By James G. Neuger and Jurjen van de Pol for Bloomberg   European leaders sparred with Greece over a second rescue program, clouding progress toward a permanent aid fund and tougher budget rules designed to stabilize the euro. Greece faced criticism that its economic makeover is faltering, and it fended off German and Dutch calls for a European overseer to take command of its budget after its deficits ...

By economistmeg.com At the top of my list of to do’s for the past few weeks has been to update the post on Greek PSI that I wrote just before Christmas to include some more recent developments, such as the prospect of ECB participation. Last night, Peter Spiegel from the Financial Times (@SpiegelPeter) published the German government’s proposal for Greece’s “improvement of compliance” with the terms of the ...

The dreadful debt saga will only come to a close when Greece takes charge of its predicament Negotiations to reduce Greek debt have been suspended after no agreement could be reached last week. At some point in the near future Greece seems certain to default on its obligations. But the drama surrounding the talks in Athens, Berlin and Paris shows that there will be nothing co-operative about Greek default. ...

Greece’s debt-holders Volunteers wanted A CATCHY new phrase has been added to the Orwellian lexicon of Euro-speak, where terms such as “stability and growth” actually mean the opposite. This is “private-sector involvement” (PSI), which is code for imposing losses on Greece’s private creditors. The International Monetary Fund’s most recent review of the Greek economy, in December, gives an indication of the ...

Headlines the world over ‘agonise’, on behalf of Greece and Europe, on whether the PSI+ negotiations will come to a conclusion. The presumption is that, if they succeed, Greece will be reprieved and Europe (with France and the EFSF having recently been downgraded) will buy some much needed extra time to put, at long last, its house in order. Nonsense, I say! This PSI+ is yet another assault on Reason. It co ...

It's clear that punishing the poor will only deepen the recession – so why are the IMF technocrats intent on further austerity? During an official visit to the LSE in November 2008, the Queen asked a professor why economists had failed to predict the financial crash, the most dramatic event in recent economic history. The professor's answer is not known. A year later, after a British Academy seminar, eminen ...

GoDaddy (a web hosting company) announced its support of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in late October 2011. The news of GoDaddy's pro-SOPA stance appeared on Reddit on December 22, 2011, and then went viral. Within a few days, customers had moved over 72,000 domains off of GoDaddy's domain hosting service in protest and declared December 29, 2011 "Move Your Domain Away From GoDaddy Day." ...

Three South European Economists living in The Netherlands write about the consequences of austerity and debt speculation in their countries. João Romão (Portugal), Sol Trumbo (Spain), Dimitris Pavlopoulos (Greece) We are witnessing an apparently endless crisis. What started three years ago in the subprime mortgage market in the US has now spread to such an extent that the unity of Europe as a political and ...

Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy draw up package to counter debt crisis but will not reveal details before G20 summit By guardian. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German chancellor Angela Merkel after meeting in Berlin to discuss how to confront the eurozone bank and debt crisis. Photograph: Martin Meissner/AP The leaders of France and Germany have announced that they are ready to recapitalise Europe' ...

by Michael Grothaus   "A Reuters employee who was investigating Apple's legendary secrecy visited Foxconn's walled city-like facility in Guanlan, China, and was reportedly roughed up by security." The reporter took a taxi to the facility and left the taxi to take photographs of the front gate and security checkpoint. When a guard shouted, the reporter hopped back in the taxi. The guard then blocked the ...