The Closer
NEW
ROUND-UP FT markets round-up: “Global stocks and other growth-sensitive assets gained momentum and extended a rally amid a string of better-than-expected earnings reports in the US and Europe,...
Financial Support for Arab Countries in Transition
NEW
The IMF’s assistance varies across the region, given that each country faces its own economic challenges, and the instruments to tackle those challenges must be tailored to address those unique circumstances. I am pleased to say that a few days ago...
US consumer credit: back to sideways
NEW
Quite a change from last month.A disappointing consumer credit report for June as revolving credit contracted (click to enlarge):Student loans, of course, account for most...
Spain: ‘I Won't Pay' Campaign Hits Catalonia Highways
NEW
A wave of protests against rising tolls on Spanish highways reached its five-month mark last week, when a clash between motorists and private authorities motivated a company that oversees more than 6,713 kilometers of European motorways, to put up ba...
The European Central Bank facing an internal scandal
NEW
As if fighting a global crisis wasn't enough, it seems that another large bomb is about to explode inside the European Central Bank. Its President, Mario Draghi, is under investigation. An issue of independence and ethics has been raised in recent da...
Cash is king for US multinationals
NEW
A recent note by the National Bureau of Economic Research takes an interesting look at companies’ tendency to increase their cash holdings (click image to download the full report):...
E.U.Crisis: German Parliament Sparks a Firestorm Over Defense of Democracy. Euro on the Run.
NEW
The Italian technocrat Mario Monti was part of the Jaques Santer commission forced to resign en mass in 1999 over corruption and nepotism charges.Mr Monti's latest outburst is seemingly against democracy. He calls for leaders to dilute accountabilit...
Cyprus: First Ever Olympic Medal at London 2012
NEW
The London 2012 Olympics will be a landmark in Cyprus' sport history. Twenty-two year old Pavlos Kontides, who is from Limassol, Cyprus, became the country's first ever Olympic medalist. Kontides won the silver medal at single-handed Laser c...
The Roots of Austerity: Maastricht, the Euro and the Convergence Criteria
NEW
The global financial crisis which began in 2007 has been the subject of a vast amount of analysis and discussion, in the traditional media, in business circles, in academia and, most fascinatingly, in the emerging new social media which have provided...
Bernanke Live
NEW
The Bearded One is giving a speech to educators at 2:30pm, followed by a Q&A. We doubt he’ll slip and give any hints about upcoming monetary policy decisions, but it might be interesting....
A Monthly Business Magazine Could be Your Businesses Secret Weapon!
NEW
If you work in the ever-changing modern world of high profile business then you'll understand that it is becoming harder and harder to keep up to date with. In this case it would be recommended for all business minded individuals to invest in a subsc...
Waiting in Vain for the Quick Fix
NEW
“The economic problems in the U.S. and Eurozone are mostly structural, not monetary. Unfortunately ideologues and politicians on both sides of the spectrum are interested in quick fixes rather than the real groundwork of economic progress.” (Sour...
Ironische Bundesbank lessons
NEW
A grainy picture of some central bankers. A warning in German that “it is immensely amateurish to renounce this mechanism.”The central bank is the Bundesbank, in 1975....
Their way or the highway?
NEW
Countries with large trade surplus take pride in their capabilities. They sound like entrepreneurs who think they succeeded on their own. They also sound like the scorpion in the Scorpion and the Frog. NickPthinks on business, EU policy, socio-eco...
Disabled people and the media: hailed at the Paralympics, targeted when claiming benfits
NEW
By Anne Begg MP For a couple of years disabled people have been reporting increased levels of both verbal and physical abuse from members of the public. This has been confirmed this week in the results published by the charity Scope from a survey of...
Germany seems serious about 'political union' in Europe – but would it work? | Jan-Werner Mueller
NEW
It is hard to see how proposals for European democracy could avoid being either just cosmetic or contradictoryAs the inherent flaws of the eurozone refuse to go away, political leaders are faced with a stark choice: create something that is more like...
Gold QE
NEW
The calls for QE3 continue to rage.But as FT Alphaville has discussed at length, QE3 in its conventional guise — freshly minted base money in exchange for US government bonds —...
Attack on the Sikh Temple: Terrorism in our community!
NEW
I have written numerous times on this blog that the radical right is a growing security threat in the Western world. I have warned that the waste of resources to go after a tiny few "jihadists" is costing us security and has resulted in lost lives an...
Attack on the Sikh Temple: Terrorism in our community!
NEW
This last Sunday was a nice sunny day here in the Milwaukee area. We had a break from the heat and humidity that we had the past week. I decided to skip church service and ride my bike. I wanted to ride on Howard Avenue near the airport. Well -on the...
Attack on the Sikh Temple: Terrorism in our community!
NEW
This last Sunday was a nice sunny day here in the Milwaukee area. We had a break from the heat and humidity that we had the past week. I decided to skip church service and ride my bike. I wanted to ride on Howard Avenue near the airport. Well -on the...
FTAV’s wholly unscientific survey
NEW
What do you think about this press release that landed in FT Alphaville’s inbox this morning from the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment? (emphasis ours):...
Positively Freddie
NEW
It’s GSEs. It’s a guilty pleasure of sorts in housing recovery indicators. It’s also – arguably – the future of US housing reform.Freddie Mac posted...
Cyberculture roundup: “Internet Pirates Will Always Win
NEW
Internet Pirates Will Always Win By NICK BILTON STOPPING online piracy is like playing the world’s largest game of Whac-A-Mole. Hit one, countless others appear. Quickly. And the mallet is heavy and slow. Take as an example YouTube, where the Recor...
ECB May Have to Tweak Bond-Buy Plan to Tame Yields
NEW
If the European Central Bank wants its market interventions to have a lasting impact in capping spiraling bond yields in countries such as Italy and Spain, some investors will be looking for more transparency from the ECB, including details on the am...
