The French financial situation is worrisome. It is even worse than Italy whose budget (excluding servicing of the debt) is positive unlike France.  BNP Paribas, Société Générale and Crédit Agricole together hold nearly $ 57 billion in Greek sovereign and private debt, versus $ 34 billion held by the German banks and $ 14 billion at British banks. As of December of last year, French banks also held more than € 140 billion in total Spanish debt and almost € 400 billion in Italian debt.

The Polish Ministry for Regional Development organized ‘The Polish Village’ from 10-12 October in Brussels presenting the level of implementation of 16 regional operational programmes of the 16 Polish regions: Lower Silesian (Dolnoslaskie), Kuyavian-Pomeranian (Kujawsko-Pomorskie), Lublin (Lubelskie), Lubusz (Lubuskie), Lodz (Lodzkie), Lesser Poland (Malopolskie), Mazovian (Mazowiecki), Opolskie, Podkarpackie, Podlaskie (Podlaskie), Pomeranian (Pomorskie); Silesian (Slaskie), Swietokrzyskie, Warmian-Mazurian (Warminsko-Mazurskie), Greater Poland (Wielkopolskie) and West Pomeranian (Zachodni

All lobbyists have different areas of expertise, contacts, working styles, success records, and fees.  If you want to hire a good lobbyist – meaning one that’s effective for you, not just in general – you need to do some research into at least a few lobbyists, and find the one that will work well for you and your specific project(s).

The forthcoming G20 Cannes Summit to be held in Cannes on 3-4 November 2011 will be the sixth meeting of the G-20 heads of government in a series of on-going discussions about financial markets and the world economy.

We make the case here for an economic constellation that fosters increases in productivity and innovation. This would be one marked by a stable and, at the same time, dynamic financial system and based, fundamentally, on growth in domestic or regional demand among the world’s nations, driven by increases in income and thus able to prevent major current account imbalances. The world economy should be linked to a system of relatively stable exchange rates, which could be adjusted to redress any emerging major imbalances.

A stronger role for the state in a ‘good capitalism’, with a fundamentally new regulatory framework, calls for measures to ensure that the state has the equitable and sound revenue base it needs to prevent any rise of public debt as a share of gross domestic product. Tax policy here serves, on the one hand, to correct imbalances in income distribution and, on the other, to enable investments, in particular in education, research and development, infrastructure and social security.

Purchasing power, the central source of demand in developed economies, should be based on a relatively balanced distribution of income, and not on an expansion of consumer credit. Several measures are needed to achieve a balanced distribution of income: first, a reversal of the long-term trend towards a falling labour share of income, which is due chiefly to the financial system’s growing power, virtually uncontrolled proliferation and increasing hunger for risk and profit. Second, the wage structure would need to be modified in such a way as to raise lower-bracket wages.

Financial systems are, in a manner of speaking, the ‘brains’ of the economic system. And while they are of key significance for dynamic economic development, they can also wreak havoc on an economy. In fact, a smoothly functioning financial system has, in a modern economy, at least four tasks essential for any sustainable growth process. First, by supplying businesses – and innovative businesses in particular – with newly created credit, the financial system sets the stage for investment and successful production processes.

Good capitalism is the title of a book written by Prof. Dr. Sebastian Dullien (University of Applied Sciences in Berlin), Prof. Dr. Hansjörg Herr (Berlin School of Economics and Law) and Dr. Christian Kellerman, Director of the Nordic Office of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Stockholm.

Hereafter is what the authors say

There are about 1,500 assistants who assist MEPs . Their tasks vary enormously: they can range from secretarial tasks to acting as a full blown political advisor. Usually it is a mixture of several roles so assistants are often a sort of secretary-advisor-press-officer-tour guide (for visitors) all rolled into one.