Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winner in economics 2008, when in need of the antithesis of a role model for economic policy often chooses Latvia. He has been very critical of the insistence of the authorities to maintain the fixed exchange rate when the country faces recession and double-digit unemployment and of course he has a point. For me it is still not clear that the strategy of internal devaluation is better than an external one although I (still, especially if the authorities support it with reform-friendly 2011 and 2012 budgets) support the former. His Riga Mortis piece was fun but this post from 17 December 2010 lacks balance, I think, and certainly deserves some comment. Not to defend Latvia – the reckless boom-time ultra-procyclical fiscal policy in particular is very much the culprit of the current woes as I have argued previously (**) and its effects rightly produces comments and interest from Prof. Krugman and many others. Continue reading →

The present generation of European leaders will doubtless be remembered for many things, but somewhere high up there on the list will be the appauling sense of bad-timing they seem to have when making critical announcements. The confusion caused by certain ill-considered remarks from Angela Merkel about how private sectors bondholders would need to participate in future EU bailout processes is evidently one good example. Another, without doubt is going to be the decision by EU Commissioner Olli Rehn to appear before the world’s press today (yes, today of all days, one day after the sensitive announcement of the Irish Bank Bail-out plan and the decision to create the European Financial Mechanism), and inform the assembled throngs that as far as the EU Commission could see Spain will not be sticking to its 6% of GDP fiscal deficit committment next year, simply because according to EU calculations the deficit is going to be 6.4% – unless, of course – there is another round of fiscal reduction measures. Continue reading →

“There is a difficulty that is widely recognized that the amount [of debt] to be repaid is high in 2014 and 2015,” Giorgios Papaconstantinou (the Greek Finance Minister).

“We are confident that Greece will be able to return to the markets. But whether it will be able to return to the markets on a scale that allows Greece to pay off its European partners and the IMF, that is a question.”…”We have a number of options. If paying off the €110 billion loan proves to be a question, we stand ready to exercise some of those options” – Poul Thomsen, head of the IMF team in the ECB-EU-IMF troika delegation.

“In the rushed last-minute deal to forestall certain bankruptcy, everyone missed one very important fact. That the memorandum created an unrealistic and immense borrowing squeeze on the feckless Greek state for the next five years.”
Nick Skrekas – Refusing Greek Loan Extensions Defies Financial Reality, Wall Street Journal

Get On The Right Track Baby!

According to the latest IMF-EU report Greece’s reform programme remians “broadly on track” even if the international lenders do acknowledge that this years fiscal deficit target will now not be met and that a fresh round of structural measures is needed if the country is to generate a sustained recovery. My difficulty here must be with my understanding of the English lexemes “remains” and “sustainable”, since for something to remain on track it should have been running along it previously (rather than never having gotten on it), and for something – in this case a recovery – to be sustained, it first needs to get started, and with an economy looking set to contract by nearly 4% this year, and the IMF forecasting a further shrinkage of 2.6% next year, many Greeks could be forgiven for thinking that talk of recovery at this point is, at the very least, premature. A more useful question might be “what kind of medicine is this that we are being given”, and “what are the realistic chances that it actually works”. Unfortunately, in the weird and wonderful world of Macro Economics, witch doctors are not in short supply. Continue reading →

Spain’s Tinsa Price Index was out last week, and showed Spanish property prices fell again in September, and at an accelerating rate. As Tinsa point out in their report, both “Metropolitan Areas and municipalities on the Mediterranean Coast,” whose rates experienced a significant drop from the previous month, have contributed decisively to this steep decline”.

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