Like Saint-Tropez, many municipalities across Europe are saddled with loans carrying variable interest rates pegged to fluctuations in the Swiss franc, other foreign currencies or various commodity prices. Jittery investors have been turning en masse to the Swiss franc and other assets deemed as safe havens amid growing concerns over sputtering economic growth in the U.S. and Europe. The Swiss National Bank has battled to lower what it describes as a "massively overvalued" franc in recent weeks, flooding the Swiss franc market with liquidity and cutting interest rates to zero. Tovább»
There are two big reasons to think austerity will not work in 2011 the way it did in 1919 and 1945, writes James Macdonald in Foreign Policy. Foreign Policy, 18 August, 2011Tovább»
As the U.S. bond rating falls and the stock market plunges, the American Century looks to be well and truly over. While this has provoked no small amount of hand-wringing, Americans may soon come to enjoy no longer bearing the responsibility for running the world's indispensable nation. Three Cheers for Decline - by Charles Kenny Foreign Policy August 9, 2011Tovább»
Fears of a double-dip recession are growing following turmoil on the stock markets and Standard & Poor's downgrade of the US. In a SPIEGEL interview, Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff criticizes President Obama for giving in to the Tea Party in the debt-ceiling negotiations and argues that the euro zone has to become a transfer union.
