The ECB’s aggressive interest rate hike is causing problems for everyone in Europe. To citizens who are asked to pay a higher installment on their mortgage or consumer loan, to businesses that are raising the cost of servicing their loans, to states that see their existing bonds collapse, and even to public debt that, instead …
Tag: inflation
Why the EU’s Proposal to Impose a Cap Only on Russian Natural Gas is Wrong?
In the past two weeks the structural pathologies responsible for the EU’s energy gridlock have combined with a series of extreme weather events – such as unprecedented drought – to record unimaginable energy prices. The day-ahead electricity prices in France, the EU’s traditional electricity exporting power, reached on September 2 even above 1,000€/MWh, while natural …
The Limits of “Economic Orthodoxy”
Every year the executives of the US Federal Reserve System gather in Jackson Hole, Wyoming for an annual financial symposium. At this year’s meeting, everyone was expecting the position of Fed chief Jerome Powell. And the message from the American central banker was clear: at the moment the priority is to reduce inflation. The direction …
The Big Dilemma: Interest Rates Increases or Price Controls
The main driving force of inflation in Europe is not excessive demand, but mainly energy market problems and secondarily shortages and consequent price increases in raw materials or intermediate and final goods, due to the war in Ukraine and the Covid pandemic in China. If nominal interest rates rise do you think the problems will …
7 of the Fed’s 8 Rising Rates Periods (1955-present) ended in Recession in the US
The US Federal Reserve has already raised its lending rate by 75 basis points over the past two months. Money markets anticipate further increases of at least 200 basis points by the end of 2022. The European Central Bank (ECB) has announced the end of its government bond-buying program in the third quarter of 2022 …
The Uncertainty of the Future produced by the Crisis
The effects of the current crisis are manifold, but there are two conditions that limit the problem: energy prices and inflation. The rise in energy prices was directly reflected in the rise in inflation, which in March reached 7.5% in the Eurozone and 8.5% in the United Kingdom and the United States respectively. These countries …
Greece Returns Rapidly to the Era of Financial Support Packages
Greece, a member-country of the Eurozone/EU with 388 billion euros in public debt and a deindustrialized economy, is in danger of paying dearly for the EU sanctions imposed on Russia. The debt of the General Government of Greece, despite being sustainable in the medium term, despite being supported by the ECB and despite the fact …
What Can trigger a Prolonged Global Recession?
With Russia’s war in Ukraine a month away, Trust Economics (https://trusteconomics.eu) has its estimates for the global economy outlook this year. Within this short period of time, forecasts shifted from a limited recovery after COVID to an increasing chance of a full-blown global recession. The chances of a recession are rising, given the volatile inflation …
Using Inflation as a Tool to Improve the Competitiveness of an Economy
An Εurozone/EU member-country’s economic policy can use inflation as an opportunity to achieve two goals: First, to increase the competitiveness of the economy and therefore its employment and growth rate. Second, to reduce the Public Debt-to-GDP ratio. Combining the above, with the imposed need to relieve as much as possible the citizens, especially the weaker …
The Seven Causes-Sins That Trigger Inflation
Arrogance, jealousy, rage, laziness, greed, greed, lust. These are the seven deadly sins from which, if the sinner is not “cleansed”, he will be deprived (according to Dante) of Divine Grace and will be led to the eternal condemnation of his soul. What are the sins that the poor consumer pays today in all the …