European Crisis
Discussing the ECB’s stress tests on ‘Boom Bust, RT tv
, 28/10/2014
For the tv interview click here or the photo above (and jump to 21′). A related, analytical, article, can be found here.
The ECB’s Stress Tests and our Banking Dis-Union: A case of gross institutional failure
, 27/10/2014
Last Sunday the ECB published its quality assurance results, its stress tests of our systemic banks. It was, from where I am standing, a sad day.
Of Europe’s bankers and politicians – Interview in SUOMEN KUVALEHTI
, 25/10/2014
An interview with Antti Ronkainen published in SUOMEN KUVALEHTI (in Finnish). Click here for the original or read on…
It is time for the ECB to purchase EIB bonds: Bruegel’s Guntram Wolff sides with our proposal
, 23/10/2014
The ECB’s recent dalliance with QE-light is macro-economically irrelevant. For a long while we have been arguing (see Policy 3 of the Modest Proposal) that it is high time that the ECB buys en masse EIB bonds, thus enabling the EIB to issue new bonds as part of a European Recovery Program; an investment drive […]
Greece’s Finance Minister: The revolving doors’ syndrome on steroids
, 20/10/2014
Now that the bubble of the Greek success story has, thankfully, burst, it is perhaps apt to take a good look at the track record of Greece’s finance minister: the talented Mr Gikas Hardouvelis. Readers that harboured hopes of a Greek turn-around (against this blog’s repeated warnings) ought to brace themselves – the finance minister’s […]
Greek bonds and shares: What does their decline mean for Europe? – Interview with Jorge Nascimento Rodrigues for EXPRESSO
, 17/10/2014
The spectre of Greek contagion seems to be returning to the Eurozone. At least this is the fear that I sense by talking to financial journalists across Europe. In this interview with Jorge Nascimento Rodrigues (for EXPRESSO) I argue that: “The Euro Crisis never went away. What happened was that Mr Draghi’s skillful interventions in the […]
Centralisation-Without-Representation: A reply to Frances Coppola, Simon Wren-Lewis and Niall Ferguson
, 03/10/2014
[This post was later published by Open Democracy] Behind the European Union’s official ‘line’ that the worst of the Euro Crisis is behind us, a flurry of proposals for institutional changes reveal a deep-seated anxiety about the Eurozone. Indeed, in recent weeks, even the German finance minister, Mr Wolfgang Schäuble, went public with an op-ed […]
Frances Coppola and Simon Wren-Lewis on the ‘Modest Proposal vs Austerian Federalists’
, 26/09/2014
In Whither Europe? The Modest Camp vs the Federalist Austerians James Galbraith and I attempted to chart the evolution of various plans to save the Eurozone. In that survey, we juxtaposed a Modest Camp (that includes our own Modest Proposal), whose philosophy is to promote a minimalist agenda for stabilising the Eurozone and ending its socio-economic crisis before Europe’s future […]
Mr Juncker should look to an EIB-ECB alliance, not to the ESM
, 24/09/2014
Jean Claude Juncker had a good idea but looked in the wrong place for funding it. His good idea was to promote a sizeable investment program (€300 billion) that would help Europe end years of crisis, stem deflation and return the continent to growth. Unfortunately, Mr Juncker thought it a good idea to tap the […]
The Global and European Crisis revisited: An audio from the launch of the Global Minotaur in Finland
, 12/09/2014
On 25th August, I had the honour of presenting the Finnish edition of The Global Minotaur to a splendid, and welcoming, audience at the University of Tampere. In this post you can listen to an interesting exchange on the state of the global and European economy, why Finns (along with citizens of other European ‘surplus’ member-states […]
CAN EUROPE ESCAPE ITS CRISIS WITHOUT TURNING INTO AN IRON CAGE?
, 07/09/2014
ON THE MODEST PROPOSAL’S POLITICAL, CONSTITUTIONAL AND ETHICAL DIMENSIONS [Image: Rembrandt’s ‘The Abduction of Europa’] This article is a sequel to an earlier piece entitled ‘Why is Europe not coming together in response to the Euro Crisis?’ and is best read in conjunction with this article (co-authored with James K. Galbraith) that compares our Modest […]
WHY IS EUROPE NOT ‘COMING TOGETHER’ IN RESPONSE TO THE EURO CRISIS?
, 29/08/2014
In this article I ask a question on everyone’s lips: Almost everyone agrees that the Eurozone was a one-legged giant; a monetary union lacking a political ‘leg’ to stabilise it. If so, why has the Euro Crisis (which surely strengthened that view on the back of its ferocity and durability) not strengthen the hand of […]
ON EUROPE’S RETREATING UNION: DIAGNOSIS AND A PROPOSAL
, 27/08/2014
FRIENDS OF EUROPE, an official publication of the EU, kindly commissioned me to write a short article on the State of the Union after the European Parliament elections, in the run up to the magazine’s 9th October conference of the same theme. You can read the article on the FoE’s website or just continue below
Austerity comes to Australia – OpEd, WHITE PAPER, ABC Radio National
, 22/08/2014
Austerity was never about tackling public debt. It was not even a political campaign to end the ‘culture of entitlement’. In the UK, in the Eurozone, and now in Australia, austerity is, and always was, a thinly disguised campaign of invoking fiscal prudence and public virtues in order to indulge private vices and so as to redistribute entitlements at the expense of the majority.
Summer stupour’s end. Posts recommencing…
, 22/08/2014
This was the longest break I have taken since this blog began life. Two and a half books were written, during that time, plus a great deal of swimming in translucent waters, like those depicted in the adjacent photo, was done. With Europe continuing to experience its existentialist crisis, and the world at large more […]
A European New Deal financed by the EIB, with ECB QE-backing, is the optimal policy: Now recommended also by W. Münchau
, 23/06/2014
Faced with deflationary forces in its core, and a lasting depression in the periphery, the Eurozone requires a major investment drive. One of the Modest Proposal’s policy recommendations is that the European Investment Bank (along with the European Investment Fund) embarks upon a massive investment drive (up to 8% of Gross Eurozone Product) without any […]
James K. Galbraith on The Modest Proposal, Europe and Greece
, 22/06/2014
In this Q&A with a Greek journalist, on the occasion of the launch of the Greek translation of the Modest Proposal, James K. Galbraith argues that Italy and Greece can play an important role in changing the terms of the European ‘conversation’, so that rational, minimalist solutions like the Modest Proposal can have a chance […]
The European Question – On ABC Radio National’s Late Night Live
, 12/06/2014
In this radio interview I am talking with Norman Swan (standing in for Phillip Adams) on Europe in the light of the recent European Parliament elections. Click here for the ABC RN site or just click on the player below:
Whither Europe? The Modest Camp vs the Federalist Austerians – in Open Democracy
, 11/06/2014
by JAMES GALBRAITH and YANIS VAROUFAKIS Proposals for resolving the Eurozone crisis, and re-designing its architecture, are multiplying – especially as evidence mounts that the crisis is continuing, despite all the official announcements of its end. Our Modest Proposal was the first to have been tabled, along with Breugel’s Blue Bond Proposal, back in 2010. In this review article, J.K. […]
Europe’s Crisis and the Rise of the Ultra-Right is the Left’s Fault
, 09/06/2014
Europe’s appalling handling of a euro crisis that was always going to happen, given its faulty architectural design,[1] has triggered an electoral result in the recent European Parliament elections that is a clarion warning that Europe is decomposing. And it is decomposing precisely because of the Left’s spectacular failure to intervene both during the construction phase […]
The ECB’s Triple Hole in the Water
, 06/06/2014
The ECB is now reaping the grim deflationary harvest it sowed by dithering for so long in the face of shrinking credit and a diminishing money supply – all due, of course, to four years of universal austerity at a time of frantic de-leveraging by bankrupt banking sectors too cosily intertwined with fiscally stressed governments.
Italy, Greece and Europe after the European Parliament elections: An interview with Alessandro Bianchi
, 01/06/2014
How the current policies of the Brussels-Berlin-Frankfurt triangle are based on a propaganda campaign reflecting continuing Crisis Denial and why they constitute an attempt to create a new financial bubble – Why SYRIZA is a pro-European progressive party, in contrast to UKIP and Ms Le Pen’s FN – What should we expect of the new Italian government and why there […]
A lesson in democracy for Mrs Merkel (and her merry Merkelites around the Eurozone) by Alexis Tsipras, SYRIZA’s leader
, 30/05/2014
Alexis Tsipras, leader of Greece’s largest political party (SYRIZA), and the European Left’s candidate for the Presidency of the European Commission, has just given Mrs Merkel (and her merry disciples around the Eurozone) an important lesson in democracy.