Its neighbors may be suffering, but the euro crisis has created conditions that actually benefit the German economy. Not only is the government enjoying the windfall of negative interest rates on bonds, but unemployment is down and exports are booming. By Stefan Schultz   It's every debtor's dream. When asked for a loan, the bank not only agrees, but actually pays the borrower for their patronage. It s ...

Greece’s bailout money is feeding the profits of German armaments manufacturers. Even as the Greek economy continues its agonizing collapse, with the nation struggling to submit to extreme austerity measures being enforced by its masters in Berlin, the nation’s unelected technocratic government is overseeing a giant fiddle of the books involving the channeling of bailout money into the coffers of Germany’s ...

Tax evasion in Greece In flagrante   "If I could get everyone in this room to pay their taxes, I wouldn’t need to be here." So muttered a member of the troika last year, in a room filled with Greece’s great and good. The problem of tax evasion in Greece has been pointed out many times during the debt crisis: Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF, got into hot water over the summer with her comments th ...

A leaked email sent to the Greek Ministries of Finance and Labor from the Troika says Greek private sector workers should work six days a week and longer hours. The letter, which was published on August 31, shows that the Troika expects the Labor Ministry to implement a number of other new measures. They include reducing the notice period before firing a worker, and cutting certain severance packages by 50 ...

Yiannis Baboulias  for guardian.co.uk   The thuggish members of Golden Dawn, with their neo-Nazi ties and attacks on immigrants, should be banned from parliament The Greek far-right party Golden Dawn has been flirting with an "outlaw" rhetoric lately. Appealing to a disgruntled electorate, its MPs constantly try to point out that the Golden Dawn is unlike any other political party in Greece. They are r ...

 Roemer's Presence in a Coalition Could Tip Balance of the Netherlands' Approach to the Euro-Zone Crisis By MATTHEW DALTON BOXMEER, the Netherlands—Emile Roemer is the smiling face of an electoral force that is upending Dutch politics and threatening to challenge Europe's German-led austerity strategy for solving the euro-zone crisis. Mr. Roemer, a former elementary-school teacher, is head of the Dutch Soci ...

Actual fascists in actual black shirts are waving swastikas and murdering ethnic minorities in Athens   "After the immigrants, you're next." That's what was written on flyers that appeared this week in the gay clubbing district of Athens. As violence against immigrants and ethnic minorities escalates across Greece, supporters of the ultra-right Golden Dawn party have also begun to promote hate attacks ...

While the eurozone teeters on the brink, construction work is underway in Frankfurt’s financial district on new headquarters for the European Central Bank (ECB). Due for completion in 2014, the 185 metre tall, futuristically designed skyscraper will have double the office space of the ECB’s current residence, the Eurotower. It embodies the expectations for the future of the single currency from the one inst ...

This debit crisis is following same path as one 30 years go. Time to rethink how economics is taught to avoid another lost decade. Monday marks a significant anniversary in recent economic history for it was on this day in 1982 that Mexico announced a moratorium on its international debts. The default marked the start of what became known as the third world debt crisis. Three decades later that crisis is no ...

Xenophobia, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and anti-Roma sentiment have plagued many places in Europe this summer, as a rising tide of far-right extremism washes over the continent. A legislator from Hungary's far-right Jobbik party made headlines last week when he was dismissed from the party and pressured to quit his position in the EU Parliament after news of his Jewish roots became public. Csanad Szegedi's ...