Ireland

Professor Steve Keen was on Tonight with Vincent Browne in Ireland last week, where the topic understandably was the European Union. The question for Steve was how the Maastricht Treaty fits his economic paradigm, which follows Hyman…

Ireland dealt fairly quickly with its property market bubble by effectively and forcefully nationalizing and recapitalizing its banking sector. They clearly still have a serious problem on their hands, but the nation has been aggressive in…

In last week's weekly newsletter, I explained why Spain was in big trouble. Today I want to present the full context euro zone-wide and why there will be more sovereign defaults to come in the euro zone. This will be a very comprehensive…

I had intended my commentary here to be on US interest rates but i have already written that (silver level) post. So I will refer you there. Instead, I will mention Europe again because the links are filled with European stories.

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…

This daily commentary is a bronze-level post. Today's comment is on the Irish desire to get their tracker mortgage obligations written down.

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…

This was the question put to the ECB's Klaus Masuch by one persistent Irish journalist. The answer from Masuch was a complete dodge, a non-answer, because everyone knows that the Irish government has heaped what rightfully should be…

A friend commented to me when he saw the story that Iceland had been upgraded by Fitch, the ratings agency, that this "sure makes default look palatable". Obviously, Iceland is not out of the woods yet but their relative success says there…