Smart Reads 5 January 2015
An FT survey of 32 leading eurozone economists found that most expected the European Central Bank to launch quantitative easing in 2015 – but they believed this would fail to boost growth and...
View ArticleSmart Reads 7 January 2015
Greece’s hard-left party Syriza, which is leading polls ahead of this month’s snap election, has declared war on the country’s oligarchs who exert disproportionate sway over the economy The succession...
View ArticleThe Estonian take on Greece’s woes
If Greek citizens aren’t angry enough at the condescending and ignorant manner in which northern Europeans discuss their plight, I invite them to inspect the opinions of Jürgen Ligi, Estonia’s finance...
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In the Picture: Greece and Germany
German chancellor Angela Merkel with Greek prime minister Antonis Samaras on October 9 in Athens (Thanassis Stavrakis/AFP/GettyImages) The last time Angela Merkel visited Greece was in 2007 – which,...
View ArticleGreek self-harm and the Lagarde list
Gideon Rachman blogs on how damaging the trial of Costas Vaxevanis will be for Greece. Read more
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Trouble in t’troika
With friends like these.... Jean-Claude Juncker and Christine Lagarde. (AFP) It’s not as if the troika of eurozone rescue lenders never falls out, but usually it takes a not-in-front-of-the-children...
View ArticleThe IMF: we were right about being wrong. But normally we aren’t.
There was a big kerfuffle in October when the IMF made a point of saying that it (along with a bunch of other forecasters) had underestimated the effect of fiscal tightening on European economic growth...
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Hollande and anti-austerity rhetoric
(AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis, Pool) Listening to François Hollande’s comments on his flying visit to Greece earlier this week was like hearing a reprise of his electoral campaign, in which he promised...
View ArticleWhat Thatcher got right about the euro
In the week of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral – and with the euro-crisis bubbling along – it is interesting to take a look back at what Thatcher had to say about the single currency. Much of the...
View ArticleSmart Reads June 7, 2013
♦The US National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading internet companies. Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story for the Guardian, has been focused on...
View ArticleGerman elections: the Greek view
It’s no secret in Athens that austerity-weary Greeks would like to see a grand coalition emerge from Sunday’s elections in Germany. The participation in government of Peer Steinbrück and his Social...
View ArticleSmart Reads 13 January 2015
Following the terror attacks in Paris, the direction that France takes matters hugely for the rest of the world, writes Gideon Rachman Mounting political crises – from a potential Grexit through to...
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Greek political dynasties will bide their time
Greece’s parliamentary elections on Sunday are set to put in power the nation’s most leftwing government, led by the radical Syriza party, and its youngest prime minister, 40-year-old Alexis Tsipras,...
View ArticleSmart Reads 21 January 2015
The European Central Bank is at last expected to embark on quantitative easing – but there are four reasons why its version will be potentially less effective than elsewhere A battle between reason...
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Greek cleaners and gesture politics
Here’s one prediction if Alexis Tsipras and his radical left Syriza party win Sunday’s Greek parliamentary elections: 595 women with mops and rubber gloves are going to be very happy. They are cleaners...
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Is Greek government debt really 177% of GDP?
The triumph of the anti-austerity Syriza party in Greece’s general election has put back on the table the vexed question of what to do with Athens’ debt. Economists tend to disagree over how...
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Greece: the case against ‘structural reform’
A former colleague on the FT (no names, but he now runs the UK’s Office for Budget Responsibility) used to muse that a useful all-purpose headline for any story about an emerging market economy was...
View ArticleSmart Reads 27 January 2015
Following Syriza’s election triumph in Greece, the coalition that will confront international creditors is an unholy alliance of two parties that couldn’t be further apart The case of a former kebab...
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