This article was originally posted on Yanis’ blog today. Republished here with the kind permission of the author.
While crises are the laboratory of the future, the euro crisis is proving more like the alchemist’s lair. Back in November, the brilliant idea was touted, with considerable fanfare, of having the EFSF buy [...]

Michael Burke dismantles some Greek myths repeated by keen representatives of the City, like Boris Johnson in a recent piece on the Guardian’s Comment is Free:
Those about Greek workers….
“Although German tabloids such as Bild daily spew out nonsense about the work-shy Greeks, the opposite is the case. Greek workers have the greatest work pressures of [...]

This is an English version of an article which Yanis published in Die Zeit yesterday and posted on his blog. Republished with the kind permission of the author.
Europe is currently struggling to escape from a trap of its own making. Back in early 2010, two realities were staring us in the [...]

The Crisis, especially in Europe (not to mention Greece), is all consuming. Every day our minds are highjacked by its latest twist. Today, here in Athens, a general strike has temporarily suspended the news’ cycle and given me a few moments to reflect. I thought that today’s post, reflecting this… reflective moment, should transcend that [...]

Recent data shows that the recovery of the US economy after the international financial crisis is much slower than in previous post-war business cycles and has decelerated. As Gavyn Davies, previously head of economics at Goldman Sachs, now a Financial Times commentator and formerly an optimist on US recovery, noted on June 3:
“The US employment [...]

If 1929 has taught us anything, it is that a major (capital ‘c’) Crisis poses a lethal threat to (a) currency unions (e.g. the Gold Standard then, the euro today) and (b) political liberalism. The latter threat has, so far, featured only as a projection (see here for a relevant argument), [...]

Michael Burke has a highly informative post on Socialist Economic Bulletin which shows that the delivery of public goods, such as health care, education, housing, transport, infrastructure and services like post and banking, are more effective and is more efficiently provided when done through a public rather than a private entity. While Michael uses the [...]

A crisis is the method by which a capitalist economy partially purges itself of the effects of past mistakes while imposing misery on the masses.
Economists often characterize the outcomes as by the shape of letters of the alphabet.  A “V” indicates a quick collapse and an equally quick recovery.  “L” suggests a collapse followed by [...]

Dear George,
A few days after the 2009 election that brought you to power, you told your cabinet in a televised meeting: “We are anti-authoritarians in authority”. Most of your cabinet, men and women who had been craving authority for years, looked at you incredulously, while your detractors mocked you. You seemed [...]

The main direction of lobbying for the IMF’s new managing director is unfortunately showing the weak side of that organization, not its strong one.
Serious economic commentary already knows the greatest challenges of the next period. It is only necessary to open a business paper to review them. In the next decade, the world economy will [...]