Breve história del conflicto entre EEUU e Iran

Tres artículos al respecto en orden cronológico: dos de la Iranian Society Chamber y uno de la BBC. La idea básica es la misma de siempre: el origen del conflicto es económico; es un golpe militar originado en las petroleras para quedarse con las rentas extraeconómicas del petróleo Iraní. Antes de eso no existían ni el radicalismo musulman, ni el terrorismo. Para otro artículo sería la história de los robber barons (muchos judios) de EEUU que comenzarona adueñarse de la industria petrolera en el XIX.

Reza Shah Pahlavi
Reza Shah Kabir (Reza Shah The Great)

Reza Khan

Reza Khan was born in the village of Alasht in the region of Savad Kouh in the province of Mazandaran. Alasht was an isolated village and at the turn of the century its population was about 1,000.

Abbas Ali, father of Reza Shah was a member of the Savad Kouh provincial army regiment and probably reached the rank equivalent to major, married his second wife, Noush Afrin, around 1877. She was a girl of Persian-speaking stock whose father had come to Iran from Erivan. The following year 1878, a son, Reza, was born. Abbas Ali died some three to six months after Reza’s birth.

Noush Afarin did not had a good relationship with Abbas Ali’s other wife and children and shortly after Ali’s death, at the urging of her youngest brother, decided to leave Alasht and settle in Tehran.

At about the age of fifteen, Reza joined the Cossack Brigade in 1893-94. And about 1903 Reza Khan married Tajmah, a girl from Hamadan, from whom a daughter, Fatemeh, later known as Hamdam al Saltaneh, was born. He divorced Tajmah soon after the birth of Fatemeh.

In 1911, serving under the overall command of Abol Hossein Mirza Farmanfarmaian or called Farmanfarma (The prime minister of the time) Reza Khan took part in battles against Salar al-Doleh who was attempting to topple the Government in Tehran and reinstate his brother Mohammad Ali on the throne. Reza gave a good account of himself in that campaign and was promoted to First Lieutenant. His proficiency in handling machine guns elevated him to the rank equivalent to Captain in 1912.

By 1915 he had come to be regarded as a brave and fearless soldier and was handpicked by his successive senior commanders to accompany them on military expeditions. Reza Khan’s military reputation, his native intelligence and professionalism served him well and he soon became well known by some prominent Iranians in Tehran and other provinces. By 1915 he was promoted to the rank of colonel.

Reza Shah Pahlavi

In 1916 he married Nimtaj (Taj al Molouk), the eldest daughter of Teimour Khan (Ayromlou), a Brigadier General in the regular army whose family had come to Iran from the Caucasus (Many Iranian families left the Caucasus and migrated to Iran proper in 1828, after the Russo-Persian War). Taj al Molouk gave birth to four children including the Crown Prince, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the other children were daughters Shams and Ashraf (twin sister of crown Prince, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi), and son Ali Reza.

In 1918 Reza Khan was referred to as a Brigadier General in the campaign of Cossacks in the Kashan area against the bandits.

In 1921 he headed a British orchestrated coup and occupied Tehran with his Cossack Brigade consequently became war minister. Later in 1921 he negotiated the evacuation of the Russian troops.

In 1922 Reza Khan married a third time to Turan (Qamar al Molouk) Amir Soleimani (1904 – 1995), the daughter of Issa Majd al Saltaneh, one of the most respected and prominent men of his day. From this marriage a son was born (Gholam Reza). Reza Khan divorced her in 1923.

Reza Khan became prime minister of the new regime in 1923. He negotiated the evacuation of the British forces stationed in Iran since World War I in 1924.

Reza Khan’s last wife was Esmat Dolatshahi (Death: 24 JUL 1995) , the daughter of a Qajar Prince Mojalal al-Doleh, whom he married in 1923. From this marriage four sons and a daughter were born (Abdol Reza, Ahmad Reza, Mahmoud Reza, Fatemeh and Hamid Reza).

In 1925 Reza Khan deposed Ahmad Mirza, the last shah of the Qajar Dynasty, and was proclaimed shah of Iran. He changed his name to Reza Shah Pahlevi, thus founding the Pahlevi dynasty.

Reza Shah and Kamal Ata Turk president of Turkey

Reza Shah introduced many great reforms, reorganizing the army, government administration, and finances. He abolished all special rights granted to foreigners, thus gaining real independence for Iran.

Under Reza Shah’s 16 years rule the roads and Trans-Iranian Railway were built, modern education was introduced and the University of Tehran was established, and for the first time systematically dispatch of Iranian students to Europe was started. Industrialization of country was stepped-up, and achievements were great. By the mid 1930’s Reza Shah’s dictatorial style of rule caused dissatisfaction in Iran. And in 1935 name changed from Persia to Iran.

In World War II the Allies protested his rapprochement with the Germans, and in 1941 British and Russian forces invaded and occupied Iran. Forced to abdicate in favour of his son, Mohammad Reza Shah, and he died in exile in Johannesburg of South Africa in 1944.

Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq
Symbol of Iranian Nationalism and Struggle Against Imperialism

Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq

An eccentric European-educated lawyer whose father was a bureaucrat and whose mother descended from Qajar kings, was born in 1881.
Dr. Mosaddeq served as a minister and governor before he opposed Reza Shah’s accession in the 1920’s.

He was imprisoned and then put under house arrest at his estate in the walled village of Ahmadabad west of Tehran. Eventually he bought the village, growing crops, founding an elementary school and beginning a public health project.

When Britain and Russia forced Reza Shah from power in favour of his son, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, in 1941, Dr. Mosaddeq became a member of Parliament. He was hailed as a hero for his fiery speeches on the evils of British control of Iran’s oil industry. In 1951, when Parliament voted for Oil Nationalization, the young shah, recognizing the nationalists’ popularity, appointed Dr. Mosaddeq prime minister.

He amassed power. When the shah refused his demand for control of the armed forces in 1952, Dr. Mosaddeq resigned, only to be reinstated in the face of popular riots.

He then displayed a streak of authoritarianism, bypassing Parliament by conducting a national referendum to win approval for its dissolution. Meanwhile, the United States became alarmed at the strength of Iran’s Communist Party, which supported Dr. Mosaddeq.

In August 1953, a dismissal attempt by the shah sent Dr. Mosaddeq’s followers into the streets. The shah fled, amid fears in the new Eisenhower administration that Iran might move too close to Moscow.

Dr. Mossadeq entering court for his trial.

Yet Dr. Mosaddeq did not promote the interests of the Communists, though he drew on their support. Paradoxically, the party turned from him in the end because it viewed him as insufficiently committed and too close to the United States. By the time the royalist coup overthrew him after a few chaotic days, he had alienated many landowners, clerics and merchants.

After a trial, he served three years in prison and ended up under house arrest at his estate. In March 1967, in his mid-80’s and weakened by radium treatments for throat cancer, he died.

In the developing world Dr. Mosaddeq became an icon of anti-imperialism.

Timeline: US-Iran ties

A chronology of key events:

1953 US and British intelligence services engineer a coup in which Iranian military officers depose Prime Minister Muhammad Mussadeq, a leading exponent of nationalising the oil industry.

Ayatollah Khomeini’s legacy still overshadows US-Iranian relations

1979 16 January – US-backed Shah of Iran forced to leave the country after widespread demonstrations and strikes.

1979 1 February – Islamic religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini returns from exile and takes effective power.

1979 4 November – Iranian students seize 63 hostages at US embassy in Tehran, prompting drawn-out crisis leading to severing of diplomatic ties and sweeping US sanctions against Iran. Their initial demand is that the Shah return from the US to Iran to face trial. Later Iran also demands the US undertake not to interfere in its affairs.

1980 25 April – Secret US military mission to rescue hostages ends in disaster in sandstorm in central Iranian desert.

1980 27 July – Exiled Shah dies of cancer in Egypt, but hostage crisis continues.

1980 22 September – Iraq invades, sparking a war with Iran which lasts the rest of the decade. While several Western countries provide support to Iraq during the war, Iran remains diplomatically isolated.

1981 20 January – Last 52 US hostages freed in January after intense diplomatic activity. Their release comes a few hours after US President Jimmy Carter leaves office. They had been held for 444 days.

1985/6 US holds secret talks with Iran and makes weapons shipments, allegedly in exchange for Iranian assistance in releasing US hostages in Lebanon. With revelations that profits were illegally channelled to Nicaraguan rebels, this creates the biggest crisis of Ronald Reagan’s US presidency.

1987/8 US forces engage in series of encounters with Iranian forces, including strikes on Gulf oil platforms.

The hostage crisis at the US embassy in Tehran lasted 444 days

19883 July – US cruiser Vincennes mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Airbus over the Gulf, killing all 290 people on board.

1989 3 June – Ayatollah Khomeini dies. President Khamenei is appointed supreme leader the following day.

1989 17 August – Hashemi Rafsanjani sworn in as president, with apparent backing of both conservatives and reformers in the leadership.

1990/91 Iran remains neutral in US-led intervention in Kuwait. Rapprochement with West hindered by Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1989 religious edict ordering that British author Salman Rushdie be killed for offending Islam in one of his novels.

1992/3 Iran criticises perceived US regional interference in the wake of the Gulf War and the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

1993 US President Bill Clinton takes office.

1995 President Clinton imposes oil and trade sanctions on Iran for alleged sponsorship of “terrorism”, seeking to acquire nuclear arms and hostility to the Middle East process. Iran denies the charges.

1996 Mr Clinton stiffens sanctions with penalties against any firm that invests $40m or more a year in oil and gas projects in Iran and Libya.

The Khatami presidency has not led to closer US-Iranian relations

1997 23 May – Muhammad Khatami elected president of Iran.

1998 President Khatami calls for a “dialogue with the American people” in American TV interview. But in a sermon a few weeks later he is sharply critical of US “oppressive policies”.

1999 Twentieth anniversary of US embassy siege. Hardliners celebrate the occasion, as reformists look to the future rather than the past.

2000 18 February – Iranian reformists win landslide victory in general election. Shortly afterwards, President Clinton extends ban on US oil contracts with Iran, accusing it of continuing to support international terrorism.

2000 March – US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright calls for a new start in US-Iranian relations and announces lifting of sanctions on Iranian exports ranging from carpets to food products. Iranian foreign ministry initially welcomes the move, but Ayatollah Khamenei later describes it as deceitful and belated.

2000 September – Mrs Albright meets Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi at UN in New York – the first such talks since diplomatic ties were severed in 1979.

2001 June – The US alleges that elements within the Iranian Government were directly involved in the bombing of an American military base in Saudi Arabia in 1996. Tehran angrily rejects the allegations.

Bush branded Iran as part of an “axis of evil”

2001 September – Report by Central Intelligence Agency accuses Iran of having one of the world’s most active programmes to acquire nuclear weapons. The CIA report says Iran is seeking missile-related technology from a number of countries including Russia and China.

2002 29 January – US President George W Bush, in his State of the Union address, describes Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an “axis of evil”. He warns that the proliferation of long-range missiles being developed in these countries is as great a danger to the US as terrorism. The speech causes outrage in Iran and is condemned by reformists and conservatives alike.

2002 September – Russian technicians begin construction of Iran’s first nuclear reactor at Bushehr despite strong objections from US.

2002 December – The US accuses Iran of seeking to develop a secret nuclear weapons programme and publishes satellite images of two nuclear sites under construction at Natanz and Arak.

2003 February-May – The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) conducts a series of inspections in Iran. The country confirms that there are sites at Natanz and Arak under construction, but insists that these, like Bushehr, are designed solely to provide fuel for future power plants.

2003 June – White House refuses to rule out the “military option” in dealing with Iran after IAEA says Iran “failed to report certain nuclear materials and activities”. But IAEA does not declare Iran in breach of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Iran’s account of its nuclear programme failed to satisfy the US

2003 September – Washington says Iran is not complying with non-proliferation accords but agrees to support proposal from Britain, France and Germany to give Iran until end of October fully to disclose nuclear activities and allow surprise inspections.

2003 October-November – Tehran agrees to suspend its uranium enrichment programme and allow tougher UN inspections of its nuclear facilities. An IAEA report says Iran has admitted producing plutonium but adds there is no evidence that it was trying to build an atomic bomb. However, US dismisses the report as “impossible to believe”. The IAEA votes to censure Iran but stops short of imposing sanctions.

2003 December – US sends humanitarian aid to Iran after earthquake kills up to 50,000 people in city of Bam. US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Iran’s permanent envoy to UN, Mohammad Javad Zarif, hold telephone talks in a rare direct contact.

2004 January – President Bush denies that US has changed its policy towards Tehran and says moves to help Iran in the wake of earthquake do not indicate a thaw in relations.

2004 March – A UN resolution condemns Iran for keeping some of its nuclear activities secret. Iran reacts by banning inspectors from its sites for several weeks.

2004 September – The IAEA passes a resolution giving a November deadline for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment. Iran rejects the call and begins converting raw uranium into gas.

A US nuclear monitor publishes satellite images of an Iranian weapons facility which it says may be involved in work on nuclear arms.

2004 November – Iran agrees to a European offer to suspend uranium enrichment in exchange for trade concessions. At the last minute, Tehran backs down from its demand to exclude some centrifuges from the freeze. The US says it maintains its right to send Iran unilaterally to the UN Security Council if Tehran fails to fulfil its commitment.

2005 January – Europe and Iran begin trade talks. The European trio, France, Germany and the UK, demand Iran stop its uranium enrichment programme permanently.

Condoleezza Rice says the US is looking for a diplomatic solution

2005 February – Iranian President Mohammed Khatami says his country will never give up nuclear technology, but stresses it is for peaceful purposes. Russia backs Tehran, and signs a deal to supply fuel to Iran’s Bushehr reactor.

New US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says attacking Iran is not on the US agenda “at this point in time”.

2005 March – President George W Bush signals a major change in policy towards Iran. He says the US will back the negotiation track led by the European trio – EU3 – and offer economic incentives for the Islamic state to give up its alleged nuclear ambitions.

Mr Bush announces the US will lift a decade-long block on Iran’s membership of the World Trade Organization, and objections to Tehran obtaining parts for commercial planes.

2005 June – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Tehran’s ultra-conservative mayor, wins a run-off vote in presidential elections, defeating cleric and former president Hashemi Rafsanjani.

2005 July – The US concludes that President Ahmadinejad was a leader of the group behind the 1979 hostage crisis at its embassy in Tehran, but says it is unsure whether he took an active part in taking Americans prisoner.

2005 August – President George W Bush makes the first of several statements in which he refuses to rule out using force against Iran.

Ahmadinejad says Iran has a right to peaceful nuclear technology

2005 August-September – Tehran says it has resumed uranium conversion at its Isfahan plant and insists the programme is for peaceful purposes. The IAEA finds Iran in violation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

2006 March – US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the US faces “no greater challenge” than Iran’s nuclear programme.

2006 April – A report in the New Yorker suggests the US is planning a tactical nuclear strike against underground nuclear sites – a claim Washington denies. Iran says it will retaliate against any attack and complains to the UN.

Iran announces it has successfully enriched uranium – prompting Ms Rice to demand “strong steps” by the UN. An IAEA report concludes Iran has not complied with a Security Council demand that it suspend uranium enrichment. Mr Ahmadinejad insists the pursuit of peaceful nuclear technology is Iran’s “absolute right”.

Tehran offers to hold direct talks with Washington on the situation in Iraq, in what would have been the first such talks since 1980. Tehran later withdraws the offer.

2006 May – The US, Britain and France table a draft resolution at the United Nations Security Council calling on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment or face “further action”.

In response, Iran’s parliament threatens to pull out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if pressure over its nuclear programme increases.

Later that month, the US offers to join EU nations in direct talks with Iran if it agreed to suspend uranium enrichment and reprocessing work.

2006 December – The UN Security Council unanimously passes a resolution imposing sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme.

2007 January – Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns says that members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard had been arrested in Iraq. He said they had been “engaged in sectarian warfare”.

In his State of the Union address on 24 January, Mr Bush lumps Iran with al-Qaeda: “It has also become clear that we face an escalating danger from Shia extremists who…take direction from the regime in Iran,” he says. “The Shia and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat.”

A few days later, seeking to ease concerns about a future military confrontation with Iran, the US president says he has “no intent” to attack the country.

2007 February – US officials say they have proof that Iran has provided sophisticated weapons which have been used to kill American soldiers in Iraq.

This is rebuffed by President Ahmadinejad in an interview with an American television station. He dismisses the claims as an “excuses to prolong the stay” of US forces.

2007 March – The US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, holds a meeting with an Iranian team at a conference of Iraq’s neighbours in Baghdad.

The talks are the first formal encounter between the two sides for more than two years.

2007 May – The US Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, and his Iranian counterpart Hassan Kazemi Qomi hold the first high-level talks between the two countries in almost 30 years.

Iraq’s security was the only item on the agenda at the event in Baghdad, hosted by the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

2007 June – The US threatens to get much tougher with international energy companies that do business with Iran.

2007 July – The US Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, and his Iranian counterpart Hassan Kazemi Qomi, hold a second round of talks during which the US says Iran has increased support for militia groups in Iraq in recent months.

2007 July – The US military accuses Iran of training militias firing rockets and mortars on Baghdad’s heavily protected Green Zone.

2007 August – Officials from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) denounce reported US plans to designate the force as a foreign terrorist unit as “worthless”.

2007 August – President Bush warns Iran to stop supporting the militants fighting against the US in Iraq.

2007 September – Iran has met a key target for its nuclear programme and now has 3,000 centrifuges enriching uranium, President Ahmadinejad announces.

2007 September – Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says he is sure President Bush will be tried in an international court for what had happened in Iraq.

2007 September – The New York authorities reject a request from President Ahmadinejad to visit the site of the 11 September 2001 attacks.

2007 September – President Ahmadinejad says Iran is not heading for armed conflict with the United States.

2007 September – US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attacks the head of the UN nuclear watchdog for urging caution in the dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme.

The criticism came after IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said force should be a last resort in the Iran dispute.

He dismissed talk of military action in Iran as “hype” and urged people not to forget the lessons of war in Iraq.

2007 September – Iran releases on bail the last of three Iranian-Americans whom it had detained on security grounds.

2007 October – Washington’s military commitments to Iraq and Afghanistan would hamstring an attempt to wage war on Iran, the Iranian foreign minister says.

2007 October – Top US military commander in Iraq, Gen David Petraeus, accuses Iran’s ambassador of belonging to an elite unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

Gen Petraeus said Hassan Kazemi-Qomi was a member of the Quds Force, which the US believes backs foreign Islamic militant movements.

2007 October – The US steps up its sanctions on Iran for “supporting terrorists” and pursuing nuclear activities.

The new measures target the finances of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps and three state-owned banks.

2007 November – The US military in Iraq releases nine of the 20 Iranian citizens it had detained there, including two held on suspicion of helping Shia militants.

2007 November – In a new report, the UN nuclear watchdog says Iran has supplied transparent data on its past nuclear activities but adds it has limited knowledge of its current work.

The US vowed to push for further UN sanctions against Iran, following the IAEA report.

But Iran’s President Ahmadinejad says the report showed Iran had been truthful about its nuclear activities – and the US and its allies should apologise for their treatment of Iran.

2007 November – Iran says it has agreed to a US proposal for a new round of talks on improving security in Iraq.

2007 December – A US intelligence assessment said that Iran had halted a nuclear weapons programme in 2003. The National Intelligence Estimate assessment said Tehran was, however, continuing to enrich uranium.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the US report a “great victory” for Iran.

But President Bush said that Iran should reveal the full extent of its nuclear programme, or risk further international isolation.

2007 December – US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Iran still posed a serious threat to the Middle East and the US.

Mr Gates told a Bahrain conference Iran may have restarted its nuclear weapons programme, despite a US intelligence report saying it had stopped.

2007 December – Iran sends a formal protest letter to the United States, accusing it of spying on Iran’s nuclear activities.

2007 December – Washington says Iran has no need to continue its own nuclear programme after Russia started delivering fuel to the Bushehr power plant.

2008 January – Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said relations with the US could be restored in the future.

2008 January – The US says five Iranian speedboats harassed three US navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz, approaching them and radioing a threat to blow them up. Iran denied this and broadcast its own video of the stand-off which shows no sign of any threat.

A senior US official later said the radio threat may have been a misread signal originating from elsewhere.

2008 January – Describing Iran as “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism”, President Bush says he is rallying friends to confront it “before it’s too late”.

2008 July – Reports say the US is planning to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran by opening an interests section in the capital, which would be its first diplomatic presence in the country for 30 years.

2008 November – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad offers congratulations to Barack Obama after his election as US president. During the election campaign, Mr Obama had offered talks with Iran without preconditions.

World Faces Deepening Crisis, IMF Chief Warns

22 01 09 / FMI

• IMF head says economic prospects even worse than previous projections
• Warns of risk of social unrest in some hard-hit countries
• Says more governments expected to access IMF lending

The world faces a deepening economic crisis, with the slowdown in advanced economies now spreading to major emerging markets such as China, India, and Brazil, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, IMF Managing Director, warned.

He said the IMF would significantly adjust downward its forecast for world growth for 2009 when the 185-member international institution announces a revised assessment of the global economy on January 29. In an update released last November, the IMF had said that advanced economies would see a contraction in output in 2009—the first since World War II—but that growth in major emerging markets would still enable the global economy to advance by 2.2 percent in 2009.

Deteriorating outlook

But Strauss-Kahn said in an interview with the BBC’s Hardtalk program, broadcast on January 21, that economic prospects had worsened over the past few months and the IMF would announce lower numbers at the January 29 press conference in Washington DC.

“So 2009 will not be a good year for the world economy, even if we see recovery at the beginning of 2010,” he said.

Prospects were worse than expected not just in the United States and Europe but also in major emerging market economies such as China, India, and Brazil, which would experience very low growth compared with recent historical trends.

Stimulus key to recovery

The IMF has recommended a combination of measures to get the world back on track, including

• action already taken by many governments to stabilize financial markets and get credit flowing again;

• fiscal stimulus through a combination of increased government spending and tax cuts to revive consumer demand;

• liquidity support for emerging market countries to reduce the adverse effects of the widespread capital outflows triggered by the financial crisis; and

• help for low-income countries harmed by fallout from the crisis and the lingering impact of last year’s spike in food and fuel prices.

The IMF has proposed that governments in a position to do so should act together to inject a global fiscal stimulus equivalent to about 2 percent of world GDP—$1.2 trillion.

More on spending side

A number of governments around the world have announced stimulus plans, including in the United States, Japan, Europe, China, and India. But Strauss-Kahn said he did not think enough had been done so far. “In Europe especially, they are still behind the curve,” he said. “There needs to be more done on the spending side, especially because the reaction of the economy to more spending is quicker than the reaction to a decrease in taxes.”

The European Commission said on January 19 it expected that the 16 countries using the euro would see their economies shrink by 1.9 percent in 2009.

Strauss-Kahn warned of the risk of social upheaval and unrest in some countries worst affected by the downturn and said he expected additional countries to seek IMF help, not just in Eastern Europe, but elsewhere in the world, including Latin America where some countries were “just on the edge.”

The IMF has so far committed $47.9 billion in lending to a number of economies affected by the crisis, including Belarus, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Pakistan, Serbia, and Ukraine. It announced a precautionary loan for El Salvador this month and an IMF team is also in negotiations with Turkey.

Meltdown avoided

Strauss-Kahn said the world had avoided a total meltdown of the financial system as a result of coordinated intervention by major central banks last October. “We were very close in September to a total collapse of the world economy,” the former French finance minister revealed.

He defended the IMF’s different prescriptions for different economies, arguing that while major advanced economies could afford to boost spending and run up larger deficits to help get out of the recession, other crisis-hit countries, particularly the emerging markets of eastern Europe, do not have the same budgetary room to maneuver because inflows of capital had dried up and their currencies were under pressure.

Strength of the dollar

Strauss-Kahn said that even though the financial crisis had started in the United States, the recent strength of the dollar showed that people around the world still had confidence in the U.S. economy.

As long as that confidence remained, the United States would be able to finance its large deficit. Even though the Chinese economy was on the rise, the United States would still remain formidable. Through globalization, both economies would remain dependent on the rest of the world.

A longer-term issue was to fix the serious imbalances in the global economy.

IMF funding

Asked if the IMF has sufficient resources to cope with the crisis, Strauss-Kahn said that the Fund had enough money for the immediate future. “If the crisis goes on, which is most probable, then down the road—say six months from now—we will need more money.”

Before the crisis erupted, the IMF had around $200 billion in available resources and access to a further $50 billion. Since then, Japan has offered to lend the IMF an additional $100 billion. Strauss-Kahn has said that the IMF may need an extra $150 billion to help emerging markets and low-income countries get through the crisis.

Better regulation

Strauss-Kahn said that the crisis highlighted the need for better regulation and supervision of the banking sector, especially in countries such as the United States.

Member governments expect the Group of 20 industrialized and emerging market economies to make significant progress in boosting transparency and tightening supervision in the financial sector when they meet in London in April. The London meeting follows the meeting in Washington last November when leaders agreed an action plan to combat the growing crisis.

Was There Ever a Default on U.S. Treasury Debt?

23 01 09 / RGE Monitor

As the bailouts in the current bust inexorably mount, financed in rapidly increasing U.S. government debt, one might wonder whether a default on Treasury debt is imaginable. In the course of history, did the U.S. ever default on its debt?

New Didactic

New York Times, 12 ene 2009

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — For as long as anyone can remember, introductory physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was taught in a vast windowless amphitheater known by its number, 26-100.

Squeezed into the rows of hard, folding wooden seats, as many as 300 freshmen anxiously took notes while the professor covered multiple blackboards with mathematical formulas and explained the principles of Newtonian mechanics and electromagnetism.

But now, with physicists across the country pushing for universities to do a better job of teaching science, M.I.T. has made a striking change.

The physics department has replaced the traditional large introductory lecture with smaller classes that emphasize hands-on, interactive, collaborative learning. Last fall, after years of experimentation and debate and resistance from students, who initially petitioned against it, the department made the change permanent. Already, attendance is up and the failure rate has dropped by more than 50 percent.

M.I.T. is not alone. Other universities are changing their ways, among them Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, North Carolina State University, the University of Maryland, the University of Colorado at Boulder and Harvard. In these institutions, physicists have been pioneering teaching methods drawn from research showing that most students learn fundamental concepts more successfully, and are better able to apply them, through interactive, collaborative, student-centered learning.

The traditional 50-minute lecture was geared more toward physics majors, said Eric Mazur, a physicist at Harvard who is a pioneer of the new approach, and whose work has influenced the change at M.I.T.

“The people who wanted to understand,” Professor Mazur said, “had the discipline, the urge, to sit down afterwards and say, ‘Let me figure this out.’ ” But for the majority, he said, a different approach is needed.

“Just as you can’t become a marathon runner by watching marathons on TV,” Professor Mazur said, “likewise for science, you have to go through the thought processes of doing science and not just watch your instructor do it.”

Another proponent of the new approach is Carl Wieman, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who directs a science education initiative at the University of British Columbia.

In an article in the education journal Change last year, Dr. Wieman noted that the human brain “can hold a maximum of about seven different items in its short-term working memory and can process no more than about four ideas at once.”

“But the number of new items that students are expected to remember and process in the typical hourlong science lecture is vastly greater,” he continued. “So we should not be surprised to find that students are able to take away only a small fraction of what is presented to them in that format.”

At M.I.T., two introductory courses are still required — classical mechanics and electromagnetism — but today they meet in high-tech classrooms, where about 80 students sit at 13 round tables equipped with networked computers.

Instead of blackboards, the walls are covered with white boards and huge display screens. Circulating with a team of teaching assistants, the professor makes brief presentations of general principles and engages the students as they work out related concepts in small groups.

Teachers and students conduct experiments together. The room buzzes. Conferring with tablemates, calling out questions and jumping up to write formulas on the white boards are all encouraged.

“There was a long tradition that what it meant to teach was to give a really well-prepared lecture,” said Peter Dourmashkin, a senior lecturer in physics at M.I.T. and a strong proponent of the new method. “It was the students’ job to figure it out.”

The problem, say Dr. Dourmashkin and others in the department, is that a lot of students had trouble doing that. The failure rate for those lecture courses, even those taught by the most mesmerizing teachers, was typically 10 percent to 12 percent. Now, it has dropped to 4 percent.

Another big concern was attendance.

John Belcher, a space physicist who arrived at M.I.T. 38 years ago and was instrumental in introducing the new teaching method nine years ago, was considered an outstanding lecturer. He won M.I.T.’s top teaching award and rave reviews from students. And yet, as each semester progressed, attendance in his introductory physics courses fell to 50 percent, as it did, he said, for nearly all of his colleagues.

“M.I.T. students are very busy,” Professor Belcher said. “They see the lecture as dispensable, that is that they can get it out of a book more efficiently than getting up, getting dressed and going to lecture.”

After three years, Professor Belcher had had enough. “I had poor attendance, and was failing 10 to 15 percent, and grading the tests and shaking my head in despair about how little was getting across,” he said. “And this is a subject — electromagnetism — that I love.”

The new approach at M.I.T. is known by its acronym, TEAL, for Technology Enhanced Active Learning.

A $10 million donation from the late Alex d’Arbeloff, an M.I.T. alumnus, co-founder of the high-tech company Teradyne, and former M.I.T. corporation chairman, made the switch to TEAL possible. The two state-of-the-art TEAL classrooms alone cost $2.5 million, Professor Belcher said.

Unlike in the lectures, attendance counts toward the final grade, and attendance is up to about 80 percent.

Classes meet three times a week, for a total of five hours. Homework is due three times a week.

Monique Squiers, a sophomore who intends to become a surgeon, liked her TEAL classes so much that she has signed on as a teaching assistant. “You can say, ‘Hey, professor, I didn’t really get what you went over at this point, could you explain it to me a little more?’ ” Ms. Squiers said. “If anything, they’re happy when someone doesn’t get it.”

Of the core science curriculum required of all freshmen, only introductory physics follows the new method, Professor Belcher said. Math, biology and chemistry are still taught through large lecture classes and small recitations.

In the physics department, debate over teaching methods continues. Younger professors tend to be more enthusiastic about TEAL than veterans who have been perfecting their lectures for decades.

One of the newer professors, Gabriella Sciolla, who arrived in 2003, was teaching a TEAL class on circuits recently. She gauged the level of understanding in the room by throwing out a series of multiple-choice questions. The students “voted” with their wireless “personal response clickers” — the clickers are essential to TEAL — which transmitted the answers to a computer monitored by the professor and her assistants.

“You know where they are,” Professor Sciolla said afterward. She can then adjust, slowing down or engaging students in guided discussions of their answers, as needed.

Lecturing in 26-100, she said, she could only look out at the sea of faces and hope the students were getting it.

“They might be looking intently at you, understanding everything,” Professor Sciolla said. “Or they might be thinking, ‘What am I going to do when I get out of this bloody class?’ ”

China’s economic growth slowed to 9% last year

The world’s third-largest economy was hit hard by the global financial crisis that led to a fall in orders for Chinese exports.

But the official who announced the figures said the economy had still done relatively well in trying times.

There has also been gloomy news from South Korea, where the economy shrank by 3.4% in the last quarter of 2008.

Meanwhile, Japan reported that its exports plummeted 35% last month – the sharpest fall on record.

‘Eventful year’

At first glance, China’s figures appear to show that its economy is still doing very well. Overall growth of 9% for the year would leave most governments ecstatic.

But China recorded 13% growth in 2007, and figures announced on Thursday show economic growth slowed rapidly towards the end of 2008.

Growth in the first quarter of last year was 10.6%, but that had slowed to just 6.8% in the last three months – after the financial crisis had struck.

At a press conference to announce last year’s figures, Ma Jiantang, head of the national bureau of statistics, said: “In 2008, we saw an eventful and extraordinary year.”

He said China’s economy had been affected by a series of natural disasters, such as the earthquake in May, and by the financial crisis.

It is this last event that has hit the Chinese economy hardest – leading to less demand for Chinese products across the world -and the crisis is getting worse, said Mr Ma.

He revealed that millions of migrant workers – villagers who travel to cities to work in factories – had already lost their jobs.

He did not give an absolute figure for the number of migrants who are now jobless, but he said a survey showed about 5% had lost work.

Despite all economic difficulties, the incomes of both urban and rural households continue to climb Ma Jiantang, head of China’s national bureau of statistics Growth slows but China is not collapsing

China’s Academy of Social Sciences recently said that there were about 200 million migrant workers – meaning about 10 million migrants are now unemployed.

Independent Chinese economist Andy Xie said the number of migrant workers without jobs could rise to more than 20 million.

“A lot of factories are not going to reopen after the Chinese New Year. The workers will be told not to come back,” he said.

China worries that these unemployed people will cause an increase in social unrest if they are unable to find new jobs.

Mr Ma acknowledged that this was a problem. “[We] take this issue of migrant workers very seriously,” he said.

To reinforce the point, he reminded those listening that China’s communist leaders were improving ordinary people’s living standards.

“Despite all economic difficulties, the incomes of both urban and rural households continue to climb,” he said.

Bank warns of continuing slowdown

It remains uncertain how long it will take the economy to start to recover, Bank of England governor Mervyn King has warned business leaders.

He said recent policy actions would boost demand, output and employment, but added economic policy lags were “notoriously long and unpredictable”.

Addressing the CBI during his first major speech of 2009, he added that a “pronounced contraction” was under way.

He said the priority was to fix the banking system so lending could resume.

“The contraction of lending to ordinary viable businesses – your businesses – is threatening to drive the economy further into recession,” he said in his speech to the CBI in Nottingham.

On Monday the government announced a second package of measures aimed at encouraging banks to lend more.

In referring to those steps, Mr King said they were not designed to “protect the banks as such”, but “designed to protect the economy from the banks”.

It is clear that policy did not succeed in preventing the development of an unsustainable position Mervyn King

Mr King said the sharp rise in debt from the early 1990s to the financial turmoil in 2007 had prompted the total debt to almost double, relative to GDP.

He defended the Bank of England’s policies, saying: “The Bank did not stand idly by during this period”

He said it had regularly underlined the risks posed “by the growth in the size and complexity of the financial sector”.

However, he added: “It is clear that policy did not succeed in preventing the development of an unsustainable position.”

In the past year the risks taken by the financial sector had become “painfully apparent”, he said.

Worries over the future of the UK’s finance sector have intensified after Royal Bank of Scotland predicted losses of the £28bn on Monday, prompting fears that it could be nationalised.

Uncertainty over the banking sector has sent shares sharply lower, hitting both RBS and the newly formed Lloyds Group.

Key data

The speech comes during a week in which a number of figures are being released and watched closely as indicators of the state of the economy.

Data on Tuesday showed that consumer price inflation fell sharply in December to an annual rate of 3.1% from November’s figure of 4.1%, raising concerns over the possibility of deflation.

And jobless data to be issued on Wednesday is tipped to show a rise in unemployment claims in December.

Data issued on Friday is expected to show that the UK economy shrank for the last quarter of 2008 – the second consecutive quarter of negative growth – which would technically mean the UK had already entered a recession.

Next steps

Looking ahead, Mr King said there was an inherent contradiction between short- and long-term needs.

“Spending now supports the economy, but in the long run we need to save more and borrow less. Public borrowing sustains spending, but in the long term it needs to fall.”

Similarly, while interest rates have fallen to unprecedented levels – standing at 1.5% after another cut earlier this month – in the long-term they will need to rise to more normal levels, he said.

As well as interest rate changes, he said the bank would consider “a range of unconventional measures” to boost the amount of credit firms could access and the amount of reserves held by commercial banks.

While the government has taken steps to encourage lending, he warned: “There is a fine dividing line between helping to oil the wheels in markets which are temporarily impaired, and artificially supporting markets in which there is no underlying demand.”

UK in recession as economy slides

The UK is now in recession for the first time since 1991, official government figures have confirmed.

Gross domestic product fell by 1.5% in the last three months of 2008 after a 0.6% drop in the previous quarter.

That means that the widely accepted definition of a recession – two consecutive quarters of falling economic growth – has been met.

It represents the biggest quarter-on-quarter decline since 1980, and a 1.8% fall on the same quarter a year ago.

The worse-than-expected contraction sent sterling to a 24-year low against the dollar, with one pound buying $1.355.

Meanwhile the FTSE 100 index fell almost 2%, below 4,000 points.

‘Broad-based decline’

The figures, from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), showed that manufacturing made the largest contribution to the slowdown, contracting by 4.6% despite hopes that the weak pound would help exporters.

With the exception of agriculture, all elements of the economy shrank from the previous three months, the ONS added.

The fall in GDP was slightly steeper than most analysts had been expecting, said the BBC’s economics editor Stephanie Flanders

“These figures suggest that it’s not going to be done by Christmas,” she said.

The downturn was “broad-based” our economics editor added, saying that the bleak manufacturing data ended “any prospect of this being a white-collar recession that would largely escape manufacturers “.

‘Sad commentary’

Chancellor Alistair Darling said that the figures underlined the scale of the challenges the government faced.

“It’s going to be a difficult year for families in the UK. We need to go about the problem with a sense of purpose,” he said.

Countries across the globe were facing recession, he added, saying that the crisis could be solved “better and quicker” if other governments also acted to stimulate their economies.

“It is difficult to see why things should improve in the foreseeable future,” said Andrew Smith, chief economist at KPMG.

Neil Mackinnon, chief economist at ECU Group, said the GDP figures were “grim” and underscored the depth of the recession.

“There are no green shoots of recovery, no light at the end of the tunnel,” he added.

The average recession in the UK since 1955 has lasted for three quarters, but the past two recessions have lasted for five.

In fact, many forecasters believe a recession could stretch into 2010 and be as severe as that of the early 1990s.

The UK economy was heading for a “long cold winter” which was unlikely to end before spring 2010, said Graeme Leach, chief economist at the Institute of Directors.

“The debate on the length and depth of the recession is extremely complex and at this stage one cannot be dogmatic about the outcome,” he said.

“The latest recession is beginning to look as if it will be more like the 1980s than the 1990s in terms of lost output. We are well into the financial crisis but the economic crisis is only just beginning.”

Deteriorating picture

GDP is the most commonly used indicator of national income.

It attempts to measure the sum of incomes received by the various wealth-creating sectors of the economy, from manufacturing and retail to agriculture and service industries.

The consensus forecast for 2009 as a whole is now for a 2.1% decline in GDP.

As recently as December, the forecast was for a drop of 1.5%.

This highlights the rapidly deteriorating economic picture over recent weeks, during which a number of the UK’s best known high street retailers, such as Woolworths and Zavvi, have gone into administration.

As well as its low against the dollar, the pound has slumped against the euro and many analysts believe that parity is now inevitable.

International investors are said to be losing confidence in the UK economy and the government’s attempts to kick-start lending from the banks.

The official government forecast is for the economy to shrink between 0.75% and 1.25% in 2009, although the Chancellor Alistair Darling has indicated that he will revise this figure in the Budget.

Injection

Efforts to prevent the recession deepening have been widespread, though critics say they have not gone far enough.

The Bank of England has aggressively cut interest rates to 1.5% – aimed at driving down the cost of lending and making it easier for consumers and businesses to access credit.

However, banks have been reluctant to lend sufficiently, despite a £37bn injection into major banks, and a scheme to offer insurance to banks against potential losses on risky loans.

A temporary cut in value added tax (VAT), from 17.5% to 15%, was an attempt to encourage consumers to spend and boost the retail sector and wider economy.

Bruselas prevé una contracción del 2% de la economía española en 2009

La Comisión Europea ha dejado cortas las pesimistas previsiones que el pasado viernes el ministro de Economía, Pedro Solbes, expuso tras el Consejo de Ministros. De acuerdo con los datos de Bruselas, la economía española retrocederá un 2% en 2009, frente a la contracción del 1,6% anunciada por el Gobierno. El empeoramiento de la actividad económica provocará además que la tasa de paro aumente al 16,1% de la población activa este año -Solbes la fijó en el 15,9% y reiteró en la entrevista publicada ayer en este periódico que no llegará en ningún caso a los cuatro millones de parados- y al 18,7% en 2010, las cifras más altas de toda la Unión Europea y casi el doble que la media comunitaria.

• Contra la crisis, más Europa
• Zapatero aprieta a los bancos para que liberen crédito
• Reino Unido sale por segunda vez al rescate de los bancos
• Standard & Poor’s rebaja la calificación de riesgo de España
• “Hemos utilizado todo el margen que teníamos contra la crisis”
• El Ibex se queda por debajo de los 8.500 puntos

Almunia advierte de que la recuperación de la economía será más lenta en España

VIDEO – AGENCIA ATLAS – 19-01-2009

El comisario europeo de Asuntos Económicos, Joaquín Almunia, dijo durante la presentación de las previsiones económicas del Ejecutivo de la UE, que la economía de la Unión Europea “tocará fondo” durante el primer trimestre de 2009 e iniciará una recuperación “gradual aunque modesta” a partir del tercer trimestre. - AGENCIA ATLAS

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Joaquín Almunia Aman

A FONDO

Nacimiento:

17-06-1948

Lugar:

Bilbao

Comisión Europea

A FONDO

Sede:

Bruselas (Bélgica)

Directivo:

José Manuel Durao Barroso (Presidente)

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La noticia en otros webs

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El comisario de Economía, Joaquín Almunia, ha reconocido que la crisis está golpeando a la economía europea más fuerte de lo previsto y ha cifrado que el PIB de los países de la zona del euro se contraerá este año el 1,9% (el 1,8% en el conjunto de la UE) y el déficit público se disparará hasta el 4% (al 4,4% en los Veintisiete). Bruselas reconoce que el mercado laboral se está viendo muy afectado por la caída de la actividad y espera que el paro aumente hasta el 9,3% en la zona del euro y el 8,7% en la UE en 2009 y hasta el 10,2% y 9,5%, respectivamente, en 2010.

Caída de la construcción

Almunia ha pedido “coordinación” a los estados miembros para que las medidas contra la crisis sean más eficaces y ha estimado que en la segunda parte de 2009 empezará una recuperación “gradual” y “modesta”. “En el primer trimestre tocaremos el suelo”, ha afirmado el comisario de Asuntos Económicos. Para Almunia, “la prioridad” debe ser ahora superar las dificultades que tienen las empresas y las familias para conseguir financiación. Sin las medidas coyunturales adoptadas desde el pasado agosto la contracción del PIB este año hubiera sido de 0,75 puntos más, según la Comisión Europea.

Bruselas atribuye el deterioro al agravamiento de las turbulencias financieras, a la desaceleración global y a la fuerte corrección de la construcción en algunos Estados miembros y confía en que Europa retome el crecimiento en 2010, con avances del PIB en torno al 0,5%. En el caso de España la recuperación será “más lenta” que la media comunitaria debido al ajuste en el sector de la construcción, según Almunia.

De entre los países miembros de la UE de los que se tienen datos, cinco aumentaron la producción de la construcción en tasa interanual y bajó en ocho. España, con un descenso del 9,7% lidera la caída de la construcción, seguida de Eslovenia (-8,2%) y Reino Unido (-6,3%), mientras que los que más subieron fueron Eslovaquia (16,5%), Rumanía (13,8%) y Polonia (7%)

Inflación a la baja

La Comisión ha revisado a la baja las previsiones de la inflación que se situará en el 1% en la zona del euro y en el 1,2% en la UE (desde el 3,3% y 3,7%, respectivamente en 2008), en tanto que en 2010 subirá sólo hasta el entorno del 2% en las dos áreas.

En lo que se refiere al déficit público para España, los pronósticos de la Comisión son también peores que los del Gobierno español, que lo fijó en el 5,8%. Según Bruselas, tras situarse en el 3,4% del PIB en 2008, el déficit público alcanzará el 6,2% del PIB en 2009 como consecuencia del aumento de las prestaciones por desempleo y del paquete de estímulo fiscal adoptado en noviembre de 2008, que incluye 8.000 millones de euros para los ayuntamientos y que según los cálculos del Ejecutivo equivale al 1,1% del PIB.

Polémica en Argentina por los datos oficiales de inflación

El Pais (de España), 2008 01 19

El Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Censo (Indec) argentino hizo público esta semana el índice oficial, según el cual la inflación anual en 2008 no superó el 7,2%, una cifra ampliamente puesta en duda por la mayoría de los agentes económicos argentinos. La consultora Ecolatina, fundada por el ex ministro de Economía Roberto Lavagna, asegura que fue del 23,5%, y la Universidad de Mendoza cifra la subida en el 24%. Especialmente llamativa es la diferencia que plantean unos y otros en cuando a la subida de los alimentos. Según el Indec, los precios sólo crecieron un 5,6% en 2008, mientras que según Ecolatina superaron el 29%.

La enorme diferencia entre uno y otro dato se debe a la distinta metodología que utilizan los dos organismos. Ecolatina emplea el mismo sistema que usó el Indec hasta 2007, mientras que el Instituto, que pasó en esas fechas a estar intervenido y controlado por el poderoso titular del Ministerio de Comercio, Guillermo Moreno, cambió sustancialmente su sistema de cálculo, de manera que ahora prácticamente sólo tiene en cuenta una cesta productos de consumo muy básico. Moreno sustituyó al equipo dirigente del Indec y también al equipo técnico que elaboraba el IPC hasta ese momento.

Las nuevas reglas son especialmente beneficiosas cuando se trata de calcular el incremento del coste de la deuda externa que está vinculada a la inflación oficial. Según datos publicados por Clarín, en sólo estos dos años la diferencia de cálculo habría permitido al Gobierno de los Kirchner ahorrar 16.000 millones de dólares. La deuda es una de las grandes obsesiones tanto del ex presidente Néstor Kirchner, como de su mujer, Cristina Fernández, la actual presidenta de la república, que tuvieron que hacer frente a las duras consecuencias de la suspensión de pagos en 2001.

El polémico índice oficial de precios plantea problemas muy serios, tanto de credibilidad de las instituciones argentinas como a la hora de calcular la cesta de la compra y los aumentos salariales. La contradicción queda en evidencia cuando se anuncia que el propio Gobierno argentino, que sólo reconoce un 7,2% de inflación, negocia con los sindicatos una subida salarial del 13,5%.

Lo mismo ocurrió en 2008, cuando, según datos oficiales, los sueldos crecieron ligeramente por encima del 20% como media. Sobre el papel, Argentina es un extraño caso en el que el Gobierno, en plena crisis económica internacional, acepta subidas salariales de nada menos que ocho puntos por encima de la inflación oficial. En la práctica, es una especie de juego acordado en el que los agentes económicos han aprendido a moverse siempre con dos planos distintos, la inflación oficial y la inflación real.

La peculiar estadística del Indec tiene efectos secundarios perniciosos porque trastoca buena parte de los índices que miden la economía y la riqueza del país, como han denunciado repetidamente algunos trabajadores del Instituto.

The Obama Gap

New York Times, 09 01 08

“I don’t believe it’s too late to change course, but it will be if we don’t take dramatic action as soon as possible. If nothing is done, this recession could linger for years.”

So declared President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday, explaining why the nation needs an extremely aggressive government response to the economic downturn. He’s right. This is the most dangerous economic crisis since the Great Depression, and it could all too easily turn into a prolonged slump.

But Mr. Obama’s prescription doesn’t live up to his diagnosis. The economic plan he’s offering isn’t as strong as his language about the economic threat. In fact, it falls well short of what’s needed.

Bear in mind just how big the U.S. economy is. Given sufficient demand for its output, America would produce more than $30 trillion worth of goods and services over the next two years. But with both consumer spending and business investment plunging, a huge gap is opening up between what the American economy can produce and what it’s able to sell.

And the Obama plan is nowhere near big enough to fill this “output gap.”

Earlier this week, the Congressional Budget Office came out with its latest analysis of the budget and economic outlook. The budget office says that in the absence of a stimulus plan, the unemployment rate would rise above 9 percent by early 2010, and stay high for years to come.

Grim as this projection is, by the way, it’s actually optimistic compared with some independent forecasts. Mr. Obama himself has been saying that without a stimulus plan, the unemployment rate could go into double digits.

Even the C.B.O. says, however, that “economic output over the next two years will average 6.8 percent below its potential.” This translates into $2.1 trillion of lost production. “Our economy could fall $1 trillion short of its full capacity,” declared Mr. Obama on Thursday. Well, he was actually understating things.

To close a gap of more than $2 trillion — possibly a lot more, if the budget office projections turn out to be too optimistic — Mr. Obama offers a $775 billion plan. And that’s not enough.

Now, fiscal stimulus can sometimes have a “multiplier” effect: In addition to the direct effects of, say, investment in infrastructure on demand, there can be a further indirect effect as higher incomes lead to higher consumer spending. Standard estimates suggest that a dollar of public spending raises G.D.P. by around $1.50.

But only about 60 percent of the Obama plan consists of public spending. The rest consists of tax cuts — and many economists are skeptical about how much these tax cuts, especially the tax breaks for business, will actually do to boost spending. (A number of Senate Democrats apparently share these doubts.) Howard Gleckman of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center summed it up in the title of a recent blog posting: “lots of buck, not much bang.”

The bottom line is that the Obama plan is unlikely to close more than half of the looming output gap, and could easily end up doing less than a third of the job.

Why isn’t Mr. Obama trying to do more?

Is the plan being limited by fear of debt? There are dangers associated with large-scale government borrowing — and this week’s C.B.O. report projected a $1.2 trillion deficit for this year. But it would be even more dangerous to fall short in rescuing the economy. The president-elect spoke eloquently and accurately on Thursday about the consequences of failing to act — there’s a real risk that we’ll slide into a prolonged, Japanese-style deflationary trap — but the consequences of failing to act adequately aren’t much better.

Is the plan being limited by a lack of spending opportunities? There are only a limited number of “shovel-ready” public investment projects — that is, projects that can be started quickly enough to help the economy in the near term. But there are other forms of public spending, especially on health care, that could do good while aiding the economy in its hour of need.

Or is the plan being limited by political caution? Press reports last month indicated that Obama aides were anxious to keep the final price tag on the plan below the politically sensitive trillion-dollar mark. There also have been suggestions that the plan’s inclusion of large business tax cuts, which add to its cost but will do little for the economy, is an attempt to win Republican votes in Congress.

Whatever the explanation, the Obama plan just doesn’t look adequate to the economy’s need. To be sure, a third of a loaf is better than none. But right now we seem to be facing two major economic gaps: the gap between the economy’s potential and its likely performance, and the gap between Mr. Obama’s stern economic rhetoric and his somewhat disappointing economic plan.