Economic Musings II: The Euro as a Basket Case

How not to Introduce a New Currency

The Euro has been touted as something of a capstone of the European Unification project. Now it may well prove its stumbling block. How ironic. And at the same time how stupid and humiliating!

How (and why) has it all happened?

Economic Musings I: The State of “the” Economy

It’s always amazed CrisisMaven how little a trained economist could know of the world going on around him or her, so as to not spot a bubble for example. Obviously it has to do with the indicators they use which are only remotely related to reality. Those who can only calculate a model with maybe two enterprises and “a” state are probably not able to fathom a newspaper article talking about how the fashion in clothes affects shoe manufacturers. Or that there is an association of dye manufacturers and the fashion industry that today knows which shades of green, blue or pink will be en vogue in, say 2014.

CrisisMaven’s Blog News 2010-02-16: Over 10,000 Webpage Views!

Thanks to all avid readers: today, 2010-02-16 at around 18:40 GMT we went past our first 10,000 visitors on our blog in under one month! And with some interesting twists …

Bloom of Doom VI: Will China Survive the Crisis?

China. like Japan in the late seventies and 1980s, has been dubbed an economic miracle. What if, like totally bankrupt Japan, this giant just stood on feet of clay, a zombie, a dead man walking? Are any of its statistics to be trusted? Or do we see just another Samuelson fallacy about the resilience and “productivity” of communism?

CrisisMaven’s Blog News 2010-02-12: List of Data Visualisation Sources

The promised List of Data Visualisation Sources is now online.

>>>> Check it out here! <<<<

Other sorted lists by subject will follow in due course.

Welcome, Visitor: here’s what you can do …

… with this blog … (First time visitor? – Why not  start here!)

Bloom of Doom V: “We have control of the ship, we have a plan”

“We have control of the ship, we have a plan” is what Spain’s deputy premier María Teresa Fernández de la Vega is meant to have said in response to mounting fears of sovereign default.

The ECONOMIST: Adding in the deficit - Debt traps revisited

CrisisMaven’s Blog News 2010-02-05: First 5000 Webpage Views!

Thanks to all avid readers: today, 2010-02-05 at around 15:20 GMT we went past our first 5,000 hits on our blog after only the first fortnight!

Bloom of Doom IV: Safe Assets and Sore Surprises

Many still think sovereign debt is safe (although I’d like to know how many “elder statesmen” still invest in these “assets” themselves today). This is astonishing at the best of times: would you give credit to a boy who still lived at home at the age of 200+ with no income of his own? Oh, of course, I see, you hope his Mum and Dad Taxpayer will foot the bill. So if he goes to the “Royal Casino” and buys chips, looses big time, then even scraps his old, but perfectly serviceable car to get a new one, you still give him more credit and more, and more?

Bloom of Doom III: Cities Going Bankrupt

“Pennsylvania Capital Ponders Bankruptcy” we read in Mish Shedlock‘s commendable blog “MISH’S Global Economic Trend Analysis“. Now, if that doesn’t shed a whole new light on the word “capital“!