The World s Biggest Shock Absorber

I found a tractor fan, shock absorber, PVC pipes.

However, these three sectors functioned as the economy's shock absorber and managed to provide employment at the time of crisis.

It has a shock absorber in it so it, like, Shhhh, makes this neat sound when you jump around on it. All right.

The problem is that the current economic and policy configuration in the developed world entails an unusual amount of divergence. With policy adjustments failing to keep pace with shifts on the ground, an appreciating dollar has assumed the role of shock absorber.

First thing for my wife, and the most common thing I hear from my patients, particularly in the 40 to 80 year old age group, 70 year old age group, is they come in and say, Hey, Doc, isn't there just a shock absorber you can put in my knee?

True, in the US, as in most existing federal states, the federal budget redistributes income across regions, thus offsetting at least part of the interregional differences in income. But, while this has been repeatedly documented in many cases, the inference that redistribution is equivalent to a shock absorber is wrong.

Later writers came to recognize that there are other essential criteria for a successful currency union, which are difficult to achieve without deep political integration. Peter Kenen argued in the late 1960 s that without exchange rate movements as a shock absorber, a currency union requires fiscal transfers as a way to share risk.

Ireland s accumulation of wealth during its Celtic Tiger period, when the country surged toward the top of Europe s economic league table, has also been an effective shock absorber. This, together with fears about being left out in the geopolitical cold (despite the country s historical links with Britain and America), dampens Irish enthusiasm for economic experiments outside the eurozone.

All in all, it is difficult to base the argument for some eurozone shock absorber on the US experience. But how can one explain the fact that the global financial crisis led to no regional banking crises in the US, whereas several eurozone countries banking systems are under such stress that their governments have had to rescue them (and then be rescued in turn by the eurozone s bailout fund)?