Denmark has the highest projected government spending as a percentage of GDP, with 58.4 percent. France and Austria also have notably high expenditure percentages, even above Nordic countries Finland and Sweden. Greece doesn’t have that high government spending after all with 48.3 it is around the average, according to Economics in Pictures.
MADRID | By J.P. Marín Arrese | When you blow the war trumpets any back-pedalling proves hopeless. You are forced to step in. Mr Obama has crossed the Rubicon once the news on a planned attack against the Syrian regime has been leaked. Having warned chemical weapons to stand as a red line he was already under bitter criticism for failing to swiftly react to the massive killing of civilians, victims of that awesome and atrocious devices. Any faltering on his side was bound to be regarded as a blatant lack of leadership.
LONDON | By Sigrún Davíðsdóttir (Icelandic State Broadcaster Rúv correspondent)| How to break up a relationship? Do you say you need a break, yet making it clear it’s finite – or do you make a clean cut and say it as it is, that you really don’t want to stay in this relationship? The Icelandic government is having a major difficulty in breaking up with the European Union although the relationship was only that of negotiating a further relationship. Saying “no, it’s over” seems difficult – and that is exactly what foreigners often say about Icelanders: they find it difficult to commit themselves to final decisions.
MADRID | By Jorge Chamizo via Capitalmadrid | This year was going to be bright for the Spanish Football League. Clubs have obtained 390 million by exporting players to foreign teams. But this record may be frustrated by the Real Madrid’s stratospheric deal of 100 million for Gareth Bale.
MADRID | By J.P. Marín Arrese | Christine Lagarde’s stern warning on potential problems ahead for emerging countries has been delivered in rather a blunt way: “even with the best of efforts the dam might leak”. At the annual Fed gathering in Wyoming she claimed “further lines of defence” were needed to address a financial crisis. The hike in interest rates following the prospect of a progressive tapering in asset purchases by the US, has induced a sharp reversal in fund flows between developed and emerging markets.
BEIJING | By Andy Xie via Caixin Magazine | As the U.S. continues to normalize interest rates, emerging economies become vulnerable. Brazil and India are at the eye of the storm, but China with its huge property bubble should be wary.
Roosevelt Institute Fellow Susan Crawford responds to two recent New York Times op-eds that claimed high-speed Internet access is in good shape in the U.S. Crawford claims that the large cable distributors in America have clearly become the nation’s monopoly suppliers of terrestrial wired connections, each in its own footprint.
SAO PAULO | By Marcus Nunes | The author believes that two ‘obsessions’ are at the root of the loss in nominal stability that took place in the Bernanke Fed: the ‘obsession’ with inflation and its counterpart, the ‘obsession’ with interest rates.
BEIJING | Calls to reform China’s one-child policy are growing, and the government should respond by considering the range of options available, Chinese economic magazine Caixin states. That would boost the economy by reshaping the demographic structure to support sustained growth.
It’s not going to get any easier for clean energy sector soon. Although it is gaining in public image, global investors will remain cautious as long as gas prices remain low.