as a nonevent. All
   of this is a healthy sign that credit-default swaps remain effective
   instruments to transfer and hedge risk. Banks and other financial
   institutions rely on the instruments to protect against losses." [5]Link.
     Links:
       5. http://bloom.bg/xvwzOy

   Also, the View editors see an opportunity in an Afghan atrocity; columnist
   Edward Glaeser investigates geographic disparities in U.S. housing costs;
   and op-ed contributor Hannes H. Gissurarson reports on the trial of a former
   Icelandic prime minister.

   To see if you share the View, go to [6]www.bloomberg.com/view.
   And check out our editors' blog, [7]The Ticker.
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