Blogs
If they’re right, then they’re wrong
At the ECB rate-setting meeting today ECB President Trichet announced more optimistic growth forecasts. The GDP growth forecast (formally a ‘projection’, based on unchanged monetary policy) is for between 1.4% and 1.8% for this year, and between 0.5% and 2.3% next year. Meanwhile annual HICP inflation is projected to be in a range between 1.5% [...]
Industry gets its way – who will pay?
A seemingly arcane piece* in the back section of today’s Financial Times reports that industrial companies are to be exempted from planned European rules requiring them to use clearing houses for over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives trades after ‘months of lobbying’ by, surprise!, industrial companies. They have argued that such a requirement would be hugely costly, ‘possibly [...]
Eat the poor – Germany’s austerity package
Today the German government passed key measures in its austerity package first announced back in June. The stated aim is to ensure compliance with the bizarre new constitutional clause – the so-called debt-brake – requiring a balanced (structural) budget by 2016 at the latest and to get below the Maastricht 3% deficit limit by 2013. [...]
The Three I’s-Complex hits Germany
And finally it came to Germany, the all-disrupting debate about the Three I’s-Complex – Immigration, Integration and Islam -, a debate which threatens to turn all established politics, as we know it upside down. Germany has been contaminated by moral panic, because of Deutschland schafft sich ab, a book by Thilo Sarrazin, a former SPD-politician [...]
Unemployment: a chink of light and a huge challenge
Eurostat has just issued the unemployment numbers (which are seasonally adjusted) for July. They show that euro area unemployment fell for the first time since the Great Financial Crisis hit, albeit by a paltry 8000 persons. If this marks the start of a trend, and that is uncertain, then the ‘jobs recession’ in the euro [...]
New Labour hasn’t learned anything
Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair are getting ready to make interventions in the Labour leadership contest culminating in the next few weeks. And their main reason to support one candidate over the other seems whether they remain as much New Labour as possible. Talking about Ed Miliband Mandelson had this to say: “I think that [...]
Tony Judt’s lessons of the 20th century
Last week I was interviewed on Dutch radio about Ill Fares the Land, the alarming intellectual testament of the late Tony Judt. In fact, it was a double interview together with a conservative-liberal academic/politician. He expressed the usual criticism against the book, namely that it is an old-fashioned, nostalgic defence of the social-democratic European welfare [...]
Right cause, wrong ground
Nine EU countries – eight from central and eastern Europe plus Sweden – have formally called on the European Commission to change the budget accounting rules in a way that would allow them to run higher deficits in the coming years without running foul of the Stability and Growth Pact. As argued in the last [...]
Europeans want Economic Governance
There we have it: Europeans want economic governance mechanisms for Europe the new Eurobarometer found out. 75% of Europeans think that stronger coordination of economic and financial policies among EU Member States would be effective in fighting the economic crisis, according to the Spring 2010 Eurobarometer, the bi-annual opinion poll organised by the EU This [...]
Has Angela Merkel outlived her usefulness?
Steven Hill’s recent paean to Angela Merkel on the SEJ website (18/08/10) may yet prove woefully ill-advised. For although he is correct in arguing that ‘social’ Germany is well ahead of the USA is many respects, his endorsement of Merkel’s economics is—to put it as politely as possible—somewhat overenthusiastic.
‘Market jitters’ confirm need for continued stimulus in Europe
Today’s Financial Times reports that growing fears about growth prospects led to sharp falls in commodities and equities yesterday, and drove interest rates on government bonds to historic lows. This will come as a – hopefully salutary – shock to those who had sought to talk up Europe’s growth spurt in the second quarter: this [...]
Social Europe Needs a New Economic Model
As a rhetorical slogan, “Social Europe” is enjoying a greater political profile – in terms of inclusion in almost every declaration on economic policy by the European Union – since the “glory years” of Jacques Delors’ Presidency of the Commission. Measured by the actions being taken by EU Member States the reality is very different. [...]
