By Jérôme E. Roos In the wake of the Greek and Irish crises last year, analysts predicted that the collapse of the eurozone might become the big story of 2011. But while our neighbors in North Africa and the Middle East have burst into full-blown revolution, all appears to be quiet on the Western front. Or does it?   Last Thursday, Moody’s downgraded Spain’s credit rating, sending shock waves through t ...

Naar aanleiding van een discussie die op mijn facebook-pagina ontstond over een artikel van Ingeborg Beugel in de NRC (link) , leek het me aardig een voorbeeld te geven van een Grieks artikel, dat duidelijk niet voorbijgaat aan de eigen verantwoordelijkheden voor het ontstaan van de huidige situatie. Een voorbeeld van een artikel dat ingaat tegen de onderbuikgevoelens van 'de Grieken als eeuwig slachtoffer ...

By Christopher Lawton And Laura Stevens Greece is for sale – cheap - and Germany is buying. German companies are hunting for bargains in Greece as the debt-stricken government moves to sell state-owned assets to stabilize the country's finances. Deutsche Telekom AG on Monday said it would purchase an additional 10% stake in Greece's Hellenic Telecommunications Organization SA for about €400 million, or roug ...

By Walden Bello, July 2010 Cafés are full in Athens, and droves of tourists still visit the Parthenon and go island-hopping in the fabled Aegean. But beneath the summery surface, there is confusion, anger and despair as this country plunges into its worst economic crisis in decades. The global media has presented Greece, tiny Greece, as the epicenter of the second stage of the global financial crisis, much ...

A very interesting PhD Research Proposal by Jérôme E. Roos: My research proposal for a PhD in Social and Political Science at the European University Institute, applying the ideas of Marx, Gramsci, Minsky and Keynes to the Greek debt crisis.   Working title The Myth and the Tragedy: The Greek Debt Crisis in Comparative-Historical Perspective Introduction The Greek debt crisis of 2010 marked a watershed ...

Greece and other European nations are in trouble because policy elites pushed the continent into adopting a single currency. Lately, financial news has been dominated by reports from Greece and other nations on the European periphery. And rightly so. But I've been troubled by reporting that focuses almost exclusively on European debts and deficits, conveying the impression that it's all about government pro ...

By Bob Chapman We hope all of our appearances on Greek TV, radio and in the press have helped the educational process and to allow the Greeks to identify who the real culprits are, and what to do about it. It has just been over a year since this tragedy became reality, but we reported on Greece and Italy ten years ago. They both bent the rules to enter the euro zone.  We knew then that Goldman Sachs and JPM ...

Don't blame American appetites, rising oil prices, or genetically modified crops for rising food prices. Wall Street's at fault for the spiraling cost of food. Bankers recognized a good system when they saw it, and dozens of speculative non-physical hedgers followed Goldman's lead and joined the commodities index game, including Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Pimco, JP Morgan Chase, AIG, Bear Stearns, and Lehman ...

  If Europe's single currency fails, so would the Union itself. The warning comes from the EU president, who was speaking ahead of the meeting of the Eurozone's finance ministers. Portugal has warned it could be forced out of the Eurozone, and Ireland is also being urged to use European bailout money to prevent bankruptcy. But Financial analyst Max Keiser says going to the IMF for help would be even wo ...

Economiestudenten van de Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA) organiseren samen met de Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) op maandag 6 juni een expertmeeting, in het kader van het discussieprogramma Room for Discussion, over de Eurozone en de situatie in Griekenland. Job Cohen opent de expertmeeting, wa araan de topeconomen Nout Wellink (president DNB), Willem Buiter (hoofdeconoom Citigroup), Arnoud Boot en Sweder van ...