Tag Archives: Europe
Brexit: Britain bows to its historic adversaries
Is there any comparable case of a great country voluntarily, without any need to do so, placing itself at the mercy of its historical adversaries? That is what the UK has done. Britain’s future is now at the disposal of the remaining countries of the European Union. After being weakened by the results of the…
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Eurozone makes progress
The eurozone is widely viewed as a failure, held together only for political reasons. This, it is said, has been proved by the financial crisis and the failure to manage the debt problems of governments in southern Europe. At least, that is the dominant view among the Anglo-Saxons; one searches far and…
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The Meltzer plan for world money
Professor Allan Meltzer has for some years advocated a reform of international monetary arrangements based on a joint adoption by large economies or areas of similar inflation targets. This is a summary. The US, the Euro, Japan and China (if it ends its currency controls) should adopt a common 0 to 2 percent…
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Lord Lawson aims at the wrong target
Governments’ failure to manage the global financial crisis is having profound political and geo-political consequences – all of them adverse. Fuelled by political desperation to boost demand, national monetary policies are becoming steadily more aggressive – not so much “beggar my neighbour” as “sauve qui peut”. Financial repression is ongoing. As we all know, once…
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A North Atlantic trade and currency zone?
David Cameron’s speech threatening to pull the UK out of the EU unless the other members agree to its demands may have started a process of withdrawal that could become irreversible. Although this outcome would be contrary to the stated objectives of the UK prime minister and British government, commentators on both sides of the…
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Why Asia fears new currency war
The territory will be different – the sides will measure their gains and losses in terms of fractions of an exchange rate movement rather than yards of muddy land in Flanders. But the implications could be far-reaching. Nothing less than the future shape and health of the world economy is at stake. The…
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Eurozone to lead world out of the money trap?
There is a long, long way to go. But confidence is gradually returning to the eurozone – confidence that at least a break-up of the eurozone will be avoided (thought his does not exclude the possibility that Greece may leave). The fall in spreads on Spanish and Italian bonds over German bunds is one…
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Towards the next crash
The political tide is backing off the banks. Few politicians in Europe or the US are willing to support moves for more radical reform. They just want to get the banks lending again. In practice, that means pressing banks to accept the risk of big bad debts down the road…and so set the stage for…
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Banish Europe’s banking ghosts
The discussion about the need for a ‘banking union’ in the Euro area needs to focus on the key issues, just as does the debate on the euro crisis as a whole. What matters in deciding whether to assist a country to stay in the euro is its political will to reform. The test is…
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What the G20 should do at Los Cabos
“The global recovery has stalled again as confidence in policy makers’ ability to provide conditions for growth has slipped away” writes Chris Giles of the Financial Times, in his report from Los Cabos on the opening day of the G20 meeting there. According to the latest FT/Brookings Institution Tiger Index, world economic growth is stalling…
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