Politics

One Greek outstanding bond is a 450 mln euro FRN that is due May 15. It has a 30-day grace period to make the payment, according to press reports. The new Greek 10-year bond yield rose today to 20.55%. It is the fifth consecutive session…

The Free Exchange blog at The Economist has accepted my bet, and very cleverly (the bastards!) they have added a second one. For two years I have been arguing that a Chinese rebalancing will require much slower GDP growth rates than we…

Marshall Auerback sent me this video of Rollerball. I liked it so much, I thought I would post it.

Perhaps because they call themselves Communists, many observers, think the party is homogeneous, but it is not. There are forces of movement and forces of order. A FT columnist recently wrote about the possible threat to the post-Mao…

In an interview with Louis James, the inimitable Doug Casey throws cold water on those celebrating the economic recovery.

This daily commentary is a bronze level members-only post. I wonder how the oil issue is going to play out in this particular election since everyone seems to be talking about how high the price of gasoline/petrol is. In the US, we are…

The LTROs may have helped ease this year's roll-over risk (Spain has met almost 50% of this year's refinancing needs). But they have not substantially altered the market's views of the risks of an eventual restructuring.

This will be a bronze level post. Everyone is talking about the Dutch Freedom Party these days. Geert Wilders, the head of the Freedom Party, is a bit like Marine Le Pen in terms of his appeal: anti-immigrant, nationalist and right wing. He…

That Weidmann now wishes to publicly claim he is concerned about risk associated with the Bundesbank's Target2 credit does not simply mean that this is a truth that has now been "acknowledged". I would guess that the sober Bundesbank…

Developments in the Netherlands may steal the limelight as the French election is still more than a month away. The key issue in the Netherlands is that last week, the Dutch Bureau of Economic Policy Analysis warned that next year's deficit…