EUROZONE: Some Argue For Bond Holder "Haircuts" And Default Instead Of Bailouts.

NYTIMES/ LANDON THOMAS, JR /

CONTINUING COVERAGE OF : Ireland's $109-$123 billion BAILOUT:
      More economists are now debating if it would be better for the EU's weakest economies to default to lenders -  that bailouts only delay the inevitable.
      “Holding bondholders harmless contributes to moral hazard and increases risks elsewhere,” said former U.S.Treasury chief Robert Rubin. “But imposing bond haircuts can make future market access expensive or impossible for an extended time and can create serious contagion effects elsewhere.”
    Two countries where it worked - Argentina and Russia, in 2002 and 1998 - prospered after debt restructurings.
  “There is just no escaping debt restructuring for Greece and Ireland,” said Harvard's Kenneth Rogoff.

MACROECONOMICS: Big Oil Likes Current Crude Price Range; A "Sweetspot."

NYTIMES/  Crude oil's price has roughly stayed the same since August in the $70 to $83 range. Economists and government officials believe that range is high enough for oil production investment and encouraging alternative energy but low enough for consumers to tolerate it. Economist Kenneth Rogoff calls it a "sweetspot." "If we still had $35 oil prices, you would not have seen us be nearly as active in the Gulf of Mexico,” says Anadarko Petroleum's James Hackett.

ECONOMICS: Eastern Europe's "Debt Bombs".

NYTIMES/
The tolls for an unprecedented borrowing binge are starting to fall due. Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Bulgaria and Hungary are deeply indebted. All carry foreign debt that EXCEEDS 100 percent of their G.D.P.’s. Who will rescue them? Economist Kenneth Rogoff says he expects a wave of defaults in two years when the countries now serving as guarantors return to their own economic problems.

WORLD ECONOMICS: IMF Lacks Power To Enforce Policy Changes.

BLOOMBERG/
Three former IMF economists say that there is a great risk that governments will vow to mend their ways during this economic crisis and then ignore the IMF’s advice. Kenneth Rogoff, Raghuram Rajan and Simon Johnson, who ran the fund’s research department from 2001 to 2008, believe that was the lesson of an unsuccessful IMF effort in 2006 to smooth lopsided trade flows, and the institution still lacks enforcement tools.