Exactly one year ago, the EU agreed to several extreme measures to combat the ongoing economic crisis, to mixed results. But despite its unique economic distress, Greece shows no sign of cutting back its considerable military budget. ­A year ago to the day, EU leaders met to tackle debt troubles that German Chancellor Angela Merkel described as Europe’s worst economic crisis since the end of WWII. The EU sp ...

Athens (Reuters) - The governor of the Bank of Greece was given a severance payment of 3.4 million euros when he left his former employer, a major bank that he now regulates, documents seen by Reuters show. George Provopoulos was awarded the sum when he stepped down as vice-chairman of Piraeus Bank to become governor of Greece's central bank and a member of the board of the European Central Bank in 2008. Th ...

‘Negative growth’ is a well-known oxymoron, but the Director of the Europe Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has taken redefinition to a wholly new level. In an interview with IMF Survey Magazine, Reza Moghadam says that since starting to follow the orders of the Troika (IMF, European Commission and European Central Bank), Ireland has “seen modest growth.” ...

A couple of years ago a Swiss whistleblower smuggled out of the country a CD ROM containing the names and account numbers of thousands of European citizens with secret accounts at Swiss banks. The German tax authorities paid a lot of money to get their hands on this CD and used it to recoup tens of millions of Euros in unpaid tax. They let people know that they had the list and offered tax evaders good term ...

The Deposit Flight Which Could Undermine the Euro By Yalman Onaran An accelerating flight of deposits from banks in four European countries is jeopardizing the renewal of economic growth and undermining a main tenet of the common currency: an integrated financial system. A total of 326 billion euros ($425 billion) was pulled from banks in Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Greece in the 12 months ended July 31, a ...

On the 24th August 2012 Samsung was ordered by a court in San Jose, California to pay Apple just over $1 billion in damages for patent infringement. Apple is now seeking to ban the sale of certain Samsung products in the USA and a hearing is scheduled for 20th September for that claim. This long-running dispute between these technology giants over infringement of smart phone patents shines a spotlight on th ...

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 ...

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 ...

Since July 4, we have been reading in major world newspapers and in statements by legislators, central banks, and judicial authorities, that there is a “scandal” about something called LIBOR. Before that time, few persons outside the group concerned with banking had even heard of LIBOR. Suddenly, we were being told that major banks in Great Britain, the United States, Switzerland, Germany, France, and proba ...