re: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/3/the-irresponsible-neighbor/ June 14, 2010 Dear Editor, We do agree with Richard Rahn’s statement in his June 3, 2010 article in the Washington Times titled, The Irresponsible Neighbor: Greek Profligacy Hits Bulgaria and Macedonia: “Whether you are a homeowner or a country, it is better to have responsible rather than irresponsible neighbors”. However it is more important to have neighbors that […]

As the African experience shows, there is no alternative to a major restructuring of the Greek debt. Why is this being ignored? by Jayati Ghosh It is now clear that the problems of the Greek economy - and the eurozone - have not been and cannot be solved by the large infusion of emergency finance from the ECB and the […]

By T. P. WILKINSON Düsseldorf. The German press is saturated with reports intended to verify the myth of the slovenly, lazy and corrupt Southern European countries which virtuous and hard-working northern European countries mistakenly admitted to the European Union. The role of the most felonious corporation on the planet today is trivialized since the harmless fraud investigations in the US […]

by Les Leopold 4. Little countries that falter, like Greece, will continue to put the whole global economy at risk. We’re told that the Greeks have only themselves to blame: They retire too early, drink too much retsina and often break into dance without warning….all on borrowed money. Yes, they broke the EU’s debt limit rules. But they had a […]

by Mark Weisbrot The agreement by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund to provide up to $960 billion of support to the Continent’s weaker economies, as well as to financial markets, has appeared to calm investors worldwide, for the moment. But this does not resolve the underlying problem, even in the short run. The problem is one of […]

FYROM’s economy may not reflect reality, experts state ” There is a good reason to assume statistics doesn’t reflect reality,” said Sam Vaknin, an Israeli business analyst to waz.euobserver.com. According to the article Vaknin also suspects FYROM’s public finance statistics are unreliable or politically manipulated. Furthermore Vaknin questioned the decision of the Former Yugoslav Republic Of Macedonia’s National Bank to change its methodology for calculating […]

PXS kindly recommended a very insightful Economics blog (http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net) which mainly discuss the current predicament and solutions that the EU countries are facing, in particular Greece, Ireland, Spain and to some extent Italy. Among the very insighful articles you will find there and worth a good read, there is an article entitled “A Greek Tragedy” where the author explains analytically the Greek situation. A very […]

Photo @ Wikipedia.org By Joseph Stiglitz Unless it is one rule for the big and powerful and another for the small, the EU must stand behind Athens’ new leadership Greece has been condemned by European officialdom for its huge deficits. “No government or state can expect from us any special treatment,” comes the warning from Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the […]

By: Mike Kulej Couple of weeks after Dubai scare, concerns over credit worthiness of other small countries are spreading. Greece, which had been on a hot seat for some time over its fiscal policies, just had its sovereign credit downgraded. The rating on countries government bonds was cut by Fitch Ratings to BBB+ and the two other major ratings companies are […]