Germany

The German 2-year note has dropped below Japan's for the first time ever, with the German 2-year note yielding 0.109%, a record low. Japan's 2-year note yield is 0.111%. Meanwhile, the 10-year bund is at 1.638%, nearing the record low of…

The German data is still looking rather weak. I saw some numbers out of Germany that showed business confidence was rising. I don't know why.

Greece argues that its needs to strong defense spending for two threats. The first is from Turkey. Yet relations have improved and a military confrontation between these two NATO members seem quite remote. The other threat Greece is thought…

The shockingly weak euro zone flash PMI, especially the sub-50 reading for German manufacturing, is the main focus today. New orders have been weak and the Bloomberg consensus does expect the euro zone economy to contract not only in Q1 but…

Germany and Papademos have ended Greece’s political sovereignty, but Greece gave up its economic sovereignty long ago when it adopted the euro. Two aspects of national economic sovereignty were inherently lost with nations that gave up…

Here is a video of my latest appearance on Capital Account with Lauren Lyster. We spoke specifically about the situation in Europe; and that means Greece in the first instance. We also talked a lot about the ECB's LTRO program which I see…

The Greek government said PSI went through with a 95.7% participation rate after CACs were activated. Before the CACs, however, that rate was only 85.8%. ISDA’s determinations committee will decide today at 08:00 EST whether a credit event…

This will be a bronze level post. We see a number of data points in today's links that point to economic growth and employment dynamics that vary widely across the developed economies.

The chart below tracks the economy of the United States and selected European economies, demonstrating the varying impact of the financial crisis there. March 2007 is the reference point where Real GDP is re-based at 100.

That Weidmann now wishes to publicly claim he is concerned about risk associated with the Bundesbank's Target2 credit does not simply mean that this is a truth that has now been "acknowledged". I would guess that the sober Bundesbank…