Half-a-Loaf Growth

Russia Presses Ahead With Plan for Gas Pipeline to Turkey

But in recent weeks, the Russian state-owned company Gazprom has shown signs that it is serious about proceeding with what it calls Turkish Stream.

Gazprom’s chief executive recently made it clear that Turkey is its new focus — and that if Europe wants more Russian gas then it will need to find its own way to tap into it.

Weidmann said the policies of austerity he supported would work slowly but staying the course was important. To him, a lost generation of young workers, who were denied skilled training and out of work for several years, is a matter for individual countries. He cannot see that sovereign states under the current arrangements are denied the funds to invest and improve productivity over the longer term. He cannot see that austerity, if only for this reason, is self-defeating.

At the Time Warner Center, anEnclave of Powerful Russians

Four principles for an effective state

Four principles for an effective state

For the third time in a century, America will have to ride to Europe's rescue

For the third time in a century, America will have to ride to Europe's rescue

Greece threatens tilt to Russia and China unless Europe yields

Greece's radical new government has threatened to seek money from Russia and China to avert a financial crisis rather than yield to austerity demands from Europe,

the defence minister

Michael Pettis explains the euro crisis (and a lot of other things, too) Matthew C Klein | Feb 06 08:30 | 53 comments | Share Share this on Twitter Facebook Google+ LinkedIn StumbleUpon Reddit Th

A Possible Day of Reckoning, Again, for Greece and Europe

Black & White and Scanned All Over

Aluminium Industry

In the short to medium run, increasing Greek competitiveness requires remedies targeted at specific binding constraints faced by exporters. A Greek program that identifies these constraints and proposes remedies would be much better economics than blind adherence to the troika's laundry list of structural reforms.

Europe’s banks are too feeble to spur growth

It is essential not to make too much of these stress tests and asset quality review. Yes, they are real improvements. But they do not mean that eurozone banks will now drive growth. They still have too little capital for that. More important, the eurozone lacks a credible strategy for reigniting demand. If much of the German policy elite continues to deny this is even a problem, the crisis of the eurozone must remain unresolved. That is a disaster.

IMF’s Olivier Blanchard says global recovery is still ‘weak’

“There is a strong case to be made for more public investment, for demand-side reasons in the short term, and supply-side reasons in the longer run,” says Mr Blanchard. The US and Germany are prime examples, Mr Blanchard said, of countries where there is a backlog of high-return infrastructure projects. He added that their governments should make the most of record-low borrowing costs and reap the large macroeconomic benefits that come from increasing demand.

Once Celebrated in Russia, the Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile

Mr. Putin’s big challenge is falling oil prices, which Mr. Durov calls “the only chance” for economic and political reform.“When the petrol prices are high, there is no incentive for those reforms,” he said. “It can stay like this forever; nobody really cares.”

Mr. Durov has also described himself, with tongue in cheek, as a Pastafarian, a quirky atheistic “faith” that can involve wearing a colander on your head.

Fear of immigration is no reason for Britain to leave Europe

Ex-Italian PM Berlusconi proposes new currency to tackle economic crisis