The Fuqua Experience

The official pre-reading period of the first term will start on the 8th of August and end on the 14th when most of us, hopefully, leave to attend the residency in London. In 7 short days we are expected to complete all of the reading materials assigned to us by our professors for the term. All of this is well and good except for the fact that I don’t think the reading material was designed to be fit into 1 week. If I would just count the number of pages we are expected to read I would say it would be some where near a 1000 pages easily. I don’t believe it is possible for me to do this while working full time, so I’m glad that we shall always be receiving our pre-reading packets a little early.

The cash for clunkers scheme seems to be a huge success, Germany’s exceptional performance during this economic period has to be commended. Amongst the developed nations, Germany has probably had the most effective stimulus plans, Which leads me to the state the obvious fact that all stimulus plans are not created equal. I feel every economic downturn has two Keynesian components to it. The government provides financial support to the economy and then produces policy changes to help the economy or prevent another downturn from happening for the same reasons. The next step for Germany will be very important, we have to wait and see what policy changes will be implemented by the German government and what effect they will have on the economy. I’m not sure what kind of an effect the improving economy will have on the government, will politicians be tempted to leave things be? or will they want to show their effectiveness in pushing through reforms? Somehow I believe that it will be the latter.