Draghi delivers
Wow, the ECB really is preparing to hit the nuclear button. Mario Draghi has activated the ECB's monetary policy, risk, and market committees to draw up drastic plans. This will include open-market...
View ArticleGerman money printing
A cheeky note from Evelyn Herrmann at BNP Paribas reminds us that the Bundesbank carried out its own quantitative easing in 1975. The central bank bought 7.6bn D-mark of post, telecom and sovereign...
View ArticleIt starts: first Asian bank mulls British exit from the EU
So we have a new term: BRIXIT. Japan's biggest bank Nomura has issued an 11-page study evaluating the likelihood that the UK will leave the European Union entirely or partly. Events could accelerate as...
View ArticleThe monetary Maginot of the Gold Standard
Some gold bugs – though not ones with historical memory – seem to have greeted Republican talk of a renewed Gold Standard with near ecstatic delight. They need their heads examined. Gold must be free...
View ArticleFresh glimmers of hope for the eurozone (technical)
Very quickly, for the handful of readers who share my quirky interest in monetary data. By the way, any commentator on this thread who wilfully conflates Monetarism and Keynesian demand theory one more...
View ArticleAsian exports crumble
From Nomura's Rob Subbaraman this morning on Asia's export dive. It speaks for itself: Exports from Asia, the world's manufacturing hub, are often regarded as a bellwether for the health of the global...
View ArticleSaudi oil well dries up
If Citigroup is right, Saudi Arabia will cease to be an oil exporter by 2030, far sooner than previously thought. A 150-page report by Heidy Rehman on the Saudi petrochemical industry should be sober...
View ArticleChina's Revolution Risk
We all know by now about the simmering leadership crisis in China. The Bo Xilai affair has lifted the lid on a hornet's nest. I had not realised quite how serious the situation has become until...
View ArticleOnly the German people can renounce their sovereignty
So we wait for the Verfassungsgericht to deliver its verdict of life or death for the euro at 10 AM Wednesday, Karlsruhe time. The German constitutional court is not to be trifled with. Its ruling on...
View ArticleGerman Constitutional Court tightens the noose yet further
Just as it gave the go-ahead for Maastricht, Lisbon, the Greek rescue, and the EFSF bailout fund with a "Yes, but" with the 'but' mattering most in the end — Karlsruhe has now endorsed the European...
View ArticleChina, Japan and the world’s Agadir Crisis (1911)
The Senkaku/Diaoyu clash in the East China Sea is the paramount political and strategic story in the world today, although you would not know that from the scant and almost jocular coverage in the...
View ArticlePatience snaps in Portugal
Nobody can accuse Portugal’s free-market government of failing to try. Premier Pedro Passos Coelho has gone beyond the demands of the EU-IMF Troika under the terms of Portugal’s €78bn loan package,...
View ArticleBe Very Careful, Beloved Spain
Two weeks ago I was interviewed by the Catalan newspaper El Punt Avui. I said it would be unthinkable for the Spanish state to stop Catalan secession by military force. Such action would violate EU...
View ArticleEurope's betrayal of Spain
We discover – yet again, you might say – that Germany, Holland, and Finland will not stand behind their solemn pledge of solidarity when push comes to shove. Spain’s premier Mariano Rajoy has been...
View ArticleMultiplying Europe's fiscal suicide (technical)
The entire EU austerity plan is based on a false premise. This disastrous error is now clear beyond any reasonable doubt. The Teuto-Calvinists believe – or profess to believe, since much of their dogma...
View ArticleWill Iraq’s energy boom postpone peak oil yet again?
Well, here is a shocker for the peak oil camp. Iraq’s oil output will more than double from 2.6 million to 6 million barrels a day (b/d) by the end of the decade. This is 45pc of world oil supply...
View ArticleSpain keelhauled by Germany and AAA chicanery
As Gary Jenkins from Swordfish says this morning: Spain is junked if it does, and junked if it doesn’t. A key reason for Standard & Poor’s two-notch downgrade of Spain to near junk last night is...
View ArticleThe wrong Europe wins the Nobel Peace Prize
You couldn't make it up. News that the European Union has won the Nobel Peace Prize this morning comes as we learn that Europe's attempt to break the power of nation states through currency union has...
View ArticleAniquilar (for Spanish readers)
This post is in Spanish because I have been embroiled in a minor storm in Spain over the issue of Catalan separatism. Loose and potentially dangerous assertions have been attributed to me, and...
View ArticleEurope needs a Soros Salvation Army
George Soros has put the matter nicely at the National Association for Business Economics in New York. If the world could somehow persuade Germany to pull out of EMU, Europe’s never-ending crisis...
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