While the INE showed a Spanish economy that started to slow at the end of 2021, the government has maintained that the recovery continues at a substantial rate. This move intensifies a pattern of the current government to control, or attempt to control, independent institutions.
In the face of a new debt crisis, the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve and the ECB cannot return to buying large amounts of sovereign debt. The central banks saved indebted governments a decade ago. They can’t do it again. But there are other means at their disposal.
Compared to the American economy, Europe is slow to get through the post-pandemic recovery, but these GDP numbers show that it is actually happening—almost everywhere, that is. The paltry numbers out of Germany, Italy, and Spain, three of the largest economies in Europe, tell us that these three countries have become a drag on the European economy.
A new debt crisis looks unavoidable. There is practically no interest in fiscal reforms across Europe, leaving the continent vulnerable to a destructive downward spiral of rising interest rates and structural budget deficits.
The numbers for the first quarter of this year were released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis showing a 30%-percent rise in revenue for the U.S. federal government over the pre-pandemic first quarter of 2019.
While the forecast for inflation-adjusted growth has been downgraded, predictions of inflation remain elevated. A preliminary estimate suggests that euro-zone inflation reached 7.5% in April. Despite this, inflation in the currency area “is projected at 6.1% in 2022, before falling to 2.7% in 2023.”
In practice, the merger between mainstream Keynesian economics and welfare-state policy was exactly what drove most of Europe into its current state of stagnation.
While the U.S. has its economic problems, the runaway government debt being an ominous example, its unending reliance on domestic spending for domestic prosperity is a winning recipe over time.
Child benefit payments transferred from Germany to foreign bank accounts climbed to all-time highs last year, reaching nearly a half a billion euros, as the country’s foreign population continues to balloon. Data from the Federal Employment Agency, released following an information request from the anti-globalist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, has revealed that 459 million […]
While short-term adjustments in spending can boost government efficiency and eliminate wasteful programs, a permanent solution to economic stagnation and unending budget deficits must focus on the ideological core of the welfare state.
The Spanish will be, along with the Japanese, the only citizens of a large, developed economy who will end 2022 poorer than in 2019. Although Spain’s economic growth rate for 2022 is higher than both the global and Eurozone average, growing more than anyone is not enough, after having fallen further than everyone else.
After failing to achieve independence from Russian gas in the short term, German Minister of Economy Robert Habeck blocked the sale of the German subsidiary of Russian energy company Gazprom, and put it under state controlled trusteeship to ensure security of supply.
