The news of France’s sovereign debt downgrade has evoked the usual storm of exclamations and finger pointing. But there is another far more important issue at hand. And that is summed up in the question: “For how much longer will nation states allow themselves to be controlled by the financial markets?” It’s […]
Necessary Measures “I know that the measures that I have announced are not pleasant, but they are necessary.” These were the words of Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy as he announced public spending cuts and tax increases of Euro65bn. Whilst I can understand this action from a purely economic standpoint, I found it […]
Nothing like an attention grabbing headline. But it is a headline that raises serious issues. Now that a pathway (of varying lengths and gradients, depending upon where you are located) is appearing leading us out of the Great Recession, a common picture of hope is emerging. The picture of hope […]
Unlikely bedfellows you may think, but two articles from the Institute of Fiscal Studies[1], [2] can help us to see the type of future that may await us, particularly for the losers of the Great Recession, those that I call the “bloc #3“. The key points from the above articles […]
Markus Jaeger makes an interesting observation in his article The Great Risk Shift[1] noting that the Great Recession has had another unexpected outcome. In summary, the terms “developed economies” and “emerging economies” are now anachronisms – part of the vocabulary of the pre-Great Recession world that are now of limited […]