Euro2012 begins
MADRID | A pinch of humour can go a long way, indeed. These guys made headlines today in the very BBC (Irish footie fans), Business Insider (
euro
Friday’s German chart: industrial production falls again
how to get your ex girlfriend back in a month LONDON | In came this week the numbers of German industrial production, and those who stir up the threat of an approaching euro area-wide recession saw its arguments confirmed: from March to April, Germany registered a 2.2 percent decline, a whole 1.2 percent under market expectations. The figure, 2.2 percent from 2.8 percent in March, placed that month's industrial production…
European current account deficit cut by €22.5 billion in the first quarter
Provisional readings by Eurostat on the European current account figures showed a considerable improvement in the money flows relating to trade and investment. The European Union's external current account recorded a deficit of €8.8 billion in the first quarter of 2012, compared with the €31.3 billion deficit of January to March in 2011. In the first quarter of 2012, the EU27 external balance of trade in goods was in deficit by €28.6 b…
If Spain goes, say adiós to the euro
What To Say Through Text To Get Your Ev Back By valenciaplaza.com, in Valencia | José Carrasco is private banking director at Banco Madrid in Valencia. Carrasco believes the European Central Bank buying Spanish bonds would reassure investors and negative headlines would then recede allowing foreign capital to go back to the country's market, where good value still abounds. What is your view on the European stock markets? With France…
Thursday’s chart: LTROs vs real economy
how do you get your best friend to break up with your ex LONDON | Now that the European banks have again been placed in the eye of the storm, even though admittedly some more than others, a chart from BNP Paribas analysts shows why. Banks still pose a barrier at the core of most efforts towards recovery. Take the long-term refinancing operations or LTROs from the European Central Bank: they are meant to…
Spanish proposal to inject capital directly into troubled entities wins support
By Julia Pastor, in Madrid | The solution proposed by the Spanish president Mariano Rajoy to inject capital directly into troubled entities, with no need of intervening the whole of the countries' economy is gaining momentum. It was the International Monetary Fund the first organisation which gave a boost to the idea when its managing director, Christine Lagarde, assured that Spain did not require a rescue. Last week, Mario Draghi’s…
Japan on the horizon
By Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | Peeking into Japanese modern economic history is a must for most Europeans, since we are plunging into the same mud waters that country has gone through for twenty years. Japan seems to have succeeded in leaving the 1990 crisis behind, a crunch not altogether different from our predicament. On the positive side, there is the fact that now we know it could have returned…
Little dynamism in the French economy
By CaixaBank research team, in Barcelona | In spite of an improvement in the economic climate in February and March, available indicators point to stagnation in the first quarter of 2012, representing a slowdown compared with the 0.2% quarter-on-quarter expansion in GDP posted in the last quarter of 2011. We have kept to our forecast of very modest growth for the whole of 2012 due to the situation of some…
Monday’s UK chart: poor manufacturing index, but the euro isn’t an excuse
LONDON | Those who were in need of arguments to claim the British-mainly nature of the economic troubles of the island are in awkward luck. The manufacturing industry saw a sharp decline in activity in May, according to the latest purchase manufacturing index release. The headline index fell back to 45.9 from the 49.7 consensus figure and from 50.2 in April, the second-largest drop in the 20-year history of the…
Alan Meltzer has a solution for the euro
WASHINGTON | “Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin, it does not work,” had already said Allan Meltzer in 1969. Pittsburgh's Carnegie-Mellon University teacher and author of the monumental History of the Federal Reserve is the same conservative who advised John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Under Clinton's presidency he was in charge of a U.S. Congress committee that essentially claimed the end of the World Bank on the basis…