Two bits of news in the last couple days. One, Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has decided to extend Operation Twist, a policy whereby the Fed sells short-dated government paper in order to buy the longer-dated sort. It sounds boring but it involves $267 billion, so it’s kind of consequential all the same. [...]

Jose Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission, got snappish when asked about the Eurozone crisis by a Canadian journalist.  ‘Frankly, we are not here to receive lessons in terms of democracy or in terms of how to handle the economy,’ he said. ‘This crisis was not originated in Europe; seeing as you mention [...]

The United Kingdom has too much debt. Reports normally focus on government debt: currently around 80% of national income, unless you take into account (as you should) the debts of the bailed-out banks and their toxic portfolios, which would pretty much double that figure. But what about consumer debt? Mortgage debt? Business debt? The huge [...]

There’s a lot of talk about Europe at the moment, but it’s kind of the way you talk about flooding when the waters don’t reach your house. Sure, it must be real tough for the poor saps whose couches are bobbing around in their living rooms — but meantime, what’s for dinner? Unfortunately, that European [...]

Just as things were looking bleak, time ticking away, and tension rising … Cesc Fabregas scored for Spain. The tournament favorites hardly daunted their major rivals in their one-all draw against Italy, but they lived to play another day. Meantime, over the same weekend, another rescue act took place. This ‘rescue’ involved €100 billion of [...]

Barack Obama was recently on the stump, defending the latest set of lackluster jobs figures. Obama blamed ‘serious headwinds’ including higher gas prices and, more recently, the developing crisis in the Eurozone. Having handed much of the blame to foreign oilfields and European crises, he returned to more familiar ground, bashing a Republican-controlled House for blocking some of the proposals in [...]

It’s a strange world we’re living in. This newspaper reported yesterday that, ‘Britain and the US joined forces to urge Germany to create a central Brussels body that could assume sovereignty over individual countries’ budgets and fiscal policies.’ Under pressure: German Chancellor Angela Merkel doesn’t want a Euro superstate – and can’t afford to finance one anyway [...]

‘Failing dismally’: Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman says austerity isn’t working Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and writer for the New York Times, is in London at the moment telling us that we’ve got things wrong. On Tuesday, he gave a lecture at the London School of Economics entitled, ‘Austerity Thy Name is Vanity’. [...]

Earlier this week, on 21 May, the Financial Times ran a short piece which opened thus: ‘There has been no official announcement. No terms or conditions have been disclosed. But Greece’s banking system is being propped up by an estimated €100bn or so of emergency liquidity provided by the country’s central bank – approved secretly [...]

About four weeks ago, I wrote on my blog that Facebook was heading for a ridiculous valuation when it was launched on the stockmarket. That wasn’t because I think it’s a bad company – pretty clearly a company that makes a billion dollars in profits after only a few years of life is a remarkable [...]