Skip to content

Index: Economics and Finance

• Nouriel Roubini: breaking with Greece to save the eurozone.

Friday, 12 August 2011

The only realistic and sensible solution is an orderly and market-oriented – but coercive – restructuring of the entire Greek public debt.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices | | Comments (0)

• The Berlin-Vichy parentage of the European Union and its troublesome coin.

Saturday, 23 July 2011

The new order was European. With French and German bankers, industrialists, and other businessmen meeting regularly, the idea of a United States of Europe was making its way, along with visions of a single customs zone and a single European currency. The European Union, its attendant bureaucracy, even the euro, all appear to stem from the Berlin-Vichy collaboration.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, History & Travel | | Comments (0)

• The single currency and the economic brutality of European bureaucrats.

Thursday, 21 July 2011

The faith of leading European politicians and bankers in monetary union, a system of financial government whose origins can be traced back to the set of temporary political circumstances in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, and which was brought to bear without serious economic analysis, is essentially irrational. Indeed, in many ways, the euro bears comparison to the gold standard.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices | | Comments (0)

· The euro: the last great Greek myth.

Tuesday, 12 July 2011

The euro was built on the assumption that no country in it would ever default, and as a result there is no precedent and, more important still, no mechanism for what is about to happen.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices | | Comments (0)

· If it weren’t for the euro, the euro-zone would be in good shape.

Tuesday, 21 June 2011

Those in responsible positions are getting bogged down in crisis management, as they seek to placate the public and sugarcoat the problems. They say that there is only a government debt crisis in a few euro countries but no euro crisis, citing as evidence the fact that the value of the European common currency has remained relatively stable against other currencies like the dollar.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, Noted elsewhere, Politics & Culture | | Comments (0)

· To make Greeks happy, declare them bankrupt and give them a devalued drachma.

Wednesday, 8 June 2011

The best scenario would be for Greece to declare bankruptcy, go back to the drachma, and devalue its currency. This money illusion will make Greeks feel better in that their salaries will not get cut in drachma terms even though in essence they will be poorer as all imported goods will cost more.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices | | Comments (0)

· Greece and its pleasant-tasting poison pill.

Tuesday, 10 May 2011

Greece was diagnosed as critically insolvent a year ago. It was placed in the eurozone’s intensive care ward, treated with an infusion of €110bn and put on a crash diet to thin its bloated state sector. But 12 months on, the patient is getting sicker.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, Noted elsewhere | | Comments (0)

· Portugal: Living high on the hog in a Ponzi paradise.

Monday, 9 May 2011

Portugal is borrowing money with which to pay off creditors. Not to worry, once it gets past this troublesome liquidity crisis, it will be able to borrow in international markets to repay the loans it is receiving from the IMF and its European partners, loans being used to repay other loans, with money it borrows from private-sector investors. If you don’t get it, you get it.

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices, Noted elsewhere | | Comments (0)

The beauty of Quantitative Easing.

Saturday, 30 October 2010

Nick O’Hear: There is one way of balancing the books. It is the elephant in the room. Nobody talks about it. It is the old method – inflation. Of course, agreements within the European Union forbid this but there is not much alternative. With inflation governments reduce the value of their debts at the expense of the saver. It transfers wealth from the prudent to the profligate and gets the government out of jail. They will blame it on the banks, bank bonuses, climate change and the oil companies, but since all European countries are in the same sort of mess you can bet your bottom dollar that inflation is what we will get!

Also filed in Chronicle & Notices | Tagged | Comments (2)

Euro vision.

Friday, 26 February 2010

Denis Boyles: Governments run on money, and the wonderful thing about the euro up until now has been that the government of, say, Greece, ran just as inefficiently on German euros as it did on Greek ones. Eventually, as common sense would suggest, it all must chug to a stop and fall apart.

Also filed in Politics & Culture, Principal Articles | Tagged | Comments (0)
The Fortnightly Review