government

It is not being widely discussed, but we suspect the wage settlement in Germany over the weekend is an important development. The agreement that covers 765k state government workers in Germany, represented by Verdi, reached a two-year deal…

UMKC Economics head Stephanie Kelton was on Chris Hayes' show to talk about US fiscal politics along with three other guests. They discuss the political gridlock in the US and what it means for the economy.

In mid-January I had said I expected a recession in Q2 as a result of austerity and a government shutdown in the US. Recently, however, I have moved away from that position as a baseline, largely because of the rebound in housing and the…

Recent Bulgarian developments are worth discussing. Austerity just brought down another European government, as Prime Minister Borisov and his cabinet resigned this week amidst rising popular protests against his policies. But the story…

The lessons for China, if I am right, are that China should forego the idea of nurturing national champions and should instead encourage brutal domestic competition. Beijing should also eliminate subsidies to production, the most important…

In November, soon after France and Belgium were forced to pump another 5.5 billion euros into bailed out lender Dexia, the ratings agency Moody's stripped France of its AAA sovereign debt rating. The interesting bit was that Moody's…

The rise and rise of Japanese debt is far from benign, and the dynamic, we are convinced, will at some point become unsustainable. Unfortunately by the time we reach that point it will be too late. Indeed, given that we agree with Krugman…

The US trade figures for Q4 2012 came out this morning and they surprised analysts by showing a trade deficit that shrank 21% to $38.5 billion in December. According to Bloomberg News this was a lower deficit than any of 73 economists…

According to the Irish Times, the government of Ireland has entered into a deal with the ECB to cut the country's debt by liquidating the nationalised Irish bank Anglo Irish. As I noted in the Saturday post on Ireland's superior economic…

“Who is afraid of currency wars?” asks Gavyn Davies in the FT. I have known Gavyn for 25 years and have to confess that he is way out of my league intellectually. He is one of the smartest people I have ever met and, thankfully, also one of…