Solow argues that is extremely foolish for the European Central Bank to be raising interest rates at a time when the unemployment rate is so high. He maintains that Europe's high interest rates have needlessly kept millions of people out of work. This article reports on a meeting of center-left heads of government in Berlin. The article points out that these leaders struggled to find unifying themes that distinguished them both from conservatives and previous leaders of the left. While the article notes that this has been a difficult process, it implies that there was much more substance than actually exists.
All policy focuses on the future, by definition.
What constitutes modernization is subjective. The article also asserts that the leaders all support free trade. This is inaccurate. Most of these leaders have been associated with efforts to extend copyright and patent protection to developing nations. These forms of protectionism often raise the price of protected products, such as recorded music or prescription drugs, by several hundred or even several thousand percent.