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When Greece got into trouble more than three years ago, many observers were puzzled. How could a country accounting for about 3 per cent of eurozone GDP be 'too big to fail'? Read more
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Surprisingly, readers of this column often ask me: who is going to win this year’s German federal election? I find it so surprising because the result, just about nine months ahead of election day, already looks like a foregone conclusion. Read more
Later this month, British Prime Minister David Cameron will give a speech that has been postponed many times before. He will finally set out his vision of Britain’s place in Europe. Read more
To call Grard Depardieu a French living treasure would be an understatement. The actor, filmmaker and businessman is one of France’s top stars, popular around the world and celebrated for the wide range of characters he has played throughout his career. Read more
If you ever wanted to see a German church moderately filled, you will now have to wait for another year. With the possible exception of natural disasters and other emergencies, Christmas is the only time you struggle to find a seat on a church bench. Read more
In case you have not noticed it, the euro crisis is over. It must be because EU Commission President Jos Manuel Barroso, ECB President Mario Draghi and French President Franois Hollande all said so over the past six months. Read more
Dear Insights subscriber, This is the last issue of Insights for 2012 before we break for the Christmas and New Year holidays, so please excuse me from deviating from the normal format of this newsletter. Every Friday for the past six months, we have been delivering you three short opinion articles along with links to our favourite stories on the web – whether outrageous, important, interesting or just funny. Read more
Not just since Silvio Berlusconi’s announcement to run once more for the top job in Italian politics has Italy been a perplexing country. In any other nation, the prospect of a 76-year-old convicted tax evader re-entering politics would be laughed at – especially if, like Berlusconi, he was with one foot in prison, had a dubious personal reputation and a poor political track record. Read more
New Zealand’s government must always remember the line attributed to Lord Earnest Rutherford: “We don’t have the money, so we’ll have to think.” Government accounts are already under pressure. And in the longer term it is hard to see this pressure letting up. Read more
According to the Mayan calendar, the world will end on 21 December this year. It’s not clear, though, whether this was the motivation for the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to cut interest rates to 3% doomsday levels. Read more
Up until the last Olympics, most Kiwis would have known little about Belarus. But after the rather masculine Belarusian shot-putter, Nadzeya Ostapchuk, was caught out as a drug cheat, and the gold medal was awarded to New Zealand’s Valerie Adams, Belarus was noticed a lot more. Read more
One of the most oft-quoted sayings in economics is Herbert Stein’s famous dictum that if something cannot go on forever, it will stop. It is so often quoted because it is logically true. Read more
Negotiations on an extension of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a free-trade agreement meant to liberalise economic relations across the Pacific, are to go into their fifteenth round next week. Proponents of the TPP hope it will improve conditions for foreign direct investment (FDI). Read more