As we are writing this, the G8 Summit 2012 is taking place in the American Presidential retreat of Camp David in Maryland. President Obama is hosting the summit and has been joined by the leaders of Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Russia, Canada and Japan. Read the rest of this entry »

Friday 13 means in many countries bad luck. France, Austria and seven other countries in Europe are probably agreeing with that now as yesterday, January the 13, the US based ratings agency Standard & Poor’s cut France and Austria triple -A rating by one notch to AA+, and downgraded the other seven countries -Spain, Italy, Portugal, Malta, Cyprus, Slovakia and Slovenia two notches. Read the rest of this entry »

There was not much talk about the euro crisis during the Christmas holidays. For a few days we almost pretended everything was well and we could relax. But now just when many have realized that January is going to be a hard month, never mind that we tried to be careful with the expenses, we have been hit with the euro sliding to below $1.27, the lowest since September 2010 Read the rest of this entry »

Last Sunday, Spain held national elections. It was a rainy day in most of the country, almost everyone seemed to know in advance what the results were to be, which after almost eight years of the Socialists (PSOE) in power it was to be expected. Expected in our days of crisis and unemployment. Read the rest of this entry »

With unemployment at 9.1 percent, nothing is more important to many Americans than the creation of new jobs. Also to President Obama this matter is urgent and has to be resolved if he wants to keep his own job in the next elections. Read the rest of this entry »

It was not necessary to be an economist to know that this financial debacle was about to happen. In both sides of the Atlantic politicians have left the banks rule and have been too timorous to face them. In the process, we have had the housing bubble -the US and Spain are two good examples of it-, unemployment at levels that are intolerable and an always growing difference between the haves and the have-nots. Read the rest of this entry »

Sunday evening President Obama announced that Congressional leaders from both parties had reached an agreement aimed at ending the US debt deadlock. He said that it wasn’t the deal he would have preferred but he nevertheless threw his support behind the plan. Read the rest of this entry »