Economic Data

I will make this brief as I believe the links will do the talking for me. As I said yesterday, none of the economic data coming out of the US outside of housing seems to be surprising to the upside. That said, there is one bright spot here;…

I have been trying to break up the links posts because I have so many. So I have been writing brief theme posts to go with the links as I used to do when I had more time. I want to make this one short here and I have two topics to…

Japan is stuck in a shrinking population trap, and neither monetary nor fiscal policy will adequately solve the problem. Continuing to run fiscal deficits in a deflationary environment will only means that government debt is pushed onward…

It seems that the markets are discounting many of the risks that have plagued Ireland's economy in recent years. Ireland's stock market has significantly outpaced the S&P500 in the last few months - ISEQ is up 20% over the past year.

This is a second daily commentary today to give some weight to what's happening in the US after a slew of European-themed posts. I have three or four topics to cover here and I want to begin with the US economy including some thoughts on…

The current crisis – which is arguably no longer a crisis but rather a way of life – has all now gotten so complex that the issues involved are almost certainly, and in principle, “beyond their ken.” Spain’s economy will continue to march…

Earlier in the week, ECB German board member Jörg Asmussen delivered a speech on the challenges of the economic crisis for countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The part which caught most people's eyes was his commentary on Latvia and…

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…

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…

In the wake of the Reinhart-Rogoff controversy, there is certainly going to be a push forward toward stimulus. And Spain is going to be a leading player here. The problem for Spain is that the country is beset by deflationary forces from…