Europe

My last daily post was about the emerging consensus view that a global recession is just around the corner. And the sense I get is that people believe this recession - unlike the one during the Great Financial Crisis - is being stoked by a…

Quick note: With the ECB's policy statement today, it's clear that a lot of major central banks are still running policy that is too tight given the emerging global growth slowdown. I mentioned the Bank of Canada yesterday. But I also…

The euro is “celebrating” its 20th anniversary this month, but they aren’t popping corks across the continent. The underlying assumption of a common currency—namely, that it would lead to a convergence of the member countries’ production,…

Theresa May won the Conservative party confidence vote today by a tally of 200 in favor versus 117 against. While she can now continue on as Prime Minister, the fact that 117 Conservative Party MPs, more than a third of her party, voted…

The latest news out of the UK is that British Prime Minister Theresa May has decided to postpone a Parliamentary vote on the deal she negotiated with the EU over the terms governing Britain's departure from the EU. Had the vote gone ahead,…

The US is not going to be the engine of global growth here. With Europe, focused on exporting its way to growth and China both slowing and in jeopardy of tariffs, we have the makings of difficult times in 2019.

Some thoughts on the recent market selloff As I write these words, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up nearly 400 points, about 1.85%. The Nasdaq is up even more. Does that mean the market rout is over? No. But, for me, it does suggest a…

I've written two posts about the history of support for the EU. And I covered the ground through the EU-15 period when Austria, Finland, and Sweden entered the EU.  Today, I want to continue the post series with the introduction of the next…

A segment on the Dutch news program Nieuwsuur prompted this post. Earlier today, I was looking at 10-year yields and noticed Italy jumping to over 3.7%. As I write this, the yield is 3.713%. And that's up from a low of 1.633% in the past…

So, yesterday I parsed the EU sentiment data from the EU's early expansion period. And what we saw was rising support for the EU right up until 1991. But after that time, support for the EU collapsed and has never recovered. I want to look…