Subscribe to Excerpts
Subscribe by Email
Why did Merkel shake Sarkozy’s hand more warmly than at the last summit? Does that mean she’s softerning her stance on a Greek bailout? And did you overhear what a friend of a friend of mine thinks he overheard in a cloakroom in the Bundestag? These are the sort of parlour game questions to which [...]
Archive for the ‘Financial crises’ Category
January 19th, 2012
Category: Britain, Financial crises
The front page of this morning’s Financial Times describes the struggle between the Royal Bank of Scotland and PM David Cameron over executive pay. RBS chairman Sir Philip Hampton’s salary of nearly $2 million is set to be supplemented with a bonus of at least that hefty size. Cameron is calling for executive pay restraint, [...]
January 16th, 2012
A striking but unrepresentative example of waste and vanity in Spanish public spending.
December 26th, 2011
Category: Commerce and its discontents, Financial crises
A story in today’s New York Times talks about how U.S. financial firms are stepping in to buy up assets that European banks are being forced to shed. But it buries the lede: that government regulation deserves the credit for leaving them in the financial condition to do so.
December 12th, 2011
Category: Britain, Financial crises
After initially making positive sounds about David Cameron’s veto at the EU summit, Deputy Leader Nick Clegg has reversed himself and gone all in for European integration. He sees the UK’s future and the continent’s as fundamentally linked, and it at least once sense he is certainly right: The outcome of the EuroMess will likely [...]
November 22nd, 2011
Category: Europe, Financial crises
In the ongoing polarized debates about the size and scope of government, many American politicians and talking heads are turning to European examples to make their case. When discussions of increased government spending arise, some conservatives screech “We are turning into profligate overspenders like those irresponsible Greeks!” When discussions of cutting government spending arise, some [...]
November 12th, 2011
Lessons from Britain in 1815, with a debt burden twice as high as Italy´s.
November 7th, 2011
Sarkozy lines up somemiddle-rank supporters for a financial transactions tax; and how an FTT can improve financial markets.
November 7th, 2011
Category: Financial crises
OK, not really, even though it would help. I just wanted to go on record as the guy who came up with that headline before someone else prints it after the blessed event finally happens.
October 12th, 2011
They just lend to each other.
