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Sunday, May 5, 2013

The Results Are In for the Brüning and Mellon Memorial Prizes!

The 'Creditanstalt' Vienna is Pleased to Announce the Election Results for the Heinrich Brüning and Andrew Mellon Memorial Prizes.

Results for the Heinrich Brüning Memorial Prize for Self-Defeating Macroeconomic Stabilization Policy (aka Austerity):
Polldaddy.com poll Google gadget poll Total
Count Percentage Count Percentage Count Percentage
Olli Rehn, Vice-President of the European Commission 19 23.75% 12 33.33% 31 26.72%
David Cameron, British Prime Minister 23 28.75% 7 19.44% 30 25.86%
Angela Merkel, German Chancellor 12 15% 7 19.44% 19 16.38%
Jens Weidmann, German Bundesbank President 9 11.25% 6 16.67% 15 12.93%
Wolfgang Schäuble, German Finance Minister 11 13.75% 3 8.33% 14 12.07%
Nicolas Sarkozy, former French President 3 3.75% 0 0.00% 3 2.59%
Helmut Kohl, former German Chancellor 1 1.25% 1 2.78% 2 1.72%
Other: 2 2.50% 0 0.00% 2 1.72%
Total 80 100% 36 100% 116 100%

The winner of the Brüning Memorial Prize, by a hair over David Cameron, is

Olli Rehn,
Vice-President of the European Commission

Olli Rehn on receiving word of being awarded the Brüning Memorial Prize

Vice-President Rehn will receive the sum of One Million 'Euros' in Deutsche Bundesbank TARGET2 Claims on the ECB, contingent on his relocating to Germany.

Results for the Andrew Mellon “Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate” Memorial Prize for the Expeditious Resolution of Banks (aka Bank Runs):

Polldaddy.com poll Googgle poll Total
Count Percentage Count Percentage Count Percentage
Wolfgang Schäuble, German Finance Minister 23 37.10% 4 13% 27 29%
Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Dutch Finance Minister and Euro Group President 14 22.58% 13 41% 27 29%
Jens Weidmann, Bundesbank President 12 19.35% 5 16% 17 18%
David Stockman, former OMB director under Reagan 5 8.06% 7 22% 12 13%
Angela Merkel, German Chancellor 7 11.29% 2 6% 9 10%
Nicolas Sarkozy, former French President 0 0% 1 3% 1 1%
Other: 1 1.61% 0 0% 1 1%
Total 62 100% 32 100% 94 100%

The joint recipients of the Andrew Mellon Memorial Prize, in a photo-finish tie, are 

Wolfgang Schäuble, German Finance Minister
and 
Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Dutch Finance Minister and Euro Group President

Will the happy award winners adopt a bail-in template on the lines of the Cyprus rescue to divide their spoils?

The two distinguished winners will have to share the prize sum of One Million 'Cypriot Euros' (subject to capital controls and bail-ins of the ECB) according to a formula of their own choosing. If they cannot agree on a formula, the prize money will revert to the Central Bank of Cyprus for the support of orphans and widows.

The award ceremony will take place on May 11, 2013 in Vienna to commemorate the world-historical May 11, 1931 bank resolution of the Creditanstalt, a defining event in the evolution of European integration and cooperation, and a model for contemporary economic policy.

Particulars about the ceremony will be announced shortly by the Prize Committee on this website.

Technical Note: The polls were conducted using the Blogger.com polling gadgets April 7-9, and April 9-May 5 using the Polldaddy.com polling gadgets. The results of each poll were merged.
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4 comments:

  1. Anonymous9/5/13 14:12

    Jerry, today another somewhat related prize has been awarded in the neighbour city of Maastricht. This tweet has it spot on:
    https://twitter.com/StephanEwald/status/332413393996767234
    Die litauische Präsidentin Grybauskaite erhält B̶r̶ü̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶P̶r̶e̶i̶s̶ Karlspreis für die erfolgreiche Reduktion der Bevölkerungszahl.

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  2. Gerald Silverberg10/5/13 10:34

    Thanks for the twitter tip.

    You'll certainly like my most recent post http://silverberg-on-meltdown-economics.blogspot.co.at/2013/05/lithuanias-president-dalia-grybauskaite.html.

    So is Swift's "A Modest Proposal" the way to go for the EU? :-)

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous11/5/13 00:20

      Yes, nice post and and thanks for the quotes from her speech. I've only heard excerpts from Schulz's laudatio. Swift - sure why not for the sake of exports and competiveness? It actually only came to me now that the title of Varoufakis' piece probably played on Swift.

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  3. Gerald Silverberg11/5/13 10:13

    Yanis Varoufakis' and Stuart Holland's Modest Proposal emphasizes the ECB buying up sovereign debt and issuing its own bonds in lieu of genuine Eurobonds mutualizing EZ risk (http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2012/08/17/a-modest-proposal-for-resolving-the-euro-crisis-an-abridged-version-as-published-by-the-financial-times-on-line/).

    To what extent they had Swift in mind except for the title is unclear (whether in the form of biofuels or barbecue we'll leave out for the moment). I didn't get to ask Yanis that question after his talk last December at the Kreisky Forum in Vienna (http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2012/12/07/at-the-kreisky-forum-why-have-europes-social-democrats-surrendered-to-the-toxic-logic-of-current-policies/).

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