Krugman versus the austerians: A tiresome, misguided ‘debate’
By Joao Marcus Marinho Nunes | Blog | In the Krugman versus the austerians, everybody bashes everyone because their respective agendas are diametrically opposed.
World economy
American Chambers of Commerce stick up for Europe
NEW YORK | Being bearish about the European Union is not fashionable anymore. Despite some shocking unemployment rates and debt loads, the old continent is still the world’s largest economy, around 30% bigger than China. Something US firms should take into account, the AmChams advices in a report recently released in New York.
Why United States’ GDP growth doesn’t mean much for the economy
WASHINGTON | By Pablo Pardo. In July the American GDP will go up, although the economy won’t even feel it. Nor the so-called sequester or the Fed massive debt purchases have anything to do with it. Oil prices and the dollar are also out of the equation. The key: R&D will be considered as an investment.
A three-speed global recovery
BARCELONA | By CaixaBank analysts | There are still a large number of medium-term risks for a global recovery: the absence of credible fiscal consolidation plans in the United States and Japan is one of them.
Chinese tourists: are the world’s biggest spending travelers uncivilized?
After a Chinese teenager defaced a stone sculpture in an ancient Egyptian Temple, an intense debate has sparked about travelers misbehavior and national shame. Chinese tourists increasingly are the main target for the world’s biggest hotels and tour companies. And they are big spenders: $102 billion on overseas trips last year, a 40 percent jump over 2011 spending. However, as some experts tell Ray Kwong, many consider a trip abroad more like a Spring Break to wildly indulge than a museum visit.
This Time is Not So Different: The Euro Crisis and the 1840s
BERKELEY | By Carola Binder | The author compares the fiscal crisis in the 1840 in the US with what happened in the euro zone. Back in the XIX century state governments in America saw infrastructure projects fail and land values and tax revenue fell further, eroding their fiscal positions, making it harder for them to issue bonds and forcing them to pay higher interest rates. Something similar to what Greece is suffering.
US stimulus 1- EU austerity 0
While the US enjoy an economic confidence recovery, euro zone members have to put up with a failed mix of austerity measures and monetary expansion. The strategy must be changed since there are few signs of improvement in the real economy, none in the case of Spain.
The austerity breakdown
MADRID | By Luis Arroyo | It is a grave mistake to stubbornly defend the application of the same strict rules whether the economy is growing or in recession, and social unrest and missed fiscal targets are testament to how wrong the current European policies are.
Time to end private credit creation?
LONDON | by Alex Biddle | A British Investment Bank would not stop boom and bust as such, but would be able to ensure that productive businesses get credit in the most difficult of times.
Investors, Latin America’s Pacific Alliance is here to stay
MADRID |By Carlos Álvaro at Capital Madrid | Latin America’s Pacific Alliance is meeting this week in Colombia. For Spain, it might be a gateway to Asian markets that could bring some hope in times of crisis. Many analysts also consider it “the new Brazil”, the best option for foreign investors who want to enter the juicy Latin American market.