China’s Finance Minister Lou Jiwei said Tuesday that the United States should take on more responsibilities to boost global economic recovery in accordance with its capacity as the world’s largest economy.

“Currently China contributes about 30 percent of the global economic growth, while the United States contributes about 10 percent. As the world’s largest economy, the United States should take on more responsibilities,” Lou told a press briefing on the sidelines of the seventh China-U.S. Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), which opened on Tuesday.

During the global financial crisis, China had helped boost the global economic growth by 50 percent, which was an unsustainable model, Lou noted. He urged the U.S. side to accelerate structural reform by saving and investing more, and raise its labor participation rate.

He underlined that the quantitative easing and fiscal measures are short-term remedies, while implementing structural reform is the fundamental way to realize sustainable and balanced growth.

China is also undertaking structural reforms by loosening administrative approval rules and liberalizing the pricing of the factors determining the economic activities to spur potential output and productivity, he added.

The two-day S&ED is an annual bilateral platform for the world’ s two largest economies to exchange ideas on a set of thorny issues like trade and investment barriers, intellectual property rights protection and exchange rates.

During this year’s economic dialogue, officials are having in- depth discussions on macro-economic policy and restructuring, trade and investment promotion, and financial market stabilization and reform.

Greece’s European creditors are playing a game of pass-the-parcel about who should stump up the money to avert a default at the end of June if Athens clinches a last-gasp deal this week on a package of reforms to unlock frozen bailout funds.

Greece must repay the International Monetary Fund (IMF) 1.6 billion euros ($1.8 billion) by June 30 or be declared in default, potentially triggering capital controls to prevent a bank run and pushing it closer to an exit from the euro zone.

However, euro zone governments say it is already too late to release the 7.2 billion euros left in Greece’s bailout before the end of the month, since national parliaments would only approve the disbursement once the Greeks pass laws to enact their reform promises – a process known as “prior actions”.

Another possible source of quick funds would be for the European Central Bank to let the Greek government sell more short-term Treasury bills to Greek banks and others. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has repeatedly appealed to ECB President Mario Draghi to loosen the noose on Greece in this way.

But Draghi, facing strong opposition from hawks in Germany’s Bundesbank and its allies on the ECB governing council, has said the bank would only allow more T-bill issuance once it was sure the member states would disburse the frozen aid.

That, too, would come too late for the June 30 deadline.

That leaves two other pots of money that could be used to give Greece a lifeline to repay the IMF: 1.9 billion euros in profits from ECB holdings of Greek government bonds bought in 2010-11, which were returned to euro zone member states; or 10.9 billion euros in loans earmarked for recapitalising Greek banks, which are being held by the euro zone rescue fund.

Either of those sums could be released by a unanimous agreement of the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers without prior parliamentary authorisation, EU sources said.

In theory, the transfer of the 2014 SMP profits is conditional on the conclusion of the bailout review, certified by all three lending institutions – IMF, ECB and European Commission – and the approval of the Eurogroup.

As for the HFSF money, it was made subject to a request by the ECB and its banking supervisory arm.

EU officials say some of that amount could be released after Greece completes the “prior actions”, proving its willingness to turn reform promises into legislation.

That would give Athens money to redeem some 6.9 billion euros in bonds held by the ECB that mature in July and August.

Jeffrey Sachs writes:  After months of wrangling, the showdown between Greece and its European creditors has come down to a standoff over pensions and taxes. Greece is refusing to acquiesce to demands by its creditors that it cut payments to the elderly and raise the value-added tax on their medicine and electricity.

Europe’s demands – ostensibly aimed at ensuring that Greece can service its foreign debt – are petulant, naive, and fundamentally self-destructive. In rejecting them, the Greeks are not playing games; they are trying to stay alive.

Whatever one might say about Greece’s past economic policies, its uncompetitive economy, its decision to join the eurozone, or the errors that European banks made when they provided its government with excessive credit, the country’s economic plight is stark. Unemployment stands at 25%. Youth unemployment is at 50%.

Greece’s GDP, moreover, has shrunk by 25% since the start of the crisis in 2009. Its government is insolvent. Many of its citizens are hungry.

Conditions in Greece today are reminiscent of those in Germany in 1933. Of course, the European Union need not fear the rise of a Greek Hitler, not only because it could easily crush such a regime, but also – and more important – because Greece’s democracy has proved impressively mature throughout the crisis. But there is something that the EU should fear: destitution within its borders and the pernicious consequences for the continent’s politics and society.   Greek endgame

• Greece will not accept cuts to pension payments or public sector wages, saying two-thirds of pensioners are either below or near the poverty line
• International creditors want pension spending cut by 1% of GDP – it accounts for 16% of Greek GDP. They say they want to target early retirement, not lower-income pensioners
• EU officials say Greece has agreed to budget surplus targets of 1% of GDP this year, followed by 2% in 2016 and 3.5% by 2018; Greece says nothing is agreed until everything is agreed
• Creditors also want a wider VAT base; Greece says it will not allow extra VAT on medicines or electricity bills
• Greece complains creditors focus on increasing taxes instead of cracking down on tax evasion; IMF is concerned Athens is not offering credible reforms

The other side:

• Germany’s Wolfgang Schaeuble said there were “no substantial proposals” from Greece. Arriving for the summit, he told reporters he had not seen anything new from Greece so far and “without anything new, there is nothing for the ministers to prepare for their leaders”
• The head of the group of eurozone finance ministers, Jeroen Dijsselbloem of the Netherlands, said it would be “impossible to have a final assessment” as the Greek proposals were very recent, but they would “hopefully [form] the basis for final talks”
• Finland’s Alexander Stubb said he did not see a deal being reached on Monday: “We have wasted a lot of air miles, both on the finance ministers’ side and on the prime ministers’ side.
• Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan said that there had been confusion with several versions of new Greek proposals being discussed. He said it was not clear that there had been enough movement from Greece and that he believed there might have to be another meeting on Thursday

The Greek government has sent its new proposal to the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Progress is being made towards solving Greece’s debt crisis, France’s Finance Minister Michel Sapin said on Monday, while noting that a solution without the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was not currently possible.
“Reaching an agreement requires that each side evolves. If each side stays in its position, an agreement is not possible,” Michel Sapin told Radio France Internationale. “It is this evolution which is taking place, and I believe that work is taking place and in good conditions.”

Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said on German radio he expected that the leaders of euro zone countries would make progress toward solving the Greek crisis at an emergency summit on Monday.  “There will be a lurch forward,” Jean Asselborn told Germany’s Deutschlandfunk radio.

The Greek government’s aim is to close the gap between Athens and creditors in order to secure a deal. Issues such as the abolition of reduced value added tax that applies to islands of the Aegean, putting a stop to early retirement starting in 2015 and cuts on high pensions are no longer “taboo” issues. In exchange for these concessions, Tsipras wants a clear and concrete commitment from creditors for Greece’s debt restructuring.

However, the abolition of reduced VAT in islands is a subject that created turmoil in the coalition government with junior partner ANEL leader and Defense Minister Panos Kammenos saying that he and his party lawmakers will vote against such measure.

Cabinet members said there is still a possibility of a rift with Greece’s European partners, without excluding the possibility of a bailout program extension for a few months, if an agreement is not achieved.

In Brussels a crucial emeergency meeting ended on a hopeful note.

Senator Elizabeth Warren has been a vocal, if unsuccessful, advocate for higher-education reform. So far her efforts have either been unrealistic—such as her proposal to reduce student loan interest rates to below 1%—or insufficient, such as her push for student loan refinancing. But in a speech last week, Warren outlined a higher-education agenda that’s ambitious, prudent, and potentially game-changing.

Our national student debt problem has a clear cause: the inflation-outpacing, federally abated rise of college tuition. The Department of Education provides students aid on the basis of their college’s cost of attendance, meaning colleges can raise prices knowing that the federal government will simply increase aid awards.

Warren is likely the most prominent Democrat in recent memory to acknowledge these backwards incentives. “Conservatives are right,” she said. Colleges take advantage of the “availability of guaranteed federal loan and grant dollars” to raise tuition prices. She suggested that most colleges are completely unaccountable, since the federal government’s generosity ensures that “there’s far less pressure to hold costs down or to ensure that their services are worth the price.”

Warren understands that reform must take aim at the problem’s root causes, and that the way to ease student debt burdens is not simply to offer students more funding, but also to change the way we invest in colleges and increase college accountability.

In addition, Warren called for greater accountability from the Department of Education. Noting the department’s frequent failure to respond promptly to data requests and its infrequent testimony before Congress about student debt, she argued that the it must be more forthcoming. Conservatives concerned with government transparency can get behind this proposal, too.

These ideas would certainly help improve the federal government’s return on its investment in higher education. But Warren and like-minded conservatives could go even further. While these proposals would ensure that schools spend their federal aid dollars wisely, it’s worth questioning whether schools should receive a federal guarantee at all. In that vein, Congress might consider making more generous federal aid awards contingent on a school’s graduation and loan-repayment outcomes. Congress could also delink aid awards from the cost of attending a specific college and tie them to an industry-wide cost of attendance, thereby removing the individual subsidy colleges receive.

Warren argued for increasing and making mandatory Pell Grant program spending to give poor students “a real chance at college.” While conservatives might squirm at the prospect of another mandatory spending program, they can certainly support the goal of promoting social mobility through higher education. Moreover, they might note that Congress can also help the poorest students by rededicating funding for programs designed explicitly for students with “exceptional financial need”—such as the Perkins Loans and Federal Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants—that policymakers have slashed in the recent decades.

There’s fertile ground for bipartisan higher-ed reform. Conservative policymakers such as Senator Lamar Alexander and institutions such as the American Enterprise Institute already champion ideas similar to hers. Republicans and Democrats should seize the opportunity.