Credit Writedowns

Italy's new Prime Minister Enrico Letta is touted as a man who could change the politics of the EU. The Daily Telegraph in the UK even headlines his initial policy speech as "Italian PM Enrico Letta urges move from austerity to growth". But…

A recent FT article points out that the electoral campaign positioning has already started. And it has the Social Democrats in bed with the Green Party to an unusual degree. The way the Greens and the SPD are talking makes me believe it…

News links for 29 Apr 2013

There have been three recent developments in Spain: the new record high unemployment, the earnings reports of several large banks, and the government's new fiscal forecasts and strategy. Spanish 10-year yields continued to trend lower…

News links for 27 Apr 2013

I am not going to say a whole lot here in this post because I have been writing non-stop about Europe of late. I just want to share the European links with you. I think what the links show is that the European paradigm is in transition from…

Amazon, Apple, and Samsung, three of the biggest names in the technology space, have reported this week. In all three cases, there were gaps in the earnings reports and the earnings outlooks. For me, however, Samsung's report was the best…

Actually this post isn't about fiat currency despite the title. It's really more about what is occurring outside the eurozone and most of the links I have concern the US, UK and Japan. Nevertheless, the three countries do pose a good trio…

Osborne has said in the past that his austerity approach is the right one and has pointed to a 2010 paper on government debt and growth by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff as evidence his approach is the right one. Given the recent furore…

Italy is getting closer to putting together a grand coalition government. This has always seemed to us the most likely scenario, but the route to it has been circuitously torturous. Three considerations have led to President Napolitano…