Another Day, Another Political Corruption Scandal In Spain’s ‘Mafia State’
Political corruption has become synonymous with political leadership in Spain.
Read more...Category Archives: Europe
Yanis Varoufakis: Europe’s Latest Policy on Irish and Greek Banking losses – Two Swindles Too Similar for Comfort
The Irish and the Greeks are, in many ways, very different people. And yet, caught up in the Euro Crisis, their fortunes have become too close for comfort.
Read more...Bill Black: Deflation Dementia
Yves here. This piece by Bill Black not only does a great job of kneecapping some typically poor MSM reporting, but it’s also valuable as a high-level overview of the insanity of European economic policies.
Read more...Wolf Richter: German Industry Goes To See Uncle Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin might have had a field day listening to Obama’s Brussels speech threatening more economic sanctions, except he was otherwise engaged.
Read more...Is a Second Euro Crisis Possible?
The notion of Eurozone fragility is no longer an active worry among investors and pundits. Is this increased optimism warranted?
Read more...Mathew D. Rose: Hello European Deflation! Good-bye Periphery!
What do the Catholic Church and the Eurozone have in common? More than one thinks
Read more...Philip Pilkington: Thinking Makes It So – The IMF Bailout of the UK in 1976 and the Rise of Monetarism
Monetarism began it’s rise to world prominence in the ever-conservative Bundesbank in 1974. But it would be the government of Margaret Thatcher in the UK, elected in 1979, that would truly launch monetarism in central banking. After Thatcher’s monetarist experiment undertaken between 1979 and 1984 every economics student would be taught to recite the various monetary aggregates by heart for at least a decade or two.
This is what accounts for the monetarist bent we see in the economists of the last generation. Basically any economist trained between roughly 1980 and 1995 would be heavily exposed to monetarist dogma. And only those that read alternative accounts of money creation — namely, the theory of endogenous money — would be fully immunised. This explains, for example, why certain economists that champion Keynesian policies — like Paul Krugman — actually speak in monetarist tones.
Read more...Russia Eyes Crimea’s Oil and Gas Reserves
Dave here. In case you were thinking that the Great Game was obsolete or something. Needless to say the referendum passed, this was written slightly before the release of the results. By Nick Cunningham, a Washington DC-based writer on energy and environmental issues. You can follow him on twitter at @nickcunningham1. Cross-posted at Oil Price. […]
Read more...Banker Farce: Spanish Bank CEO Launches Moral Crusade Against Political Corruption
“We have to fight corruption in order to build a new model of more sustainable and fairer growth.”
These laudable words came from the least likely of mouths – that of Francisco González, CEO of Spanish banking giant Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA). González was speaking at the bank’s annual shareholder meeting, held last week in Bilbao.
BBVA is Spain’s second biggest bank with operations in more than 30 countries including the U.S., China, Argentina, Columbia and Mexico. It has about 107,000 employees, 47 million customers worldwide, a million shareholders and now, it seems, a moralizing CEO.
Read more...Don Quijones: Round Two Of The Global Financial Sector’s Takeover Of Spain
Few have it quite as bad as the tenants of a growing number of social housing projects in Spain who are finding out their new dodgy landlords hail from Wall Street.
Read more...Washington Does Not Have a Natural Gas Weapon Against Moscow
To many, the answer to the specter of Russian natural gas dominance is clear: unleash America’s natural gas abundance and displace Moscow. But will that work?
Read more...Ilargi: Big Oil and Gas Wars
We live in a world built on such an overkill of 24/7 propaganda and misinformation that some of it easily slips by. Especially when the topic is the Ukraine.
Read more...Yanis Varoufakis: Ukraine – Three Awkward Questions for Western Liberals and a Comment on the EU’s Role
Yves here. This post is useful because the issues Varoufakis raises are orthogonal to most of the discussion in the English language press over Ukraine.
Read more...Wolf Richter: Aid For The Ukraine “Will Be Stolen” – Former Ukrainian Minister Of Economy
Yves here. A tongue-in-cheek article in the Financial Times, Putin putting Europe in its place, written from Putin’s viewpoint, concluded:
Read more...“As to your plans for emergency economic aid for Ukraine, this is an excellent plan. They could use the money and I’d rather not shell out myself. Incidentally, to save time why not make the cheques payable to Gazprom?”
Hudson/Sommers: Ukraine: “Go West, Young Man” (or Dr. Strangelove’s Revenge)
How we learned to stop worrying and love the IMF….
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