Group items tagged

When the spending bubble popped, it ushered in the era of the incredible shrinking consumer. Demand is weak, and companies are looking to do more with less by stretching their workforce and filling the gaps with cheap labor, even part-timers. Indeed of Brookings' 20 strongest cities have average or below average cost-of-living, and most of those cities have below average wages.

"You can't cut debt by borrowing." How often have you read or heard this comment from "austerians" (a nice variant on "Austrians"), who complain about the huge fiscal deficits that have followed the financial crisis? The obvious response is: so what?

The debate on "global imbalances" has gone back to the future. The proposal from Tim Geithner, the US Treasury secretary, to target the current account takes us back to the preoccupations of John Maynard Keynes at the Bretton Woods conference of July 1944. Keynes, representing Britain, was obsessed with the dangers of asymmetric adjustment between surplus and deficit countries. The US, then the world's dominant surplus country, rebuffed calls for a mechanism that would impose pressure on both sides. Now the US is in the other camp.

When justified by economic fundamentals, a currency's exchange rate should be allowed to rise gradually. But when a currency's appreciation is triggered by capital inflows that represent the asset-diversification preferences of advanced-economy investors, it can and should be resisted.

It feels perversely quaint that the national conversation is momentarily focused on the likelihood of insider trading cases dropping on a hive of nefarious and presumably well-connected individuals -- huge cases, we are told via breathless leaks from the federal cops on the beat, cases worth -- are you sitting down? -- tens of millions of dollars. With numbers like these, one can only imagine what's up next -- a crackdown on employees who brazenly pilfered office supplies from their jobs at publicly bailed-out institutions like Bank of America, perhaps?

The current Greek crisis has shown all too starkly the limits of the euro zone's sanction and support mechanisms. If the monetary union is to have a future, it needs new rules to keep members in line and bail them out if necessary.

Many observers assign a large part of the blame for the 2008 financial crisis to the "big three" credit rating agencies, which gave their AAA seal of approval to worthless investments. Now those same agencies are helping to bring the euro zone to its knees -- and no one is trying to stop them.

Europe will eventually grow tired of bailing out its weaker countries. The Germans will probably pull that plug first. The longer we wait to see fiscal probity established, at the European Central Bank and the European Union, and within each nation, the more debt will be built up, and the more dangerous the situation will get. When the plug is finally pulled, at least one nation will end up in a painful default; unfortunately, the way we are heading, the problems could be even more widespread.

Europe's consistent inability to move quickly enough to get ahead of the financial markets during the Greece crisis is shaking the euro and the foundations of the European Union itself, as critics of the euro have long predicted would happen.

The fear that began in Athens, raced through Europe, and finally shook the stock market in the United States is now affecting the broader global economy, from the ability of Asian corporations to raise money to the outlook for money-market funds where American savers park their cash.

Years of national denial about looming bankruptcy have turned to resentment as Greece is told how it must tackle its debt crisis

The Greeks are mainly responsible for their current predicament. But the German government has made the country's situation worse with its lectures and reluctance to provide assistance. Chancellor Angela Merkel is mainly to blame for the fact that German taxpayers now have to suffer.

As the financial crisis in the euro zone worsens and the heads of the IMF and the ECB come to Berlin to persuade Germany to help Greece now, local commentators are calling for speed and decisiveness. As they see it, political jockeying before the May 9 election in North Rhine-Westphalia is no reason for German politicians to endanger the whole euro zone.

Spain risks falling into the same trap as Greece, these investors say, unless it takes more forceful action. It could find itself unable to raise money on the private markets at acceptable interest rates - even though its government debt burden, as a share of the overall economy, is only half what Greece carries.

China is spending mountains of money to expand its country's high-speed railway network and manufacture the world's fastest trains. But do its ambitions in the railway sector justify how these goals are being pursued -- and the risks they might ultimately pose?

As China gains dominance on the world stage, more and more multinational corporations will need to rethink their assumptions about competing under its state-capitalism model-one in which the government is the principal economic driver. So says Ian Bremmer, president of the political-risk consulting firm Eurasia Group and author of the upcoming book The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations? In this video interview, Bremmer discusses the fundamental distinctions between state capitalism and free-market economies, as well as the strategic implications this has for Western companies and governments alike.

Brazil and Turkey, which were represented by their presidents in the talks, invested significant diplomatic cache in the negotiations. It is rare for non-permanent members of the Security Council to intervene in a process led by nuclear powers, and in many ways the result could be seen as a revolt by smaller powers over the rights to nuclear power and prestige.

First came the real estate crisis. Then the financial system melted down. And now, skyrocketing public debt is threatening entire countries. Star economist Nouriel Roubini tells SPIEGEL that more crises will come and go before world leaders agree on true reform. He says breaking up huge banks would be a good place to start.

As Spain's credit rating is downgraded a day after Standard & Poor's cut its ratings on Greek and Portuguese debt, how far could the eurozone's debt contagion spread?

The audacious bid to protect the euro with a massive rescue fund seems to be faltering. The euro is still losing value as investors worry about the consequences of tough austerity measures. German papers on Friday dissect the common currency's ongoing problems.