Early Bird Headlines 02 March 2015
Econintersect: Here are some of the headlines we found to help you start your day. For more headlines see our afternoon feature for GEI members, What We Read Today, which has many more headlines and a number of article discussions to keep you abreast of what we have found interesting.
U.S.
- United States Remains a British Colony, Looted Surreptitiously, Through Banking Practices? (Roger Erickson, Mike Norman Economics) Roger contributes to GEI.
EU
- Europe’s Solar Power Industry Braces for Solar Eclipse (Popular Science) An “unprecedented test for Europe’s electricity system, the equivalent of more than 50 U.S. coal fired plants going offline.
- In “Paranormal” Europe, Banks Will Pay You To Borrow, And Charge You To Save (Zero Hedge) Hat tip to Talk Markets. A Denmark bank will pay Eva Christiansen, left, $1 a month for taking out a loan. Ida Mottelson’s bank will charge her to hold her money.
- In Europe, Bond Yields and Interest Rates Go Through the Looking Glass (The New York Times) Same story as above, NYT version.
Greece
- Greece warned to start reforms to gain cash (Financial Times) Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister who leads the Greek talks as chairman of the eurozone finance ministers’ group, told FT that he was prepared to make a “first disbursement” of the €7.2bn remaining in Athens’ €172bn bailout as early as this month. But he says that Greek must take steps now that many believe will take months. Many also believe that Greece will run out of money in 2-4 weeks.
Syria
- Leading US-backed Syrian rebel group Hazm dissolved (Financial Times) This is a blow to the West and strengthens Al Qaeda and ISIS.
Ukraine
- Ukraine unofficially has 272 percent inflation (The Washington Post)
Russia
- How the Kremlin benefits from Boris Nemtsov’s death (Financial Times) The killers have burned the last bridges to the political opposition.
- Whoever killed Boris Nemtsov, Putin is responsible for Russia’s climate of fear (The Conversation)
India
- Investors optimistic about Modi budget (Financial Times) New Delhi budget will slow “fiscal consolidation” and increase spending on India’s wayward infrastructure. This is a slap at the head of the central bank, Raghuram Rajan. For an economists view which is substantially aligned with the proposed budget, see GEI Opinion by Ajay Shah: India: Make Institutional Checks and Balances Work (Going from strong, as in scary, to strong, as in capable).
- Modi Forgoes Seizing Oil’s Drop to Engineer Deep Fiscal Fix (Bloomberg Business) Hat tip to Roger Erickson. This article takes more the Rajan side.
- T N Ninan: Suresh Prabhu, the Railway star (Business Standard) Hat tip to Sanjeev Kulkarni who says: “Railway Budget: Good, transparent, practical, straight forward & had stamp of Suresh Prabhu who is extremely competent & non political.”
- West’s Envy (Breaking Views) Hat tip to Sanjeev Kulkarni. Slowing fiscal correction and following a public investment led growth strategy is “an opportunity that rich nations, which can borrow far more cheaply, are missing.”
China
- China February HSBC PMI at seven-month high (Reuters) The HSBC Manufacturing PMI contradicts the official government number for February and indicates the sector returned to expansion.
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