Financial deceit within institutions whose accountability is precarious has a multiplying effect. The abuse of money immediately passes for an embedded practice, and the actual size of the affair is consequently believed to be much larger. After all, as it happens with European Union officers, taxpayers would despair for the lack of their habitual democratic recourse to make those responsible feel their anger. That is why the latest data on…
LONDON | Morgan Stanley recently estimated that liabilities in fines and damages could amount to as much as $22 billion against the dozen banks allegedly involved in Libor-rigging. No one knows. The dimension of the case could scale up once brought to the courts of justice and the spillover on the markets would be extremely difficult to contain. The risk is all too evident. For instance, when Barclays was sentenced…
The heaviest economies of the euro zone’s periphery, Italy and Spain, have behaved in a more competitive manner than most sceptics about the laggards of the common currency union would have it. Companies from both Mediterranean countries have increased their presence in markets outside their natural environment, partly forced by a falling domestic demand but due to the strength of production structures and new-found adaptability, too. Here on The Corner,…
LONDON | Since the consumer price index began to record UK’s month on month inflation back in 1996, the downturn experienced in the clothing and footwear section from May to June this year has doubled the next largest decrease. The data, released Tuesday by the Office for National Statistics, brought inflation from 2.8 percent to 2.4 percent, while the retail price index fell, too, from 3.1 percent to 2.8 percent….
LONDON/MADRID | Finance-wise, Italy is unnerving some of its neighbours in the periphery of the euro zone. Particularly in Spain, government officials wonder aloud about the unfairness of the whole situation: while yields of the Spanish 10-year sovereign bonds time and again cross the 7 percent frightening barrier, Italy managed last week to sell €5.25 billion in debt of various maturities at much lower interest rates in most of the…
Depicted more often than not these days as the number 1 enemy of the global economic recovery, even we at The Corner cannot help but wonder the big what-if question: couldn't the European Monetary Union just manage to orderly dismantle itself before it causes further damages? After checking the figures from the Review of the International Role of the Euro paper by the European Central Bank, the answer is that…
how can i get back with my ex This year's edition of the rencontres économiques, which the French Cércle de Économistes hosts in Aix-en-Provence since 2001, was condemned to debate the worrying health of the euro zone. The subject might have ruined the weekend when it took place, from July 6, though that didn't happen, probably because there is little coincidence in the fact that this economists' lobby seeks no common…
LONDON | Germany's imports have kept growing year on year at a moderate pace, with a 2.9 percent increase recorded in May. So have its exports, too. The latest data confirm the German economy as the healthiest core of the euro zone, with an accumulated trade surplus of €73.8 billion in that month, up from the €62.9-billion surplus in the same period of time in 2011. Export activity, indeed, has…
how can i get my ex girlfriend back LONDON | Will the trick of cutting the European Central Bank's deposit rate pay off? Everyone had noticed the extremely high levels of cash European banks left with the central entity for a mild profit in exchange of, well, nothing from their part. Particularly after the ECB made liquidity available, via its long-term refinancing operations, it was clear that the European banks…
how can i get my ex girlfriend back LONDON | Trafalgar Square's entrance towards Buckingham Palace has reportedly been sold to Spanish financier Rafael Serrano, whose plans for the London landmark involve a hotel. According to sources talking to The Times in London and Cinco Días in Madrid, Serrano bid £60 million (€75 million) for the listed building through his investment arm Prime Investors Capital. The British government aimed at…