Weaken the yen: That has been a desperate plea by the captains of Japanese industry for years as the strong currency has hurt such exporters as Sony and Toyota. Reversing the yen’s rise was a major goal of Liberal Democratic Party leader Shinzo Abe during his successful campaign against incumbent Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda last month. Sure […]
You hear it all of the time. The problem is that the government is borrowing from China to fund our stupid spending programs, or popular subsidies, or tax cuts. Mitt Romney (remember him?), in a presidential debate, defined his criterion for deciding whether spending is worthwhile thusly: “Is the program so critical it’s worth borrowing from […]
Greek opinions about Germans are changing. When “austerity measures” were first imposed, Greek newspapers and posters infamously depicted Chancellor Merkel as a Nazi leader. But the reaction has lately become more sophisticated: now we hear that Germans want to pursue a strict interpretation of Protestant ethics (which knows no redemption on earth) and punish the […]
Euro zone finance ministers and the International Monetary Fund clinched agreement on a new debt target for Greece on Monday in a breakthrough towards releasing an urgently needed tranche of loans to the near-bankrupt economy, officials said. After nearly 10 hours of talks at their third meeting on the issue in as many weeks, Greece’s international lenders […]
When he presented his proposals for taming banks in late September, Peer Steinbrück was once again spoiling for a fight. The Social Democratic candidate for the Chancellery in next year’s general election railed against the chase for short-term returns and excesses within the sector and harshly criticized the “market-conforming democracy” in which politics and people’s […]
In the otherwise ugly EU quarter in Brussels, something of a building boom is going on. There’s the €300m (£241m)-plus being spent to convert an art deco pile into a palace fit for a European president. In a nearby park another €100m makeover is creating the European parliament‘s version of the continent’s postwar history. That’s […]
The euro zone economy is on course for its weakest quarter since the dark days of early 2009, according to business surveys that showed companies toiling against shrinking order books in November. Service sector firms like banks and hotels that comprise the bulk of the economy fared particularly badly this month, and laid off staff at a […]
For China bulls, things are starting to look up. The property market has been showing signs of life, and October retail sales, investment, and industrial production have come in above forecasts. A manufacturing index also showed improvement, and exports increased 11.6 percent in October, the fastest pace in five months. Yet one figure is going in […]
It’s official: Europe has double-dipped. The 17-country euro zone has fallen into its second recession since 2008, as figures released on Nov. 15 showed gross domestic product declining 0.1 percent during the third quarter. That followed a 0.2 percent contraction during the previous three months, according to the European Union’s statistics office. There were some […]
The second term Obama administration is taking office facing challenging economic conditions. The economy continues to expand, yet the pace is disappointingly slow. The unemployment rate has fallen below 8 percent for the first time in almost 4 years, but is still unacceptably high. The economic expansion remains fragile and vulnerable to risks associated with […]
looking beyond borders 