fiscal

Ireland was hit hard by the financial crisis in 2009 - before Greece and Portugal came on the scene. It took a complete recapitalization of the banking system via "bad bank" structure called Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) that…

The information is as stunning as it is counter-intuitive: federal spending has gone up less under President Obama than any president since Eisenhower.

I think it goes without saying that the problems for Spanish and Italian regional governments are due to the austerity-induced double dip recession those economies are suffering. The real insight here is that this municipal - double dip…

I don’t want to be too glib here. I recognize that policymakers are in an extremely difficult position and that there is no longer any easy solution, but railing at the markets rather than trying to understand why they are doing what they…

A recent story in German magazine Der Spiegel highlights the efforts in 2005 of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to relax the penalties for deficits in breach of the euro zone's stability and growth pact. It is a good review of the…

This week I am doing the weekly newsletter in two parts, both outside the paywall. This is part two. Previously, this column argued that it was folly for the euro zone to take the bailout and austerity approach because it risked breaking…

Nigel Farage isn't impressed by the Spanish bailout. Take a look

This is a belated commentary for Friday. I have a lot of links on the global growth slowdown today but I covered this earlier saying Weak global economic data signal likelihood of global recession. I wanted to highlight Marshall Auerback's…

The European fiscal compact which calls for EU countries to stay within the Maastricht treaty government deficit hurdle of 3% of GDP has already been signed off on by all 27 EU governments except the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic.…

The EU informal summit will be held over a dinner and despite the attention it is receiving, it still seems unreasonable to expect anything concrete. Today's informal EU summit is not the real thing. It is out of the late June summit that a…