Politics

A recent ECB household-wealth survey was interpreted by the media as evidence that poor Germans shouldn’t have to pay for southern Europe. This column takes a look at the numbers. Whilst it’s true that median German households are poor…

The European Commission issued the following press release after the Cypriot Parliament rejected a proposed bank levy to recapitalize its banking sector.

Despite calls from the junior coalition partner the Lib Dems, some businesses and the IMF, we expect Osborne and the Tory-led UK government to maintain the fiscal strategy of austerity. The austerity is counter-intuitively (for some),…

The latest news out of Cyprus is that the Cyrpiot government has delayed the vote on a bank bailout and savers tax by one day to Monday and that it has also extended the bank holiday from just Monday to Tuesday as well. In my view, the news…

I listed Ireland in two of my surprises for 2013. I wrote that Ireland’s government bonds do not outperform again. Greece outperforms this year. I also wrote that Ireland goes to OMT. The first prediction is probably more controversial…

Handelsblatt's Italian correspondent Katharina Kort had an exclusive interview with Italian politician Beppe Grillo about his ideas for change in Italian politics. The article is in German. However, I have read it and wanted to present a…

The difficulty in making sense of the results of the Italian election has produced the common imagery of a clown to capture the comic Grillo, who appears to be the most unlikely politician since Lech Walesa, the unemployed electrician that…

It is not being widely discussed, but we suspect the wage settlement in Germany over the weekend is an important development. The agreement that covers 765k state government workers in Germany, represented by Verdi, reached a two-year deal…

More and more the economic data coming out of the US seems to support continued recovery. The housing data certainly does. Consumer credit is increasing. And the Fed Flow of Funds data shows household balance sheets significantly repaired.…

A key issue that will be addressed this week is how will the ECB respond to the electoral outcome of Italy.