Netherlands

Foreign-language economic and finance links for 26 November

This week’s New Yorker magazine features Ian Frazier on Theo Jansen, a Dutch artist who makes kinetic sculptures called Strandbeests that walk along the beach. In the video below, Frazier discusses the sculptures and how they fit into…

Yesterday, I showed you that contagion had spread and default probabilities were blowing out right across Europe. Every single name on the list for sovereign credit default wideners was European and names like Austria, Estonia, and Slovakia…

The Greek tragedy in several acts would appear to be approaching a climactic moment. The warnings coming out of Berlin all week have been hard to ignore: “Greece either puts up or shoves off” would seem to be the blunt message being…

ECB intransigence leaves little alternative to breakup. Europe’s payments-surplus nations are waging financial war against the deficit countries. Without a common union based on mutual support within a mixed economy – one capable of…

The vote reflected widespread belief that government negotiators had not been vigorous in pleading Iceland’s legal case. The situation is reminiscent of World War I’s Inter-Ally war debt tangle. Lloyd George described the negotiations…

A year ago, in March 2010, Iceland’s economy was so small that it did not warrant much attention when 93% of its voters rejected the Social Democratic-Green government’s surrender to demands by Gordon Brown and the Dutch, the European Union…

Due to its size and importance, Germany has taken all of the criticism for enforcing a hard line on the austerity quid pro quo which allowed the euro zone bailouts to proceed. However, policy makers from a number of other countries share…

by Niels Jensen “There are those who don’t know and those who don’t know they don’t know.” -John Kenneth Galbraith On 1st January 2013, a new directive regulating insurance companies which conduct business within the EU will come…

The following is a post by Marc Chandler, head of Brown Brother Harriman’s Currency Strategy Team. For more of BBH’s currency views, visit the website here. The Dutch government collapsed over the weekend as the Labor Party withdrew from…