Political Economy

Seven weeks of government negotiations in the Netherlands to agree on new austerity measures failed on Saturday suggesting the German-led program for Europe is about to take head of another government and this is on the eve of the first…

The Fed is out of bullets on interest rate policy and has turned to other nonconventional measures like quantitative easing. Excess reserves have piled up as a result. What does this mean for inflation and the economy?

The French premium over Germany rose today to a three-month high. Rumors of a rating downgrade proved wide of the mark, but it reflects the market's anxiety about the outlook for France going forward.

There have been a lot of people talking about Argentina as if it were the model for other governments in sovereign difficulty to follow. Yes, Argentina's decision to default was realistically the right call given the crushing debt load. And…

The following is a March 1932 speech by then US President Herbert Hoover about the growing US deficit. As I indicated in previous posts on Hoover's travails, the President earnestly wanted to balance the budget (see Herbert Hoover: White…

In recent days, policy makers have been most noticeable by their absence. This absence has weakened their credibility and encouraging speculative attention. This is true for Switzerland, Europe and Japan.

Below is the video clip from 60 Minuted giving the average viewer a better sense of what is going on in Europe right now. The video is timely given the problems Spain and Italy are having with their government debt levels rising. Spain is…

April 9, 2012 is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the most infamous savings and loan fraud, Charles Keating’s, successful use of five U.S. Senators to escape sanction for a massive violation of the law. The Senators were Alan Cranston (D.…

"The anger that prompted Christoulas to take his own life in Syntagma Square in view of the Greek parliament is shared by much of the middle-class and low-income Greeks who have carried a disproportionate burden of the stringent tax…

I like Jonathan Tepper's commentary about currency unions over the past century. His analysis says that the breakups have been feasible. The real problem in Europe's case is overindebtedness meaning that the potential exiting euro zone…