Germany

Will Germany lose its best friend in the Upright Brigade? And if so, will this encourage Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain etc. to question Germany-encouraged austerity policies? Spain’s prime minister has already said that the…

The enduring global crisis is giving rise to fears that economic hard times will feed political extremism, as it did in the 1930s. This column suggests that the danger of political polarisation and extremism is greatest in countries with…

The US dollar is broadly weaker on the day but with most major currencies still trading within a relatively narrow range. The euro rose to an intraday high of 1.3343 following strong German IFO data, a level not seen since December, before…

The official creditors won the battle. Greece will be given the money so that they can service their debts. They will have an EC task force embedded into Greece to push for compliance and the escrow-like account ensures a priority to debt…

Last April I said that unless we see a multi-year recovery economy in which the nagging debt and default issues are entirely removed, economic nationalism will return with a vengeance. And that means political conflict in which the…

This is how it's going down in Greece right now. The sentiment is very Anti-German on the eve of the austerity/bailout decision. The debt haircut and writedowns coming of upwards of 50% is a default in everything but name. Technical default…

the banks now browbeat governments – not by having ready cash but by threatening to go bust and drag the economy down with them if they are not given control of public tax policy, spending and planning. The process has gone furthest in the…

I am not at all optimistic about the euro zone in terms of policy makers fashioning a solution to the problem. The euro leaders have the diagnosis all wrong. They keep harping on government debt and deficits as if that's the problem. And…

This is a great chart below via the Wall Street Journal. It shows the total debt to GDP ratios for the largest developed economies in the world broken down into four sectors: households, non-financial corporations, financial institutions…