Europe

A study of European banks by the consultancy Price Waterhouse Coopers is making the rounds in the German-language press. I haven't seen the study itself but it is communicated by PwC in Frankfurt earlier today. Hence the interest in…

It is clear that lending to Spanish banks is now funded entirely via TARGET2 (borrowing from the rest of the Eurosystem) rather than with deposits. In fact deposits at the Bank of Spain by the Spanish government and Spanish banks (excess…

Quick post here to highlight then continued losses in Spanish property markets and the effect on Spanish banks. House prices in Spain were down 11.2% year-on-year in July. That's the largest fall since March 2011 and it brings all in losses…

In May I wrote a post asking "Why can’t people understand national accounting?" and I was heartened that the post seemed to get a lot of traction. Most people don't get it. In fact, I didn't get it until a few years ago. Here's a chart…

Why is the global economy hamstrung by heavy debts and weak banks? Or put another way, why doesn’t deleveraging happen, and the weight of debt reduce, and why doesn’t the economy expand so the weak banks can once more become robust and…

I'm back from vacation! The links are light today so let me give you an added few tidbits from this week's Gold member post on the euro zone.

In the German press, there have been a number of stories recently that indicate that the German government will not commit any more money to bailouts in the euro zone. Specifically, the reports of greatest interest have to do with Germany's…

And going beyond April, the political arithmetic of a post Monti government looks complicated, making the kind of stability needed to advance what the population may well see as “harsh” reforms unlikely. In other words, as Monti says, when…

The data pointing to the synchronised global slowdown continues. This time we have a string of data from the United States, the United Kingdom, India and China telling us that the economy is not doing well. Here I am leaving Europe aside.…

While the ECB may certainly now buy as many peripheral bonds as it wishes if it deems convertibility risk to be a real issue money is already trickling into cash strapped peripheral economies through the arcane tool of emergency liquidity…