Europe

A unilateral exit would be a devastating event for Italy and the euro zone. Inflation would be high but bank and national solvency issues would recede. If the exit were done under these nationalistic pre-conditions of redomination, most of…

Downgrade watch begins as debt panel concedes defeat - The Hill's On The Money Credit rating agencies reiterated Monday that the U.S. is at risk of a downgrade following the announcement that the supercommittee has failed.…

Without a credible intervention this process almost always ends the same way. There is in my opinion a very high probability that within weeks, or months at most, Greece will be forced to freeze bank deposits as a prelude to leaving the…

Predicting the future of policy making has been and will continue to be key to understanding where this economy is headed – and by extension what your investment portfolio will do.

While Spanish Prime Minister-elect Mariano Rajoy was preparing for continued austerity in Spain, his Popular Party colleague, Former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, was talking to Bloomberg Television about the outlook for his…

First, there is a disagreement about whether the ECB should be buying a significant amount of European bonds. Second, there is a disagreement over whether the ECB should declare that is it buying bonds for an extended period or unlimited…

As I said in defense of the ECB last week, “central bankers always prefer to force elected officials to make the tough political choices that are the essence of fiscal policy.” The ECB wants this whole problem to be resolved by elected…

With the fundraiser week winding down, I am going to start making a few changes now. One thing we probably need is a synopsis of the past week’s posts in order to tie the week’s events together thematically. I will make this synopsis using…

BofA Clash With Fannie Mae Escalates Over Loan Buyback Stance - Bloomberg Bank of America Corp. (BAC) told Fannie Mae it refuses to cooperate with the U.S. mortgage firm's new stance on loan buybacks, setting the lender up for a…