In the midst of the European sovereign debt crisis, investors are bidding for sovereign debt. On May 24, 2012 the yields on Austrian, Belgian and French bonds plunged to record lows. Earlier in the week, Germany sold zero-coupon bonds. US bond yields are also near their record lows. On Friday August 5, 2011, Standard & Poor’s…
Economist Paul Krugman recently gave an interview to German magazine Der Spiegel in which he argues that this is not the time to worry about debt and inflation. Here are some choice excerpts: On Greece leaving the euro zone: What happens if Greece leaves? Then you have again a bank run in other peripheral countries because they’ve set…
Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Narayana Kocherlakota is an inflation hawk, who thinks that the US economy is close to maximum employment. Kocherlakota said that, for him, the inflation rate is key to determining how close the Fed is to the maximum achievable level of employment or the minimum achievable level of unemployment. And the signals are…
Greece is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Next month it will go to poll – again – to determine who will govern it. The choices are not easy and it is quite likely that the result may be another hung parliament just like the one after the last election on May 6th. Things are not…
William K. Black of New Economic Perspectives writes that ex-President of ECB, Trichet is suggesting that EU give Greece a treatment that Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan gave to Benton Harbor: Michigan Governor Rick Snyder secured passage of “Public Act 4, the Local Government and School District Fiscal Accountability Act. The Act allows the Governor to appoint…
Economist Nouriel Roubini believes that the Greek euro tragedy is nearing its final act and the country will exit the euro either this year or next year. He says that Greece is stuck in a vicious cycle of insolvency, lost competitiveness, external deficits, and ever-deepening depression and the all the solutions that might improve Greece’s competitiveness require…
There is an emerging school of economic thought, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), that describes: “the workings of modern money systems, where a government responsible for fiscal policy (taxing and spending) is a monopoly currency issuer, issuing a non-commodity-based floating exchange rate currency” To better understand the cause(s) of the financial melt-down of 2007, many prominent economists developed…
Here is the financial crisis of 2007-2008 timeline mapped on the S&P500 chart. Only major events and announcements leading upto endof Sept ’08 are included. After Sept. ’08, Federal Reserve, US Treasury, IMF and major central banks took a number of steps to quell the storm and stabilize the market. Majority of these steps were taken in…
Every year, PIMCO organizes a forum, which brings together top people from its 12 world-wide offices and outside finance and economics thought leaders to debate global financial markets. These investment professionals and thought leaders discuss and identify major trends that will be in play for next three to five years. Outcomes of these forums provide…
Robin Wells, economist and Paul Krugman co-author, writes: “[…] the heart of the problem lies in the political culture of Germany and the mindset of its political and economic elites, which have never been willing to admit to their own voters the sacrifices that must be undertaken in order to be the leader of Europe. Instead,…
You must be logged in to post a comment.