When scientific paradigms collide everyone should duck, at least that is the best advice I can offer at the present moment. The provisional German retail sales for January are now in, and they don’t make especially pleasant reading:
“European retail sales dropped for the first time in 10 months in January as spending in Germany [...]

This was Wolfgang Munchau writing in the Financial Times a week ago:
“The pre-announced interest rate rise that the European Central Bank is due to agree this Thursday must rank as one of the most bizarre monetary policy decisions of recent times. The economic recovery in the eurozone remains fragile, as last week’s German confidence indicators [...]

The ECB met earlier today to conduct the monthly review of interest rate policy. It came as a surprise to noone that the outcome was to leave everything just as it is. Surprisingly though the decision this month is surrounded by a little more controversy than has been the case of late since Italy’s Berlusconi [...]

2003 was a good year for the Spanish banks, with interest rates at historic lows, lending boomed. News has it today that net profits at Santander Central Hispano, Spain’s largest bank, rose 29.6 per cent in the fourth quarter to ?681m ($857m) mainly on strong mortgage lending in Spain and growth in its consumer finance [...]