Politics

The Financial Times has gone through the very useful exercise of creating a decision tree on what a Greek exit from the euro zone entails. I think the Europeans are now actively preparing for a Grexit because to not do so would be folly.…

Without going into the detail of my member posts, here's what I can say: it is clear Greece will eventually exit the euro zone. The question is the timing. But, the political about-face necessary to prevent contagion is a lot larger than…

I just re-opened the thread on "How and why Greece will leave the euro zone" because there has been so much chatter about a Greek exit. I am still a bit in disbelief that Europe would allow the Greek economy to crumble so much thy would be…

In February I wrote about the political economy of a Greek default (and euro zone exit), predicting that a Grexit was all but inevitable. In the last few days, there has been an almost feverish debate about this issue, so I wanted to update…

The evidence is becoming increasingly clear that German policy makers are prepared for Greece to exit the euro zone. Knowing this changes how one should view the likely policy responses in Europe. In the short term, this means allowing more…

"The German government has, for the first time, released hundreds of pages of documents from 1994 to 1998 on the introduction of the euro and the inclusion of Italy in the euro zone."

we are seeing an ever shrinking number of people paying an ever greater portion of the taxes. Though they also are the ever shrinking number of people acquiring an ever greater portion of the wealth. There is little that matches the…

Later this week, I plan to write a more comprehensive post on the European sovereign debt crisis to incorporate what we have learned since the French and Greek elections. Here's a short preview of what I will have to say.

The set up for having temporary tax and stimulus measures expire risks a new recession and such a downturn would be ugly, especially given the elevated level of US S&P earnings expectations and the relative P/E ratio of the US market

Nationalism is rising throughout Europe as we are expecting far-right parties to now enter parliaments in greece and france to add to the fringe parties in Finland, Austria and the Netherlands. In Germany, the Piratenpartei, another fringe…