French President Hollande, fresh from a stunning defeat in local elections is signaling that he will seek the EC (and Germany’s) forbearance to relax the fiscal rules yet again for the euro zone’s second...
There is a common perception that Russia’s move on Crimea shows its strength. A closer examination suggests it is more complicated that it may seem. Like the bully at the school yard, the aggressiveness...
This Great Graphic is was tweeted by Niall O’Connor, who got it from Natixis. It shows the default rates on mortgage loans in three euro zone countries: Italy, Spain and Portugal. Spain, is the only one...
One of the most important aspects of the response to the Putin’s invasion is the asymmetrical perception of risk. The US has been more aggressive in seeking sanctions, not just on the corrupt Yanukovych (former...
This Great Graphic was tweeted by Jose Manuel Roche, who got it from the OECD. It shows the Gini coefficient, a widely used measure of income inequality, for five high wage economies in the 1985-2012 period. The...
ECB officials repeatedly have said that inflation expectations are anchored, which is part of their argument that plays down the threat of deflation. The difficult thing about inflation expectations when it comes to...
The latest effort to revive the stalled Trans-Pacific Partnership talks failed at the start of the week and no date has been set to try again. Negotiations began in 2010, but reluctantly, Japan joined last year. This...
It should have been a lay-up. United Auto Workers were trying to unionize a Volkswagen plan in Chattanooga, Tennessee and they did not face management hostility. Far from it. Volkswagen wanted the union to...
As high income economies improve and the financial sectors stabilize, central bankers understandably and rightly, want to move away from the unorthodox policies that were necessary to avoid an even larger collapse and more...
Top US and European trade negotiators met this week in Washington and took stock on the progress of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations. The next formal round of talks, the fourth will be...