One of the diagnoses of why the Great Depression was so bad is that countries engaged in “competitive devaluation” — weakening their exchange rates to make exports cheaper, but when all try to do this, no one gains, and confidence runs out.  One wonders today if Ireland has created a new version of this risk [...]

Bavaria also had elections this weekend. (I posted about the campaign last week.)
Surprise: the Christian Social Union, which has ruled Bavaria without a break since forever, lost big. For the first time since 1962, they won’t have enough seats in Parliament to rule alone; they’ll have to take on a partner, most likely [...]

Belarus also held parliamentary “elections” this weekend.
Going into the elections, supporters of President Lukashenko and his government held all 110 seats in the country’s House of Representatives: there was no parliamentary opposition.
As of 9:00 this morning, it was clear that government supporters had won… all 110 seats in the House of Representatives. [...]

Short version: for the last two years, Austria has been run by a “grand coalition” government of the two largest parties, the Social Democrats and the center-right People’s Party. Everybody hated this arrangement, though, and it didn’t get much done. So they called new elections, which were held yesterday.
Result: both large parties got [...]

The same reporter on the Globe & Mail is a fan of Randy McDonald’s blog.

Canada is interested in a huge bilateral agreement with the European Union, which going by the details given would almost amount to membership in the EEA. Cool.
Ironically, in the years when the British Empire was either trying to recast itself as an EU-like economic union or trying to get into the ECSC/EEC with all its [...]

When the dust settles on whatever form of banking bailout the US Congress eventually approves, attention will turn to reassessing the philosophy that got the US to this point.  But perhaps Europe will have to revisit some conventional wisdom too.  Consider the case of Benelux financial services giant Fortis, which if this evening’s reports are [...]

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”
Tolstoy
President Dmitry Medvedev’s recent decision to inject $20 billion into Russia’s flagging stock markets – which were down nearly 50% from last May at the time - together with the $60 billion odd dollars of support injected into its groggy banking system [...]

A couple of years back, Brussels Gonzo and I had a debate about Montenegrin independence. I did a post saying it was a really bad idea. Gonzo replied with a post saying that I was just plain wrong. Bosh and drivel, I replied a few days later.
Okay, so: two and a half [...]

[16:36:17] David Weman skriver: hey, I just thought of something?
[16:36:25] Alex Harrowell skriver: yes?
[16:36:36] David Weman skriver: what’s the difference between realists and neoconservatives?
[16:36:45] Alex Harrowell skriver: tell me
[16:37:20] David Weman skriver: realists are bismarck, neoconservatives are wilhelm II.
[16:37:38] Alex Harrowell skriver: +1
[16:37:59] Alex Harrowell skriver: or worse, Conrad von Hotzendorf * (actually his reported [...]