Richard Wolff: Scapegoat Economics 2015
A new politics organized around scapegoat economics appeals to voters by promising to “protect” them from austerity policies.
Read more...Category Archives: Europe
Debunking the Causes of the Eurozone Crisis
The orthodox German view of the Eurozone crisis gets shellacked at an important INET panel.
Read more...Ilargi: Russia’s Central Bank Governor Is Way Smarter Than Ours
Just like the Bank of England hired Mark Carney from Canada, maybe our central bank, the Fed, should hire Elvira Nabiullina from Russia?
Read more...Jeffrey Sommers: Comparing Apples to Oranges: The Baltic States and Greece
Greece’s crisis is a public debt crisis enabled by membership in the Eurozone. The Baltic crisis was a private sector property bubble crisis.
Read more...Don Quijones: “Bad Bank” Mania Spreads in Europe
Yves here. I’m not as negative about “bad banks” as Don Quijones is. He does mention the positive result in Sweden, and I hope Swedish Lex will pipe up in comments to add more insight. But the Spanish case is a horrorshow and others in Europe are troubling.
Read more...Greece Threatens to Miss IMF Payment, Issue Drachma (Updated)
Greece has decided to up the ante in its negotiations with the Troika. The open question is whether the latest move, the press leak via Ambrose Evans-Pritchard at the Telegraph that Greece will miss its April 9 payment to the IMF so that it can continue to make pension payments, and has started to make plans to issue the drachma, are game-changers that Greece hopes they will be.
Read more...Greece Throws Away One of Its Eurogroup Memo Wins, Submits Reforms Reaching Up to a 3.9% Fiscal Surplus
One of the things we’ve stressed is that the Greek government’s repeated claims that it is submitting an anti-austerity reform package is untrue. The Greek government committed to achieving a fiscal surplus of 1.0 to 1.5% and has separately said it will always run a fiscal surplus. We have stressed that running a fiscal surplus is an economic dampener, and is even more damaging in a severely depressed economy like Greece.
So what has Greece done? It has submitted a reform package that it says will meet an even higher fiscal surplus target.
Read more...Why Putin Doesn’t Need To Pander To The West
When sanctions were imposed and tightened against Russia, and oil prices plunged, conventional wisdom in the US press was that the Russian people would not tolerate a decline in living standards and therefore Putin’s days were numbered. In fact, Putin’s approval ratings rose and even most of his opponents in the Moscow intelligensia fell in behind him. Some analysts pointed out that sanctions seldom succeed and were unlikely to work on Russia. That view has become more prevalent as Russia has proven to be less dependent on oil revenues than widely assumed and Russia’s foreign currency reserves have stabilized.
Read more...Don Quijones: Rajoy Horror Picture Show Nears Grisly Climax in Spain
Don Quijones describes Rajoy’s record of misrule and how the major parties are jockeying in advance of its almost certain unraveling.
Read more...Greece Submits Insufficiently Detailed Reform List; Tsipras Tells Parliament of “Peace with Honor,” Um, “Honorable Compromise”
The Greek government continues to climb down substantively on its promises of resistance to the dictates of its creditors as time pressure intensifies.
Read more...The Troika’s Leverage Over Greece: The Ongoing Bank Run
Why Greece’s bank run, and the risk of a banking system collapse, gives the ECB the whip hand over Greece.
Read more...Ilargi: Kiev, Moscow, Bonds and Haircuts
Why the proposed Ukraine bond restructuring is a geopolitical matter, part of the US push against Russia via Kiev, and not mere high finance.
Read more...Mathew D. Rose: Greece – Plus ça change
Whether the Greek government’s protests are substantive or mere grandstanding, any show of opposition is more that the Eurocrats are prepared to accept. And a successful left-leaning government is also seen as a threat in quite a few quarters.
Read more...Greece Raids Public Health Service Kitty as It Scrambles for a Short-Term Lifeline; ECB Refuses to Cut a Break. Updated: No Deal, Greece Given Ultimatum
As Greece continues to scramble to raise funds to avert default and keep paying pensioners and government officials, the end game is becoming clearer.
Read more...Leaked Tsipras Letter to Merkel Shows Increased Desperation, Warns of Imminent Default
If the plan of the Troika was to starve the Tsipras government and produce either capitulation or a loss of domestic credibility, their effort appears to be on track.
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