Looks a lot like Europe in the 2006 World Cup, actually.
Qualifiers this time: Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland. That’s almost the same list as last time. Oh, we won’t have Poland, or Croatia, and the Danes, Slovaks and Slovenes got [...]
This is not an idle question. Despite all those bullish headlines in the press, most informed observers - including Bundesbank head Axel Weber - are only to well aware of just how fragile the German recovery actually is. Indeed only last week the OECD warned that Germany’s economy, may only [...]
A couple of years back, I wrote an article about Kosovo’s coal industry. Short version: Kosovo has lots of coal, and most of it is middle-quality lignite. But the mines suffer from a horrible lack of investment; many of them are still using thirty to forty year old equipment. [...]
Back in the heady days of 2006 some 30,000 cranes, roughly a quarter of total global capacity, were busy whirring away in Dubai. Today most of these devices have either left to find service in other parts of the globe, or lie silent, unused and unloved. In what is only [...]
An op-ed guest writer for the New York Times opines:
SIXTY-FIVE years ago, in November 1944, the war in Europe was at a stalemate. A resurgent Wehrmacht had halted the Allied armies along Germany’s borders after its headlong retreat across northern France following D-Day. From Holland to France, the front [...]
“Cutting rates by 50 basis points here and there is not going really diminish the appeal of the ruble,” said Manik Narain, an emerging markets strategist at Standard Chartered Bank Plc in London. “In terms of nominal interest rates Russia (at 9% as of 24 November) is still offering the [...]
There is something very traditional about the Irish economic crisis. If you consider the staples of 1980s economics, they were the ideas that nominal wages adjust very slowly downwards and that labour markets segment strongly into insiders who are able to hold onto jobs in recessions and outsiders who bear [...]
It’s now clear that the Thierry Henry assist on the William Gallas goal last night is going to generate more commentary and interest than tonight’s filling of the new EU jobs (Council President, High Rep. for Foreign Policy, and Secretary General of the Council), but nonetheless, we could be [...]
It’s taken me a few days to get around to it, but here’s my take on David Cameron’s equality speech (The Big Society: Hugo Young Lecture, 10 Nov 2009).
Cameron name checks Wilkinson and Pickett and says that they “have shown that among the richest countries, it’s the more unequal [...]
Sorry, and I apologise in advance: in this post I’m going to be a nit-picker. The question in hand is the Eurozone third quarter growth one, and the story is all about differences (between countries) and these differences in the key cases (France and Germany) are in many ways [...]
In a fit of timeliness, I have read the first volume of the report by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia (IIFFMCG), colloquially known as the Tagliavini report. The report drew attention when it was published at the end of September for its headline [...]
I probably shouldn’t be, but I’m quite shocked by the fact David Cameron is proposing a piece of legislation that will, on its own terms, have no effect whatsoever. I mean, of course, his “UK Sovereignty Bill”; this horror would “reiterate” that the British parliament remains ultimate master of its [...]
It’s the 9th of November…so, in total observance of my usual standard operating procedures, let’s think about the European presidency, or as my wonderful, wonderful Soizick puts it, who’s going to get the job of being Tony Blair.
It looks a lot like the lucky girl won’t be Blair; the [...]
From the assembled press, someone shouts a question, “Effective immediately?”
“I have been informed that such an announcement was prepared today, you should already have a copy. According to my understanding, that is immediately. Without delay.”
Twenty years ago this evening, Günter Schabowski gave an unrehearsed answer at a [...]
Seeing that the Italian Mafia has been generating headlines again, this may be a good opportunity to let our readers know about a new book by Columbia University Press: History of the Mafia by Salvatore Lupo. The book was first published in Italian in 1996 and has [...]
Nouriel Robini is not a man who is known for mincing his words. “We have the mother of all carry trades,” he tells us, “Everybody’s playing the same game and this game is becoming dangerous.” There is a “wall of liquidity” sweeping the planet, pushing asset prices ever higher in [...]
A sad story from the edge of Europe last week: fifteen Kosovar Albanians died trying to cross the border between Serbia and Hungary. The border there is a a river, the Tisza, which is a large and swift-flowing tributary of the Danube. The Albanians were illegal immigrants trying to move [...]
Czech President Vaclav Klaus, after much hemming and hawing, signed the Treaty of Lisbon this afternoon. It is expected to enter into force on 1 December 2009. This success is undoubtedly the highlight of the Swedish Presidency, which made concluding ratification a top priority.
Prominent changes include [...]
Well, if John Lennon had still been around today he would undoubtedly have entitled his song Norwegian oil, but whatever way you want to put it Norway is back in the news, and this time not because of adolescents who find themselves with no alternative to sleeping overnight in the [...]
Well, it is not as if I relish rubbing salt into old wounds, but this quote from the latest piece by Ben Hall in Paris and Ralph Atkins in today’s Financial Times is just too good to resist.
French manufacturing output rose at its fastest rate for nine years, according [...]
A Vietnamese immigrant, brought from that war-torn country as a tiny child.
A baron, the grandson of a princess, who lives in his family’s five-hundred year old castle.
A widow who once worked for the patent office.
A paraplegic.
A huffy gay man.
A former captain of paratroopers.
A mother of seven.
…Germany’s new conservative [...]
Edward Hugh, Alex Harrowell, P O Neill, Charlie Whitaker, Doug Merrill, Douglas Muir
