austerity

I have a number of links coming up in today's daily commentary. The likely topic will be US interest rates. But there is a second topic I wanted to riff on so I am posting here separately about fiscal woes in Spain and the Netherlands.

Below is a video of scenes from the least peaceful parts of today's nationwide general strike in Spain. Other links are below. In general, the protests were peaceful.

Back in November last year I posted on my confusion over the jubilation shown by the citizens of Spain as they elected Mariano Rajoy as their new political leader. Mr Rajoy’s strategy during the election campaign was to say very little…

Greece argues that its needs to strong defense spending for two threats. The first is from Turkey. Yet relations have improved and a military confrontation between these two NATO members seem quite remote. The other threat Greece is thought…

This is a thematic post, I am also putting outside the paywall because there is a lot of chatter today about Spain needing to tap EU bailout funds this year. The messaging in the analyst community follows the thematic prediction I made in…

Warren Mosler presents some macro economic themes that will have implications for the investing and business climate.

Rich nations worldwide have a problem with debt. In the past, such problems have been dealt with by several tactics, including “financial repression”. This column explains how the tactic works and documents its resurgence in the wake of the…

Germany and Papademos have ended Greece’s political sovereignty, but Greece gave up its economic sovereignty long ago when it adopted the euro. Two aspects of national economic sovereignty were inherently lost with nations that gave up…

This is a gold-level post for members only. The EU is deathly afraid of either Spain or Italy getting into trouble and will do almost anything these countries ask. On the other hand, Hungary is expendable. This has clear investing…

This will be a bronze level post. Everyone is talking about the Dutch Freedom Party these days. Geert Wilders, the head of the Freedom Party, is a bit like Marine Le Pen in terms of his appeal: anti-immigrant, nationalist and right wing. He…