Greece

Ever the optimist, I ended yesterday’s post writing that a deal remains the base case outcome. But unfortunately, this does not mean a deal gets done. And so we should look again at what could happen if no deal gets done. My sense is that…

Actually I had intended to write a different post but just now Germany has rejected a letter from Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis that looked to extend the Greek bailout program. The German rejection changes the complexion of…

This is a short post to update you on Greece. I continue to believe a deal can get done. Recent events demonstrate this is so. Nevertheless, the potential for policy error remains high. Brief thoughts below using a decision tree model…

The recent election of an explicitly anti-austerity party in Greece has upset the prevailing policy consensus in the eurozone, and raised a number of issues that have remained ignored or suppressed in policy circles. Expansionary fiscal…

One of the great things about markets and economics is that there is a lot of uncertainty built into them because, unlike traditional macroeconomic modelling assumptions, real people are unpredictable and irrational. This makes life…

Just following up on yesterday’s post, I want to go into further detail regarding two situations in Europe and pivot to a Canadian-centric look at North America. ALl of these threads won’t tie together but I will see what I can do to bring…

No story is really dominating headlines today. So I thought it would be a good time to look around at a number of different topics I have written on in the past. Of course, Greece is still the biggest issue but it is optimism today instead…

Last night the European Central Bank announced that it would no longer accept Greek government or Greek government-guaranteed collateral for loans. This step had been telegraphed for a month but the timing demonstrates how political an…

The euro crisis is a crisis of Europe, not of European countries. It is not a conflict between Germany and Spain (and I use these two countries to represent every European country on one side or the other of the boom) about who should be…

Three stories dominating the headlines today are the Greek sovereign debt crisis, the euro area’s economic fortunes and crude oil. I want to tell these three stories through the lens of the debt swap proposed by Yanis Varoufakis, through…