European breakup

It’s not fashionable to be optimistic about Europe. But I have been a Europe bull since last April when we moved from the front-loaded austerity paradigm to a backloaded paradigm. And beginning in June 2013, I saw the data moving in that…

My view remains that Europe is in an incipient but unstable recovery vulnerable to exogenous shocks. However, I do not believe this recovery means that crisis is over. Rather, this is a lull before continued stagnation forces Europe to make…

My contention has been that global growth is accelerating. Backing that up, yesterday I looked at four economies where growth has been good. Only in Sweden were we seeing renewed weakness. Today, I want to look at four economies where…

In the case of Greece, with fuel, food, and medicine making up a large share of the import bill, further economic disruption and destabilization would likely result from a choice to exit the eurozone. Exiting the euro does not appear to be…

With Ireland and Spain poised to leave Europe’s bailout mechanism, Europe appears to have weathered a very big storm. Yet, the Eurozone is still wracked with joblessness and economic growth remains elusive. What’s more, Europe’s…

Europe is in the sweet spot right now, with recovery looking like it has taken hold. Greece remains an outlier. The question is what will happen to Greece over the medium- to- long-term. I believe the answer is an exit from the euro zone.…

This morning I made the argument that the global economy is growing across the breadth of developed and developing economies. I still have a problem with Europe though as I believe the risk is to the downside. Basically, the policy response…

Summary: Pippa Malmgren discusses the eurozone with Bloomberg below, calling attention to the diverging interests within the eurozone as a critical factor adding stress despite the relative calm we have witnessed in markets of late. Her…

Summary: Recently, Niall Ferguson reminded us of the eurozone pessimism of 2011 and 2012 in a recent polemic against Paul Krugman. Without getting into the Krugman-Ferguson war, I want to hone in on this subject because I think it tells us…

Despite all the talk of recovery in Europe, the data suggest that the improvement in Europe is uneven at best now. The core has moved into a cyclical upturn but a lot of work remains in places like Italy and Greece. Today's data points…