Economy

The Czech Republic is the first economy in central and eastern Europe to slide back into a full technical recession during the current downturn (evidently it is unlikely to be the last).

A friend commented to me when he saw the story that Iceland had been upgraded by Fitch, the ratings agency, that this "sure makes default look palatable". Obviously, Iceland is not out of the woods yet but their relative success says there…

The US dollar continues to pare its recent gains as optimism builds that a confirmation of a Greek bailout deal is closer. The yen is the weakest G10 currency this week, following the BOJ's unexpected JPY10 trillion extension of its…

The country's economy will now shrink because European policy makers fail to understand the dynamics of debt deflation.

I am not particularly shocked or worried about the cancelled European finance ministers meeting. I still think this bailout gets done because Europe and the markets are not prepared for a disorderly default and politicians cannot risk the…

This is a good and in-depth interview with Bill Black conducted by George Mason economics professor Russ Roberts. I highly recommend your listening to it

One conclusion from the Fed's actions is that it doesn't care as much about its inflation target as it does about improving the unemployment rate. Thus, it will err on the side of letting inflation rise, if it would improve unemployment.…

Looks like there’s a storm brewing in the U.S. repo markets. It figures: profit-center banks have every motivation to stay one step ahead of the regs and the pols. Since the gamekeepers have now gotten around to looking at proprietary…

The year got off on a much better foot than might have been expected, at least as far as global manufacturing is concerned. So the fall in global manufacturing has flattened out, even though the bounce back has more of a dead cat look about…

Cash accounts for almost 6% of all corporate assets and the highest in sixty years. This increase is a result of a number of factors. Record profits give businesses the wherewithal. But corporations are not rewarded for the cash holdings.…