Political Economy

To me this situation looks pretty hopeless frankly. Policy makers in Europe just don't get it. The best we are going to get is austerity and partial monetisation by the ECB until the union breaks or sovereign debtors default and banks are…

Despite the ongoing hawkish rhetoric from the ECB, there are signs that they are getting it: The LTRO can't work, as you're essentially just swapping one liability for another one (albeit more long term in duration, therefore making it…

Enemies of freedom will always tell you that there is some trade-off between freedom and civil liberties to get you to give up your freedom. This is a false dichotomy and always will be.

The big news out of Europe on Friday was not S&P’s downgrade of 9 countries, France included. The ratings agency told us weeks ago that it might do this. No, much more important was the ECB’s saying in the bluntest possible terms that…

The countries of the eurozone will eventually emerge from the sovereign debt crisis -- with pain and difficulty.

Colbert says "clearly, my fellow South Caroliniacs see me as the only viable "Mitt-ternative". Take a look.

Tension surrounding the application of a series of so-called “unorthodox policies” by Hungary’s Fidesz government has certainly been rising in recent days. While Washington has been reasonably quiet as government emissary Tamas Fellegi…

Any politician who talks of a green, utopian US - where wind and solar produce most of our energy, electric cars put power back into the grid, green fields of corn produce clean fuels, and millions of Americans work in green technology…

Bloomberg wrote the following paragraphs about a recent interview with Mohamed El-Erian. What i thought was interesting was his belief that the Fed is out of bullets. Monetarists and Keynesians believe the Fed can still be effective by…

The results are in from the poll I began a month ago. By an overwhelming majority, Credit Writedowns readers believe the crisis will continue.