Austrian coalition faces far-right challenge in vote

VIENNA (Reuters) - A resurgent right-wing party keen to end taxpayer-funded bailouts of euro zone laggards takes on Austria's political establishment in parliamentary elections on Sunday.

Spain's budget to focus on nascent recovery, reforms

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain will boost economic and job forecasts in the 2014 budget to be presented on Friday, moving away from tough spending cuts and relying instead on lower borrowing costs and momentum from previous reforms to achieve fiscal targets.

Europe's plan to address weak banks risks unraveling

(Reuters) - The European Central Bank's (ECB) plan to test the health of the euro zone's largest lenders without the means to plug any holes it uncovers risks foiling what some see as the bloc's final chance to put its financial crisis behind it.

UK economy grew 0.7 per cent in Q2

LONDON: Britain's economy grew 0.7 percent in the second quarter from the previous three months, in line with forecasts, official data confirmed on Thursday.

German consumer morale hits highest level in 6 years: GfK

BERLIN: German consumer confidence rose to its highest level in six years heading into October, supporting expectations strong consumer spending will help Europe's largest economy to post moderate growth in 2013.

Euro-Area Services Strengthen as Demand Improves

Euro-area services growth accelerated to the fastest in more than two years in September as demand and confidence improved. An index of activity rose to 52.1 from 50.7 in August, London-based Markit Economics said today.

Deep Thoughts by Alexander Mirtchev

Ashby Monk

For a variety of reasons, SWF employees are typically quite reserved and guarded when speaking to the press. Not so for Dr. Alexander Mirtchev, who is the Independent Director and a member of the Board of Directors of Kazakhstan’s $30 billion National Welfare Fund Samruk-Kazyna.

Alexander Mirtchev

EU to change budget calculation to ease austerity

BRUSSELS: European Union finance experts have reached a preliminary agreement on changing the way the bloc determines some deficit figures, which will lessen the pressure for austerity measures in some crisis-hit economies, an EU official said Thursday.

Merkel eyes third term in first German vote since euro crisis

BERLIN (Reuters) - In the first German election since Europe's debt crisis erupted four years ago, voters are likely to give Angela Merkel a third term on Sunday, but may force her into a coalition with her leftist rivals and catapult a new anti-euro party into parliament.

ECB's Asmussen says Ireland should stick to austerity target

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland should not ease up on austerity in its annual budget next month but stick to a target of 3.1 billion euros ($4.2 billion) worth of spending cuts and tax hikes, European Central Bank Executive Board member Joerg Asmussen said on Saturday.

The Economist: “The Fed's have-it-both-ways policy”

R.A., regarding Bernanke’s Jackson Hole speech, your column notes that you “found the tone on monetary policy to be confusing and timid.” Expectations now turn to what President Obama will say next week and what the Fed will do (or not do) when they next meet. Uncertainty again prevails.

Alexander Mirtchev

Euro-Zone Consumer Mood Continues to Lighten

Consumers in the 17 countries that share the euro continued to become less pessimistic in September, but with unemployment still close to record highs and wages growing more slowly than inflation, that is unlikely to herald a sharp pickup in spending.

Euro-Zone Wages Lag Inflation

Workers in some of the euro zone's hardest-hit economies suffered steep falls in pay in real terms in the second quarter, as earnings growth across the 17-nation currency bloc sank to a near three-year low.

Securing global economic security

Inflation is a significant factor of global economic security and has the innate capacity to upend carefully laid plans

Merkel Rejects Joint Euro Debt, Promises to Stay Hard Course

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told supporters she’ll stand as a bulwark against joint debt in the euro area if she’s re-elected in four days and continue to extract conditions from indebted nations.

French public debt to rise to 95.1 pct of GDP by end-2014: Report

PARIS: France's public sector debt will rise to 1.95 trillion euros by the end of 2014, or 95.1 percent of economic output, up from 93.4 percent of GDP this year, a media report said on Monday.

Low wages, the flip-side to Germany's economic miracle

Chancellor Angela Merkel often boasts during the campaign for September 22 elections that Germany has one of Europe's lowest jobless rates -- at around 6.8 per cent.

Euro-Zone Employment Falls Again

The number of people with jobs in the 17 countries that share the euro fell again in the three months to June, as the currency area's economy returned to growth following 18 months of contraction.

Don't quit Europe, businesses tell U.K.

Should Britain quit the European Union? U.K. businesses overwhelmingly say "absolutely not."

Euro zone cannot just hope for further recovery - Coene

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The euro zone may have come out of recession, but economic growth remains low and further reforms are needed to ensure a recovery fully takes hold, European Central Bank Governing Council member Luc Coene told a newspaper on Saturday.

Eurozone industrial output slumps in July

LONDON: Any hopes that the troubled eurozone economy was poised for a solid rebound from recession were under threat of being dashed Thursday by figures showing the industrial sector sliding into reverse during July.

Italy says economy shrank 0.3 per cent in second quarter

Italy on Tuesday downgraded its estimate for growth in the second quarter, saying the economy shrank by 0.3 percent in April to June instead of 0.2 percent initially calculated.

Bank of France raises growth forecast slightly

PARIS (Reuters) - France should post economic growth of 0.2 percent in the third quarter, the Bank of France said on Monday, revising its forecast up slightly from a first estimate of 0.1 percent.

Spain industrial output falls for 23rd month in July

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's industrial output fell for the 23rd straight month in July but an economist said he still sees potential for a weak recovery in the recession-hit economy before the end of the year.

Bank of England's Paul Fisher says may hold off on more QE: Report

LONDON: A Bank of England policymaker who has been one of its biggest proponents of more bond buying said in an interview on Sunday that the bank could hold off from pumping more money into the economy if its new forward guidance plan works.

Euro Becoming Haven With Breakup a Memory on Economy: Currencies

The euro is becoming a haven for investors who just three years ago pushed the 17-nation currency union close to breakup.

The Global Inflation Wave: Waiting for Constantine?

Source: The Globalist

Alexander Mirtchev and Norman Bailey,

In the wake of the global economic crisis, the world is trying to chart an economic path to the future and find a "new normal." As Alexander Mirtchev and Norman A. Bailey explain in the first installment in their series "The Search for a New Global Equilibrium," inflation as a factor of global economic security has the innate capacity to upend carefully laid plans and further upset the equilibrium.

ECB 'very cautious' about eurozone recovery

European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi on Thursday sought to temper hopes that the eurozone was about to rebound strongly, insisting that the nascent recovery remains extremely fragile.

Lunch hour in Italy serves up some sour economic lessons

ROME (Reuters) - Of all the statistics available on Italy and its varied economic problems, few are as eye-opening as the fact that at around 1 p.m on any given day, three quarters of the population will normally be sitting down to lunch in their own homes.

Sovereign Debt and Beyond: Toward a New Magna Carta?

Source: The Globalist

Alexander Mirtchev and Norman Bailey

The global debt burden appears to have gathered an unstoppable momentum, prompting divergent reactions. The world economy cannot count on growth to solve the global debt problem — and stimulus measures are not a sustainable solution. In the second installment in the series “The Search for a New Global Equilibrium,” Dr. Alexander Mirtchev and Dr. Norman Bailey explain why the solutions currently being offered are wholly inadequate to the scale of the problem, and argue the time is ripe for a “new Magna Carta” — a redefinition of the social contract among the government, Main Street and Wall Street.

European banks to quit London if UK left EU: Goldman executive

LONDON: European banks would leave London "in very short order" if Britain voted to exit the European Union, a senior Goldman Sachs executive said in a newspaper interview published on Monday.

Will G-20 Counter Power of Uncertainty?

By Alexander Mirtchev 

In 2009, G-20 leaders met in Pittsburgh and emerged with a mandate ‘to be the premier forum for international economic cooperation,' endowing the G-20 with a leading economic role on the global stage. It appeared at the time that the leaders of the G-20 had successfully defeated pessimism. However, the rising tide of global economic turmoil and problems ranging from sovereign indebtedness to consumption and saving imbalances have created a ‘perfect storm' that is far from abating.

Germany's Merkel Taunts Opponents Over Euro Crisis

Chancellor Angela Merkel taunted her election opponent Tuesday over Europe's debt crisis, noting that his party had backed practically all of her rescue policies and arguing that their proposals might make things worse by pooling countries' debt.

The new EU External Energy Policy: an important move - if it is not too late

By Alexander Mirtchev

 With the adoption of its new External Energy Policy, the EU has finally made a first step towards its integration as a single negotiating bloc in the world energy market. As such the External Energy Policy could become an important factor in the global energy security picture and a possible geopolitical game-changer. However, it remains to be seen whether the big EU member states will be willing to subordinate their interests to the wider EU interest. The External Energy Policy has probably come five years too late, argues Alexander Mirtchev, President of Krull Corp. and Vice-President of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies.

Euro-zone factory rebound spreads to Spain, Italy

A recovery in the euro-zone manufacturing sector broadened in August, as factory activity picked up in countries such as Spain and Italy that have suffered long downturns sparked by the region’s fiscal crisis.

Greece rejects EU plan to sell assets through overseas agency

ATHENS: Greece dismissed a proposal by euro zone officials to hand over the management of its real estate assets to a holding company based overseas, saying on Saturday the country would stay in charge of its privatisation programme.

Euro-Zone Unemployment Falls Slightly

The number of people unemployed in the euro zone fell in July for the second month in a row, adding to tentative signs that a modest recovery under way in the currency bloc's economy is starting to erode its sky-high levels of joblessness.