Italy

In the German press, there have been a number of stories recently that indicate that the German government will not commit any more money to bailouts in the euro zone. Specifically, the reports of greatest interest have to do with Germany's…

And going beyond April, the political arithmetic of a post Monti government looks complicated, making the kind of stability needed to advance what the population may well see as “harsh” reforms unlikely. In other words, as Monti says, when…

Mario Draghi has a specific plan in mind for how the ECB will be able to arrest the sovereign debt crisis. Two Bloomberg central bank sources told the news agency that ECB President Draghi will have talks with Bundesbank President Jens…

I think it goes without saying that the problems for Spanish and Italian regional governments are due to the austerity-induced double dip recession those economies are suffering. The real insight here is that this municipal - double dip…

I don’t want to be too glib here. I recognize that policymakers are in an extremely difficult position and that there is no longer any easy solution, but railing at the markets rather than trying to understand why they are doing what they…

On the heels of a sovereign downgrade, the following press release was issued by Moody's Investors Service today in conjunction with its ratings review of several Italian banks.

Moody's Investors Service has today downgraded Italy's government bond rating to Baa2 from A3. The outlook remains negative. Italy's Prime-2 short-term rating has not changed.

The data today were pretty mixed. Brazil is showing more signs of slowing as industrial production there dropped for the third month in a row. What's more is that this puts Brazil back to numbers from 2009 when we were recovering from a…

This week's newsletter will focus on Europe again as this morning the European summit has produced significant changes in European economic policy. Spanish Prime Minister Rajoy and Italian Prime Minister Monti threatened to 'block…

The latest, with Spanish ten-year debt over 7% and 12-month loans just secured for over 5%, is that the ESM will buy Spanish bonds directly. According to the Guardian, Germany is prepared to use the ESM bailout fund to buy Spanish (and…