Europe

The European Union is an existential crisis because its crowning achievement, the single currency, has come under assault from all sides. The continued existence of the Euro has even been called into question as country after country within…

Over the past weekend, Italy's caretaker cabinet formally approved plans to begin paying its overdue bills to domestic suppliers and service providers. Its official arrears have aggravated underlying problems, such as access to credit by…

In the short term, though, a continuation of the currently lax monetary policy is likely to lead to higher assets prices. The investor mindset is very much in risk-on mode at the moment, as documented by the surprisingly calm reaction to…

By Sober Look As European banks find some private sources of capital to fund themselves, they continue to repay their ECB loans - particularly in the 3y LTRO program. FoxBusiness: - Next week, nine banks will repay just over 4 billion euros…

Back to the Willem Buiter interview in Financiëele Dagblad. Here Buiter continues with some comments on Jeroen Dijsselbloem's admission that bail-ins will be the preferred vehicle for conducting rescues going forward so as not to burden the…

It's Easter weekend here in Germany and I caught this interview with Willem Buiter from the Financiëele Dagblad that I get by e-mail each morning. I thought it was significant enough that I would translate it. Buiter has been fairly…

By Sober Look As discussed earlier (see post) the French economy continues to struggle. The nation's consumer recession is now thought to be worse than Italy's. Markit (Trevor Balchin): - “France has overtaken Italy as having the worst…

"With the current policy, will need force to keep it going against the interests of the people. You do not need to be a eurosceptic to conclude that such a monetary union is also deeply immoral." - Wolfgang Manchau, Eurozone Break-Up Edges…

Here are some quick points on the Cyprus deal which the Eurogroup agreed to last night. The agreement outline is very much along the lines of what I have been recommending regarding bail-in guidelines and is therefore a much fairer deal…

The Cyprus bailout deal has the following terms as approved by the Eurogroup: