The trade war won’t happen!
May 21, 2019China is not a bellicose nation. For it, war is a matter of developing excessive trading relationships. Put another way, for China,the defence of its economic interests is an extension of war. As for its nuclear option in the context of this trade war with the USA, it would be to shed itself of…
Europe’s disgust
May 15, 2019Brexit could have been a simple divorce between the UK and Europe, but the mounting tension between the British Parliament and the European Union is about to turn this separation into a much more deeply profound event. This is because Brexit won’t just have major geopolitical ramifications in modern history. In fact, after France’s…
The zombies of capitalism
May 9, 2019The policy of zero interest rates was crucial in avoiding total financial collapse following the subprime crisis, the credit crunch, and Europe’s sovereign debt psychodrama, just as it will play a major role over the next few episodes of stock market crashes and exacerbated volatility that hurts the real economy. On the other side of…
A major challenge of our time
April 21, 2019Where has inflation gone? While the US enjoys one of its longest periods of economic expansion, and while it is pretty much at full employment with its best figures for fifty years, inflation is nevertheless miniscule. Will it one day make its return to our developed nations of integrated economies?
The Rome syndrome
April 11, 2019The Italians were, for centuries, Europe’s bankers. The Medici’s, for their part, lent extensively to the British and French crowns. Let us not forgetthe marriage – of convenience – between Henry IV and Marie de Medicis, who was also known as “the fat banker’s daughter”. What happened in the second half of the 20th…
Gold, Conservatives and Conspiracy Theory
April 2, 2019Stephen Moore, who was appointed by Donald Trump to the board of governors of the US Federal Reserve, is one of those who sees gold as the ultimate refuge. He has just stated that yellow metal prices are expected to rise to $ 2,000 an ounce and that any prudent investor should maintain a…
Brexit is a chance for Europe
March 26, 2019The chaos that’s shaking Britain to its core has come a long distance. The constitutional crisis, the 2 million protesters in the streets of London on Saturday 23rd March, the likely fall of Theresa May this week, and even the 2016 referendum itself are merely the culmination of more than 40 years of turbulence between…
Debt, money, sin
March 20, 2019The word for ‘debt’ in German – to owe money – is ‘Schuld’, and it also means ‘sin’ in this language. This dual meaning also existed in Akkadian in Babylon. In fact, it’s a Babylonian sovereign, Hammurabi, who in 1792 BC was the first to set up a veritable system of debt-renouncement that entailed…
To cleanse Europe, dismantle the Stability Pact!
March 12, 2019Europe’s not out of danger yet. A meltdown is still on the cards due to the eurozone members’ lack of any control over their interest rates and currency. In fact, in these conditions, how can diverse national economies using the euro not diverge? And what would be the instrument that could harmonise consumption and economic…
The future of Europe is going through a rehabilitation of its experts
March 4, 2019Growth since 2009: China +139%, India +96%, the US +34%, Europe –2%. These figures tell the story of the European Union’s spiralling macroeconomic decline. The lack of reactivity of our public policies, in the aftermath of the financial crisis, led to a reduction in imports, with the most hard-hit eurozone countries seeing their balance of…