Politics

The US trade figures for Q4 2012 came out this morning and they surprised analysts by showing a trade deficit that shrank 21% to $38.5 billion in December. According to Bloomberg News this was a lower deficit than any of 73 economists…

Europe seems to have reached the nadir economically, judging from the last few economic data points. But there is still a long way to go. In my view, Spain remains the most important country in Europe's sovereign debt crisis because of its…

My thesis these past few years is that a fiscal retrenchment to reduce deficits in the US was likely to lead to a shortened business cycle. I have been saying since 2013 began that politics favoured the United States going into austerity…

As you may have heard already, the jobs numbers for the US came out and they confirmed that the US private sector continues to create 150-200,000 new jobs each month. This is consistent with moderate and does not indicate any signs of…

All G7 economies are struggling in the post-crisis climate, but US GDP has recovered to pre-crisis levels, while the Eurozone simply hasn’t. This column portrays the global crisis as a transitory shock for the US, but as a quasi-permanent…

The synchronized crisis and economic weakness has produced synchronized easing of monetary policy. Officials typically want currency to be supporting not contradicting monetary policy signals.

I want to briefly reiterate the theme of an October post on Britain's role in Europe because of a speech the Prime Minister David Cameron made earlier today. Cameron, in a major speech in London, promised that if his party wins the next…

Although the House GOP leadership has been divided on how to deal with the upcoming fiscal contests, they have apparently decided to raise the debt ceiling and focus on the sequester as I have predicted.

Unappreciated by many is the fact that the Italian economy has seen the largest contraction (7%) since the crisis began within the euro zone after Greece. Per capita income is back, according to former ECB's Bini Smaghi, to where it was in…

This analysis via Stan Collender and Greg Sargent on the political calculus Republicans in Congress have to make dovetails with what I wrote yesterday why a US government shutdown is likely. I think the analysis also makes sense for the…