Politics

Today’s news coverage is non-stop Brexit. And this is a big event. But it is the political implications which matter; the economic impact will be more muted.

Last week, I wrote how the Labour Party in the Netherlands suffered a historic defeat in parliamentary elections because voters questioned their priorities - and how this is emblematic of Western social democratic parties everywhere. And as…

On Wednesday night, the Dutch elections saw the two parties in the governing coalition lose 37 of the 79 seats they now hold between them. That's a massive defeat frankly. Yet, the Prime Minister's party is spinning this as a win. And for…

The present Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, is the first Prime Minister from a party other than the two traditional centrist parties, PdVA and the CDA, and their predecessor parties since the Dutch constitution and voting…

Starting in 2007, global markets were buffeted by a series of financial and economic crises that created the greatest deflationary scare since the Great Depression. We have left out-and-out crisis mode. But the challenges are still…

Turkey is in the middle of a major political row with Germany. In the wake of the attempted coup d’tat last year, Turkish President Erdogan wants to change its constitution to give the President more power. And because the likely vote will…

This morning data from the US Commerce Department showed the US trade deficit in January at its highest level since March 2012. The numbers were not unexpected as the $48.5 billion deficit was bang on economist estimates.

Forget about the executive orders and Trump press conferences. This is all for show - reality TV, if you will. Concentrate instead on what actually happens, what policies are actually implemented and what impact this is going to have on the…

Yesterday, I was talking to a veteran journalist based in Rome. He remarked that youth unemployment in southern Italy was 60% and that this was one of the biggest problems to deal with politically. The spectre of strong, able-bodied young…

Earlier today, I was listening to an interview with IMF head Christine Lagarde dance around the issue of the unsustainability of Greece’s debt load. And she said something very telling. She said that debt haircuts were not on the table but…