In a truly remarkable piece for the Financial Times yesterday, Wolfgang Münchau took another swipe at the Euro-sceptic and ECB-critical community in Germany, which he accuses of inflation-paranoia and of simply not getting ‘modern central banking’. Well, I know of many qualified commentators – many non-German – who swallow a tad harder when reflecting on [...]
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Yesterday, the ECB pronounced itself the official lender-of-last resort to all Euro-Zone governments. To assure that the state can always borrow at conveniently low rates has been declared an essential component of ‘maintaining financial stability’ and thus a standard plank of modern central banking. Despite all their professed differences and divergent legal frameworks, all major [...]
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On August 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon declared that the United States would no longer honour its promise to exchange US dollars held by foreign central banks for gold at a fixed price of $35 an ounce. The innocuous term ‘Nixon closed the gold window’ that is now widely used to describe this act does [...]
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Last week, the Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW), or German Institute for Economic Research, an influential think tank, proposed an ingenious solution to the Euro Zone debt crisis. The German government should issue a Zwangsanleihe, a compulsory bond that every German with savings of €250,000 or more should be compelled to underwrite with 10 percent [...]
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On page two of today’s Wall Street Journal Europe you will find the result of a readers’ poll from last Friday: Question: Will the ECB’s rate cut help restore confidence in the bloc’s economy? Answer: 81 percent of readers say no, 19 percent yes. Last week’s round of global monetary easing – another ECB rate [...]
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On Tuesday, July 3, London business paper City A.M. ran an editorial I wrote on Germany. The text is below. In the present debate on the Euro crisis, Germany is frequently portrayed as a model of economic strength, a beacon of fiscal prudence and a proponent of structural reform. Her resources seem endless and her [...]
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In my view, there is no escaping the fact that things are not getting better. If anything, they are getting worse. Following the large swings in financial markets this past week and reading the commentary in the press, it strikes me that there is still a surprisingly strong belief out there that our fate is [...]
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“Europe fights back against austerity” was how The Daily Telegraph headlined its weekend election coverage. “Anti-austerity movements are gathering pace across Europe following political earthquakes in France and Greece. A total of 12 European governments have now been dismissed in three years.” As the European welfare state is officially in its death-throes none of us [...]
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Surprise, surprise, the Euro Zone debt crisis is back. Or was it never gone? As yields on Spanish and Italian government bonds are heading higher once again, I am reminded of the old saying, you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Not even with a trillion euros. I previously described the [...]
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Years ago a friend of mine in New York told me about his massively overweight neighbour who took to wearing a black t-shirt with “I beat anorexia” printed on it. I think that is how our central bankers look at the wonderful job they are doing. Since the last link to gold was severed in [...]
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{ Feeding a little conspiracy theory ... considering a four-year schedule, put aside the gold standard... } – Sep 27, 3:20 PM
{ Federico, apologies for the slow response. You make a very good point. Banking systems in... } – Sep 27, 3:15 PM
{ Mr Schlichter, excellent article. I agree with previous comments to a great degree as well.... } – Sep 27, 9:16 AM
{ Richard Fisher, President of the Dallas Fed, and a member of the FOMC of the... } – Sep 27, 3:50 AM
