IMF

The recent IMF proposals to help stimulate growth and job creation in Spain at least deserve serious consideration. What the IMF are saying is that if you leave the situation as it is then growth will not be sufficient to make any…

The data flow out of Europe today is pretty bad. German factories orders missed and unemployment rose to record levels in France and Greece. Meanwhile the IMF admitted that Greece's delayed debt restructuring "provided a window for private…

I have been arguing for several years that once China begins the adjustment process, which I expect to characterize the ten-year period of the current administration, growth rates must slow significantly. My expectation for long-term growth…

Raghuram Rajan has an interesting post now up on Project Syndicate. The overall tone of it has an Austrian feel as it stresses the failure of stimulus to allow developed economies to attain higher GDP growth a full five years after a…

Last October, I highlighted the issue of bailout extensions to Ireland and Portugal and so I want to re-visit this theme now that Portugal and Ireland are in the news looking to change the terms of their existing bailouts.

The IMF has told Portugal that the draconian austerity budget it has passed for 2013 will not be enough a nd has asked for more austerity. Portugal needs to make up a 4 billion euro gap and to do so the IMF wants to see cuts to government…

Back in October of last year the Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan said that his government's goal is to be able to complete the three-year Troika bailout on time and resume normal operation late in 2013. Now that Ireland has regained…

Quick post here to continue the theme of Christine Lagarde doing a complete makeover of the IMF. Yesterday, the Financial Times reported on an IMF staff paper that accepted capital controls as a necessary evil in specific cases, a sharp…

In February, I penned a piece on how and why Greece will exit the eurozone since there seemed to be so much chatter about the coming Grexit. However, as I have said in the past, a Grexit will not happen any time soon. I strongly believe…

A few weeks ago, I postulated that Christine Lagarde was increasingly moving the IMF away from its position as 'enforcer' of orthodox neoclassical economic policy. I backed this up with three specific ways in which the IMF was becoming a…