debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
By now, even the most die-hard Tory must realise that the UK economy under George Osborne has flat-lined; like the Python’s dead parrot, it wouldn’t ‘voom’ if you pumped 4 million volts through it.[1] The highly respected National Institute of Social and Economic Research (NIESR) defines a ‘depression’ as that period of time during which [...]
The European Union is in the midst of its deepest economic and financial crisis yet. And apart from the urgent questions about how to stop the immediate crisis, there are also more fundamental issues concerning a sustainable structure for the European economy of the future. The widespread believe – commonly held in the 1990s and [...]
Yet again, a sticking-plaster has been applied to the Euro Area (EA) when far stronger medicine is needed. The latest deal by European leaders may have calmed the markets, but the markets need a few days to digest it properly and when they do, they’ll be disappointed. The devil’s in the detail, some of which [...]
The eurozone is at the center of the global financial crisis, because only there, in the realm of the second most important currency after the dollar, does the crisis hit a weak “structure” rather than a state with real power. It is a structure that is squandering the trust of citizens and markets in its [...]
Politicians have been praising the outcome of the latest euro summit as a real break-through. Stock markets across the euro area were up. However, the enthusiasm might be excessive. Upon closer inspection, the outcome will most likely not end the euro-crisis and parts of it might actually make it worse. The first point is the [...]
Yet again banks have to be rescued because financial markets have gone wild. And because still no effective rules and regulations have been introduced to make banks pay for the high risks they are taking. It feels like “Groundhog Day”: Everything starts all over again, nobody seems to remember anything. Has anybody learned anything? After [...]
Last night’s deal to save the euro came pretty much in the mid-range of my expectations. I went through many of the main issues in yesterday’s column, and won’t repeat them here. A few additional points are worth making, though. While agreement has been reached on principles (‘voluntary’ Greek debt write-down, bank recapitalisation, efforts to [...]
The Eurozone crisis plays on to a familiar tune. Finance ministers meet on the weekend only for markets to dismiss their efforts the following Monday. This column argues that Europe’s leaders have lost touch, that the ECB has the firepower but is not prepared to use it, and that the outcome of all this is [...]
Europe’s leaders and senior officials are today trying to cobble together a last-gasp deal to save the euro. It is possible that they will fail to reach a consensus, in which case the almost certain result would be immediate market panic, renewed pressure on banks, a double-dip recession and, very likely, a disorderly break-up of [...]
… and why Obama should call for Glass-Steagall and a breakup of big banks Next week President Obama travels to Wall Street where he’ll demand – in light of the Street’s continuing antics since the bailout, as well as its role in watering-down the Volcker rule – that the Glass-Steagall Act be resurrected and big [...]
The protest movements that have flared up across the West, from Chile to Germany, have remained curiously undefined and under-analyzed. Some speak of them as the greatest global mobilization since 1968 – when enragés in very different countries coalesced around similar concerns. But others insist that there is nothing new here. The Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev, [...]
This looks like a very interesting initiative: Europe is in crisis. For some time now, the European Union develops into a direction, which is determined primarily economically. By contrast and despite all treaty revisions, the political and social dimension of the community expanded only on a low level. Constitutive asymmetries, socio-economic heterogeneity and macroeconomic imbalances have increased [...]
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