Germany: Opening Weekend of Oktoberfest 2014 - by Alan Taylor

Oktoberfest 2014

One million steins of beer were consumed over the weekend, organizers say, as tourists and locals kicked off the 181st Oktoberfest.

The Bavarian beer festival, held on Munich's Theresienwiese, lasts 16 days and will welcome more than six million visitors from around the world.

This year, the average price of a mug of beer at any of the tents this year comes to €10.67 ($13.70 U.S.). Gathered here are some of the scenes from the opening weekend of Oktoberfest 2014.

Read more: Opening Weekend of Oktoberfest 2014 - In Focus - The Atlantic

Syria: The 7 Countries America Has Bombed Since 9/11 - by Adam Pasick

The U.S. began airstrikes in Syria on Monday, fulfilling President Barack Obama’s vow to “degrade and destroy” the extremist group that calls itself the Islamic State. The Pentagon said it deployed bombers, fighters, and cruise missiles against ISIS forces within Syria, and a U.S. defense official told ABC News that “several Arab nations” are also involved in the operation.

The military operations within Syria bring the total number of countries targeted by U.S. airstrikes since September 11, 2001—either by conventional planes and missiles, or by armed drones—to seven.

In addition to Syria they include: the long-running U.S. military campaigns in Iraq (which has now been bombed by four consecutive U.S. presidential administrations, dating back to 1991) and Afghanistan; drone attacks on Islamist militant groups in Somalia, Yemen, and Pakistan; and NATO-led operations against ousted Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi.

Read more: The 7 Countries America Has Bombed Since 9/11 - The Atlantic

The Netherlands: Google Goes Dutch With $770M Data Centre

has announced plans to build a new data centre in Europe, this time in Eemshaven, a seaport in the Netherlands.

The internet giant says it has put aside €600 million ($772 million) to build the new data centre, and will be its fourth location in Europe after Finland, Belgium and Ireland. Google currently has more than 10 data centres across the Americas, Europe and Asia. Indeed, its first two Asian data centres opened just last year, in Taiwan and Singapore.

Google says the new facility will create more than 1,000 jobs, with a view towards starting “initial opertions” in the first half of 2016 before becoming fully operational by the latter part of 2017.

Google actually already uses a rented data centre in Eemshaven, which it says will continue to operate after the launch of its new incarnation.

Read more: Google Goes Dutch With $770M Data Centre

EU Economy: Visco Says ECB May Not Need to Add Stimulus Amid Euro - by Jana Randow Decline

The European Central Bank may not need to add stimulus measures after steps in the past three months pushed down the euro, said Governing Council member Ignazio Visco.

“Inflation expectations have to be back where they were,” Visco said Sept. 20 in an interview in Cairns, Australia, where he attended a meeting of Group of 20 finance chiefs. “This doesn’t mean that there will be a next step. We have been bold enough to reduce interest rates to a level that was unexpected to the market.”

The single currency has dropped about 6 percent since early June, when the ECB introduced a negative interest rate on excess reserves and presented a four-year lending program to fuel credit. Policy makers reduced borrowing costs further earlier this month and committed to buying asset-backed securities and covered bonds to boost the ECB’s balance sheet by as much as 1 trillion euros ($1.3 trillion).

Read more: Visco Says ECB May Not Need to Add Stimulus Amid Euro Decline - Bloomberg

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European Economy: Why Europe is terrified of deflation - by Paul Ames

From Putin’s hordes massing over the eastern borders of Ukraine to the army of home-grown Islamic State fanatics threatening a murderous return from the Middle East, Europe has a lot be frightened of right now.

Yet there’s another nightmare haunting Europe’s economic policy makers: a monster called deflation that’s already clawing at the continent’s financial fundaments.

“We are meeting here at the time when Europe is facing a great threat,” Polish Finance Minister Mateusz Szczurek warned in a recent speech. “We are on the verge of deflation,” he told a Sept. 4 conference in Brussels. “As Europeans we should never forget that it was depression and deflation … that brought to power the totalitarian regime that devastated our continent through the world war and unspeakable atrocities 75 years ago.”

At first glance deflation doesn’t sound so bad.

“Anybody who doubts how bad it could get should look back to the last time the US caught a serious dose of deflation. They called that the Great Depression.”

Prices go down, what’s not to like?

Yet the cold economic reality means that when prices fall people stop spending, hoping things will get even cheaper. In response, businesses cut production and lay off workers. That means even less demand, and prices drop further.

By then, your economy’s in a vicious downward spiral.

Making things worse, those falling prices bring declining wages and worsening debt burdens.

Anybody who doubts how bad it could get should look back to the last time the United States caught a serious dose of deflation, from 1929-33. They called that the Great Depression.

Why Europe is terrified of deflation - Salon.com

Netherlands: Dutch ambassador to the US talks trade in visit to Portland, Maine - by Seth Koenig

More aggressive promotion of Maine tourism and lobster on an international scale can open the doors to more diverse economic activity, a top European diplomat suggested Tuesday.

Rudolph Simon Bekink, ambassador to the U.S. for the Kingdom of the Netherlands, told an audience at the Portland office of the law firm Preti Flaherty on Tuesday afternoon that Maine can still do more to capitalize on its trademark seafood and vacation offerings on the international market.

And doing so can introduce influential people to all that Maine has to offer, he suggested. After all, that’s what brought him here. Bekink began vacationing in Maine in the 1980s, and now has a second home in Scarborough, where he plans to retire next year.“It’s so beautiful here,” he said. 

“The Dutch are probably the logistics kings of the world in terms of the import and export business,” said Janine Cary, director of the Maine International Trade Center. “Even if it starts on the tourism side or the logistics side, it can expand out into more economic activity.”

Cary said the Westbrook-based IDEXX Laboratories, one of Maine’s largest employers, is one example of that. Founder David Shaw loved Maine and wanted to live here when he established his business, she said.

While Maine seeks to attract business leaders with its natural beauty, Bekink said federal, state and city officials should build up the infrastructure necessary to support their companies should those people begin thinking of relocating here permanently.

Much progress is being made through the return of container shipping out of Portland’s International Marine Terminal, where the Icelandic firm Eimskip has been operating for more than a year now.

But Cary, whose organization partnered with Preti Flaherty to hold the after-lunch talk, said more infrastructure changes must be

Read more: Dutch ambassador to the US talks trade in visit to Portland — Portland — Bangor Daily News — BDN Maine