Ambrose Evans-Pritchard



Profile:
Full name: Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Area of interest: The global economy, financial markets

Journals/Organisation: The Daily Telegraph

Email: [mailto:ambrose.evans-pritchard@telegraph.co.uk ambrose.evans-pritchard@telegraph.co.uk]

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Website: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard

Blog: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/ambrose_evans-pritchard

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Networks: http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/ambrose-evans-pritchard/a/b05/35a



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Education: Malvern College, Trinity College, Cambridge University, and La Sorbonne

Career: Washington correspondent for the Spectator in the mid-1980s. Joined the Telegraph in 1991, serving as Washington correspondent and later Europe correspondent in Brussels

Current position/role: International Business Editor


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Other: son of E. E. Evans-Pritchard, who was Professor of Social Anthropology at Oxford University from 1946 to 1970



Books & Debate:

 * The secret life of Bill Clinton: the unreported stories OCLC37594472, 1997

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Remit/Info: "Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has covered world politics and economics for a quarter century, based in Europe, the US, and Latin America. He joined the Telegraph in 1991, serving as Washington correspondent and later Europe correspondent in Brussels. He is now International Business Editor in London" - Daily Telegraph

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Email: [mailto:ambrose.evans-pritchard@telegraph.co.uk ambrose.evans-pritchard@telegraph.co.uk]

Website: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard

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Articles: 2012

 * Plateau Oil meets 125m Chinese cars - Oil spikes usually metastasize once energy costs reach 9pc of global GDP. The longer they stay there, the greater the damage - 4th March
 * ECB's Mario Draghi raises the stakes with trillion euro gamble - The European Central Bank is doubling up on a very risky bet - 1st March
 * China risks 'middle income trap' without free market revolution - China’s spectacular catch-up growth is nearing its limits, leaving the country prey to the "middle income trap" over coming years unless Beijing embraces the free market and relaxes its suffocating grip over the economy - 28th February
 * Spanish revolt brews as national economic rearmament begins in Europe - Spain's new prime minister has looked into the abyss and recoiled - 27th February
 * Greek debt accord hostage to political passions - Eurozone leaders have put off the day of reckoning for a few more months but the latest €130bn rescue package for Greece offers no path out of the crisis and is hostage to explosive political passions - 22nd February
 * Can a return to the drachma save Greece as unemployment soars? - Greece’s unemployment bomb has detonated. After a deceptive calm, the surge in job losses since last summer is shocking even for those who never believed that combined fiscal and monetary contraction could possibly lead to any result other than ruin - 20th February
 * Greek economy spirals down as EU forces final catharsis - A Greek default and traumatic ejection from the euro moved a step closer last night after eurozone finance ministers cancelled a crucial meeting, accusing Athens of failing to flesh out austerity cuts - 15th February
 * Germany's Carthaginian terms for Greece - The last time Germany needed a bail-out from world creditors, it secured better terms than shattered Greece last week - 12th February
 * French socialists’ Latin revolt against Germany - The half-century habits of Franco-German condominium die hard. It is a painful process for French elites to admit that monetary union is asphyxiating their economy and must inevitably trap France in mercantilist subordination to Germany - 6th February
 * Mario Draghi, the Latin Bloc’s monetarist avenger - The eurozone money supply is contracting at an accelerating pace on all fronts. The broad M3 gauge has fallen for the last three months in a row. A slump is already baked in the pie - 30th January
 * America overcomes the debt crisis as Britain sinks deeper into the swamp - Britain has sunk deeper into debt. Three years after bubble burst, the UK has barely begun to tackle the crushing burden left by Gordon Brown. The contrast with the United States is frankly shocking - 23rd January
 * 2012 could be the year Germany lets the euro die - So we enter Year IV of the Long Slump, the cruellest yet though not the most acute - 3rd January



Articles: 2011

 * Workers of Europe unite, you've only euro chains to lose - Europe's Left has suffered a calamitous six months. Socialist governments have met - 19th Decemberhistoric defeats in Portugal and Spain. Greece’s Pasok party was toppled by an EU technocrat Putsch. Ireland’s soft-Left Fianna Foil lost every seat in Dublin
 * Talk of 'nuclear default' sums up Left's anger at EU dictates - Tempers are fraying in austerity-racked Portugal. A top socialist politician was taped at a party dinner calling for diplomatic warfare against the EU's northern powers and issuing threats of debt default - 18th December
 * Merkel's Teutonic summit enshrines Hooverism in EU treaty law - Angela Merkel’s summit has sealed a 1930s outcome for Europe, further entrenching Germany’s misguided and contractionary policies without offering any viable way out of the crisis at hand - 12th December
 * S&P's fusillade is well-timed to warn Euroland - Better late than never. Standard & Poor's has been slow to recognise the default risk for states that give up their central bank in a currency union. Bond vigilantes have forced action - 7th December
 * Fiskalunion is worst of all worlds for Europe - Be careful of the German term 'Fiskalunion', the next phase of Europe’s misadventure. What Chancellor Angela Merkel means is increased powers to police the budgets of EMU sinner states - 5th December
 * Should the Fed save Europe from disaster? - The dam is breaking in Europe. Interbank lending has seized up. Much of the financial system is paralysed, setting off a credit crunch just as Euroland slides back into slump - 28th November
 * Latin showdown with Germany over ECB - Germany is facing a moment of strategic truth. The sacred union with France that has held together through thick and thin for half a century is in growing danger as contagion spreads North, engulfing the French bond market - 17th November
 * The great euro Putsch rolls on as two democracies fall - Europe’s scorched-earth policies have begun in earnest. The inherent flaws of monetary union have created a crisis of such gravity that EU leaders now feel authorized to topple two elected governments - 14th November
 * Europe's rescue fiasco leaves Italy defenceless - The six weeks allotted to save monetary union have expired. The G20 has come and gone, yet no workable firewall is in place as the drama engulfs Italy and threatens to light the fuse on the world’s third largest edifice of debt - 7th November
 * ECB's Teutonic Mario chills bond rescue hopes - Investors are slowly digesting the bittersweet message from Mario Draghi, the Teutonic Italian now at the helm of the European Central Bank - 4th November
 * The two halves of the eurozone are locked in a broken marriage - One by one, the democracies of Southern Europe are being broken on the wheel of monetary union - 31st October
 * Europe's grand gamble risks failure without ECB - Europe's "Grand Plan" to save monetary union is, in broad terms, a settled matter, even if the usual theatrics were still dragging on into the small hours of the Belgian night - 27th October
 * World power swings back to America - The American phoenix is slowly rising again. Within five years or so, the US will be well on its way to self-sufficiency in fuel and energy. Manufacturing will have closed the labour gap with China in a clutch of key industries. The current account might even be in surplus - 24th October
 * Europe's lost decade as $7 trillion loan crunch looms - Europe’s banks face a $7 trillion lending contraction to bring their balance sheets in line with the US and Japan, threatening to trap the region in a credit crunch and chronic depression for a decade - 17th October
 * Protectionism beckons as leaders push world into Depression - The world savings rate has surpassed its modern-era high of 24pc. This is the killer in the global system. It is why we are at imminent risk of tipping into a second, deeper leg of intractable depression - 3rd October
 * Geithner Plan for Europe is last chance to avoid global catastrophe - Europe, the G20, and the global authorities have one last chance to contain the EMU debt crisis with a nuclear solution or abdicate responsibility and watch as the world slides into depression, endangering the benign but fragile order that has taken shape over the last three decades - 26th September
 * Fear gauge enters the red zone - Europe's debt crisis risks escalating out of control as the world economy slides towards a double-dip slump with few shock absorbers left to limit the damage - 23rd September
 * Can China escape as world's debt crisis reaches Act III? - When America became the first casualty of the global credit bubble in 2007, Europe's political elites thought it had nothing to do with them - 19th September
 * Germany and Greece flirt with mutual assured destruction - Bild Zeitung populism has prevailed. Germany is pushing Greece towards a hard default, risking the uncontrollable chain reaction so long feared by markets - 12th September
 * German endgame for EMU draws ever nearer - For fifty years Germany has invariably stumped up the money required to keep Europe’s Project on track, responding to unreasonable demands with grace and generosity - 5th September
 * Nobel gurus warn Britain on fiscal overkill and Fed on monetary overkill - A leading Nobel economist has backed Labour's warnings that the UK is slashing spending too fast and risks tipping a fragile economy into another downward leg - 26th August
 * Relax, central banks can still save us - Our situation is desperate but not serious, as the Viennese say - 22nd August
 * ECB is euroland's last hope as bail-out machinery fails to resolve crisis - The leaders of Germany and France have three bad choices as they decide whether to save EMU this week, or pretend to do so - 15th August
 * We face recession without shock absorbers as Berlin loses patience with the eurozone - The Great Reprieve is exhausted. The world has used up the three years' grace gained by extreme stimulus after the debt bubble burst in 2008 - 8th August
 * The West's horrible fiscal choice - The US, Britain, and Europe are together embarking on a sudden and severe tightening of fiscal policy, in unison, before economic recovery has reached safe take-off speed. The experiment was last tried in the 1930s - 4th August
 * America is merely wounded, Europe risks death - We have a glimmer of hope. The key indicators of the US money supply are at last firing on all cylinders, a dramatic turn for the better that would normally signal recovery or even a mini-boom within the next six to 12 months - 1st August
 * Europe's ideologues took the whole world to the brink of disaster - Champions of the European Project can claim a dubious vindication - 25th July
 * Franco-German axis loses its wheels - Nicolas Sarkozy has swooped into Berlin to secure a “clear, clean and precise response” from Chancellor Angela Merkel to the dramatic crisis engulfing the eurozone. He is unlikely to get one - 21st July
 * Only Germany can save EMU as contagion turns systemic - Europe's leaders have finally run out of time. If they fail to agree on some form of debt pooling and shared fiscal destiny at Thursday's emergency summit, they risk a full-fledged run on South Europe's bond markets and a disorderly collapse of monetary union - 20th July
 * A modest proposal for eurozone break-up - The eurozone can in theory still be saved, if two sets of conditions are fulfilled; if the leaders of Germany, Austria, Finland, and the Netherlands accept fiscal union and a common pooling of debt, and can persuade their parliaments and courts to ratify such a revolution - 18th July
 * Return of the Gold Standard as world order unravels - As the twin pillars of international monetary system threaten to come tumbling down in unison, gold has reclaimed its ancient status as the anchor of stability - 16th July
 * Europe steps back from the abyss, for a day - The European Union has reached "crunch time" in the words of George Papandreou, Greece's despondent premier. Its leaders can longer allow themselves the luxury of "indecisiveness, errors and tactical politics" as the debt crisis engulfs 40pc of the eurozone's economy and almost half its population - 14th July
 * Italy and Spain must pray for a miracle - Once again Europe's debt crisis has metastasized, and once again the financial authorities face systemic contagion unless they take immediate and dramatic action - 11th July
 * Germany's judges hold the euro's fate in their hands - Whether or not Europe's monetary union survives in its current form, shrinks to a Carolingian core, or shatters, depends as much on abstruse legal arguments put forward on Tuesday in Germany's constitutional court as it does on the parallel drama unfolding on Greek streets - 6th July
 * Safe nuclear does exist, and China is leading the way with thorium - A few weeks before the tsunami struck Fukushima’s uranium reactors and shattered public faith in nuclear power, China revealed that it was launching a rival technology to build a safer, cleaner, and ultimately cheaper network of reactors based on thorium - 21st March
 * World energy crunch as nuclear and oil both go wrong - The existential crisis for the world's nuclear industry could hardly have come at a worse moment - 17th March
 * Total German triumph as EU minnows subjugated - The Iron Chancellor of Germany could not have been clearer. “Whoever wants credit must fulfill our conditions“ - 14th March
 * Oil markets brace for Saudi 'rage' as global spare capacity wears thin - Those exhorting OPEC to boost output should be careful what they wish for. The cartel card can be played once only, and it risks exposing the fragility of the global energy system if the Gulf powers are seen struggling to deliver - 9th March
 * Flat-Earth European Central Bank misreads oil spike again, and kicks Spain in the teeth - The European Central Bank has once again risen to the bait. Faced with an oil supply shock that deflates incomes, it plans to tighten the vice yet further with a knee-jerk rate rise in April - 7th March
 * Will 'Chindia' rule the world in 2050, or America after all? - With a small tweak in assumptions and the inexorable force of compound arithmetic, Citigroup and HSBC have come up with radically different pictures of what the world will look like in 2050 - 28th February
 * Germany must choose EMU fusion or fission - For the sake of peripheral nations, Mrs Merkel has to stop paying lip-service to monetary union - 21st February
 * Vibrant exports will save Spain, and perhaps the euro - Nestled in the lush hills of the Basque Country – literally amid birdsong and Pyrennean lambs – a very young company called Industria de Turbo Propulsores (ITP) makes low-pressure turbine engines for half the world’s big passenger jets - 14th February
 * Einstein was right - honey bee collapse threatens global food security - The bee crisis has been treated as a niche concern until now, but as the UN's index of food prices hits an all time-high, it is becoming urgent to know whether the plight of the honey bee risks further exhausting our food security - 7th February
 * Egypt and Tunisia usher in the new era of global food revolutions - Political risk has returned with a vengeance. The first food revolutions of our Malthusian era have exposed the weak grip of authoritarian regimes in poor countries that import grain, whether in North Africa today or parts of Asia tomorrow - 31st January
 * Appeasement is the proper policy towards Confucian China - We all learned at school how the status quo powers mismanaged the spectacular rise of Germany before World War I, a strategic revolution so like the rise of China today - 24th January
 * EMU policies are pushing Southern Europe into systemic political crisis - Let us assume for the sake of argument that Europe succeeds in containing the immediate EMU debt crisis, with help from Asia, and that Germany’s fractious coalition actually agrees to a bail-out fund big enough to make any difference - 17th January
 * Deepening crisis traps America's have-nots - The US is drifting from a financial crisis to a deeper and more insidious social crisis. Self-congratulation by the US authorities that they have this time avoided a repeat of the 1930s is premature - 10th January
 * Overheating East to falter before the bankrupt West recovers - From the overheating East to a troubled West, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard offers his predictions on the global economy next year - 3rd January



Articles: 2010

 * Germany must accept a euro-debt union or leave EMU'' - If Germany and its hard-money allies genuinely wish to save the euro – which is open to doubt – they should stop posturing, face up to the grim imperative of a Transferunion, and desist immediately from imposing their ruinous and reactionary policies of debt deflation on southern Europe and Ireland - 20th December
 * eurozone is in bad need of an undertaker'' - The EU’s Franco-German "Directoire" and the European Central Bank have between them ruled out all plausible solutions to the eurozone’s debt crisis - 13th December
 * credit bubble on borrowed time as inflation bites'' - The Royal Bank of Scotland has advised clients to take out protection against the risk of a sovereign default by China as one of its top trade trades for 2011. This is a new twist - 6th December
 * faces its awful choice as Spain wobbles'' - Desperate moments call for desperate measures. In June 1940, the British War Cabinet led by Winston Churchill offered a total national merger to a shattered France - 29th November
 * next as EMU's Máquina Infernal keeps ticking'' - The Portuguese seemed baffled - and pained - that investors should link their country in any way with Greece or Ireland. I am afraid they must come to terms very soon with some unpleasant facts - 22nd November
 * stumbles blindly towards its 1931 moment'' - It is the European Central Bank that should be printing money on a mass scale to purchase government debt, not the US Federal Reserve - 15th November
 * will survive the errors of Ben Bernanke's trigger-happy Federal Reserve'' - America is a resilient nation, with far healthier demographics than China, Japan, Korea, Germany, Italy or Russia. The storm will blow over - 7th November
 * Merkel consigns Ireland, Portugal and Spain to their fate'' - Germany has had enough. Any eurozone state that spends its way into a debt crisis or cannot adapt to a monetary union set for Northern rhythms will face “orderly” bankruptcy - 1st November
 * wars are necessary if all else fails'' - The overwhelming fact of the global currency system is that America needs a much weaker dollar to bring its economy back into kilter and avoid slow ruin, yet the rest of the world cannot easily handle the consequences of such a wrenching adjustment. There is not enough demand to go around - 11th October
 * admits that the West is stuck in near depression'' - If you strip away the political correctness, Chapter Three of the IMF's World Economic Outlook more or less condemns Southern Europe to death by slow suffocation and leaves little doubt that fiscal tightening will trap North Europe, Britain and America in slump for a long time - 4th October
 * is the final refuge against universal currency debasement'' - States accounting for two-thirds of the global economy are either holding down their exchange rates by direct intervention or steering currencies lower in an attempt to shift problems on to somebody else, each with their own plausible justification. Nothing like this has been seen since the 1930s - 27th September
 * IMF itself has become the problem as Europe's woes return'' - Once a quorum of big names says the game is up in a debt crisis, events move fast and furiously - 20th September
 * backlash begins against the world landgrab'' - The neo-colonial rush for global farmland has gone exponential since the food scare of 2007-2008 - 13th September
 * Defeatism is taking hold among America's economic elites'' - Goldilocks has played a trick on America. Growth is not warm enough to prevent hard-core unemployment climbing to post-war highs and sticking at levels that corrode the body politic, but not yet cold enough to overcome the fierce resistance of the Fed's regional hawks for a fresh blast of stimulus - 5th September
 * could kill fossil fuels overnight with a nuclear dash for thorium'' - If Barack Obama were to marshal America’s vast scientific and strategic resources behind a new Manhattan Project, he might reasonably hope to reinvent the global energy landscape and sketch an end to our dependence on fossil fuels within three to five years - 30th August
 * no longer needs Chinese money, for now'' - As the Sino-American showdown in the South China and Yellow Seas escalates into the gravest superpower clash since the Cold War, the United States cannot wisely rely on China to help fund its budget deficit for any longer - 23rd August
 * can withstand the euro's ordeal by fire, but can Southern Europe?'' - Much of the world’s Viagra is produced at a single Pfizer plant in Ringaskiddy south of Cork. All its Lipitor API for cholesterol comes from a neighbouring site at Little Island - 16th August
 * spike queers the pitch for Bernanke's QE2'' - Don't be fooled: a food and oil price spike is not and cannot be inflationary in those advanced industrial economies where the credit system remains broken, the broad money supply is contracting, and fiscal policy is tightening by design or default - 9th August
 * political summer as China throttles rare metal supply and claims South China Sea'' - The United States and Europe have been remarkably insouciant about supplies of rare earth minerals so crucial to frontier technologies, from hybrid engines to mobile phones, superconductors, radar and smart bombs - 2nd August
 * Death of Paper Money'' - As they prepare for holiday reading in Tuscany, City bankers are buying up rare copies of an obscure book on the mechanics of Weimar inflation published in 1974 - 26th July
 * Europe's banks won't stave off a deflationary vortex'' - Euroland's authorities are inflicting a triple shock of fiscal, monetary, and currency tightening on a broken economy - 19th July
 * über alles does not mean a trickledown recovery in EMU'' - Germany is sizzling, for now. Manufacturing output grew at an annual rate of 26pc from March to May. Mercedes, BMW, and Audi are ramping up overtime. Economic growth in the second quarter may top 5.2pc - 12th July
 * the US trapped in depression, this really is starting to feel like 1932'' - The US workforce shrank by 652,000 in June, one of the sharpest contractions ever. The rate of hourly earnings fell 0.1pc. Wages are flirting with deflation - 5th July
 * tells clients to prepare for 'monster' money-printing by the Federal Reserve'' - As recovery starts to stall in the US and Europe with echoes of mid-1931, bond experts are once again dusting off a speech by Ben Bernanke given eight years ago as a freshman governor at the Federal Reserve - 26th June
 * is trapped in a 'perverse spiral' as wage cuts deepen the crisis'' - The Spanish Inquisition used to burn Englishmen in Sevilla's Plaza de San Francisco when they had the chance. There must have been some nostalgia for this practice when the news hit that Fitch Ratings had stripped the country of its AAA status - 1st June
 * deflation torture is a gift to the Far Left'' - If Europe’s ultra-Left has so far reaped little dividend from the great "Crisis of Capitalism", this will surely change as the eurozone’s 1930s policies of wage deflation sap the credibility of the governing centre and the EU itself - 24th May
 * the wolf pack – the ongoing euro crisis was caused by EMU'' - Jean-Claude Trichet tells us the world faced a second Lehman crash in the days and hours before EU leaders launched their €720bn (£612bn) defence fund. If the European Central Bank’s president is correct, we are in trouble - 17th May
 * prepares nuclear response to save monetary union'' - Are Europe's leaders grasping the nettle at last? - 10th May
 * union has delivered a 'German Europe' after all'' - We now know the answer to Henry Kissinger's question: "Who do I call if I want to call Europe?" Only one person matters. The Chancellor of Germany - 3rd May
 * madhouse fuels EMU-wide contagion from Greece'' - If the chief purpose behind the EU-IMF bail-out for Greece – or for banks exposed to Greece – is to prevent a "full-blown and contagious sovereign debt crisis", the market verdict must be a sobering surprise - 26th April
 * Greek people are being punished for Europe's errors'' - The moment of "Ultima Ratio" has arrived for Greece. Brussels has failed to bluff investors with fudges that mask the battle between Germany and France over the shape of Europe 12th April
 * on the prowl as Bernanke shuts down his printing press'' - The most audacious monetary experiment in modern history ended on April Fools' Day. America must walk without crutches, on gangrenous legs - 5th April
 * has left Greece hanging in the wind'' - However you dress it, the Greek package agreed by EU leaders is a capitulation to German-Dutch demands. There will be no European debt union as long as Angela Merkel remains Iron Chancellor of Germany - 29th March
 * Germany just killed the dream of a European superstate?'' - So after weeks of Euro-bluff it looks ever more like an IMF rescue for Greece after all, and hence for any other eurozone nation driven to ruin by the wrong monetary policy - 22nd March
 * China's Politburo spoiling for a showdown with America?'' - The long-simmering clash between the world's two great powers is coming to a head, with dangerous implications for the international system - 15th March
 * go wobbly on us now, Ben Bernanke'' - Barack Obama's home state of Illinois is near the point of fiscal disintegration. "The state is in utter crisis," said Representative Suzie Bassi. "We are next to bankruptcy. We have a $13bn hole in a $28bn budget." - 28th February
 * monetary union has become an instrument of deflation torture'' - If the purpose of the euro was to bind Europe's tribes together and serve as catalyst for political union, EU elites must have been chastened by the outpouring of anti-German feeling in the Greek parliament last week -22nd February
 * growls as Greece balks at immolation'' - The EU has issued a political pledge to rescue Greece – and by precedent, all Club Med – without first securing a mandate from the parliaments of creditor nations - 15th February
 * markets call EU bluff on Greek rescue?'' - Greek bail-out accord lacks substance and finance's poker players may soon call its bluff - 13th February
 * Ouzo crisis escalates into global margin call as confidence ebbs'' - For the third time in 18 months the global financial system risks spinning out of control unless political leaders take immediate and radical action - 8th February
 * Germany bail out Club Med or leave the euro altogether?'' - Germany faces a terrible dilemma. Either Europe's paymaster agrees to underwrite a Greek bail-out and drops its vehement opposition to a de facto EU economic government, treasury, and debt union, or the euro will start to unravel, and with it Germany's strategic investment in the post-war order - 1st February
 * prepares legal ground for euro rupture as Greek crisis escalates'' - Fears of a euro break-up have reached the point where the European Central Bank feels compelled to issue a legal analysis of what would happen if a country tried to leave monetary union - 18th January
 * slides deeper into depression as Wall Street revels'' - December was the worst month for US unemployment since the Great Recession began - 11th January
 * bear rally of 2009 will end as Japan's hyperinflation rips economy to pieces'' - Milton Keynes will be vindicated. Lord Keynes will lose some of his new-found gloss. The Krugman doctrine that we should all spend our way back to health by pushing deficits to the brink of a debt spiral – or beyond the brink – will be seen as dangerous - 4th January



Articles: 2009

 * 'Diktats’ risk terrorist response across Southern Europe'' - It is becoming dangerous to associate with economic and ideological power in Southern Europe, or what Europol calls the "Mediterranean triangle" of anarchist violence - 21st December
 * defies Europe as EMU crisis turns deadly serious'' - Euroland's revolt has begun. Greece has become the first country on the distressed fringes of Europe's monetary union to defy Brussels and reject the Dark Age leech-cure of wage deflation - 14th December
 * a return to the Star Chamber as Europe finally tramples Magna Carta into the dust'' - If you have a spare evening, read the Magna Carta. It is a restraining document. What leaps out from the pages of Langton’s text is the intent to protect subjects from overweening authority (in this case, Norman-French despotism), by restoring ancient freedoms - 7th December
 * tests the limit of sovereign debt as it grinds towards slump'' - Greece is disturbingly close to a debt compound spiral. It is the first developed country on either side of the Atlantic to push unfunded welfare largesse to the limits of market tolerance - 23rd November
 * has now become the biggest risk to the world economy'' - Far from taking over as the engine of growth from an exhausted West, China is making matters worse. Its "beggar-thy-neighbour" policies continue to play havoc with global trade and risk tipping the world into a second leg of the Great Recession - 16th November
 * brave investors, Zimbabwe could be the ultimate turnaround story'' - When the Movement for Democratic Change took over Zimbabwe's economy earlier this year, there was not much left to run. Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF regime had carried out the most comprehensive destruction of a productive system seen in modern times short of war - 9th November
 * is Japan we should be worrying about, not America'' - Japan is drifting helplessly towards a dramatic fiscal crisis. For 20 years the world's second-largest economy has been able to borrow cheaply from a captive bond market, feeding its addiction to Keynesian deficit spending – and allowing it to push public debt beyond the point of no return - 3rd November
 * will never be so cheap again'' - Biofuel refineries in the US have set fresh records for grain use every month since May. Almost a third of the US corn harvest will be diverted into ethanol for motors this year, or 12pc of the global crop - 26th October
 * sterling crash is a godsend'' - Britain has twice averted disaster over the past century by a timely – if humiliating – crash in sterling. In neither case was it obvious that this would lead to a decade-long revival in British fortunes - 19th October
 * crisis is postponed as new gas rescues the world'' - Engineers have performed their magic once again. The world is not going to run short of energy as soon as feared - 12th October
 * result in Ireland shows that Europe's usurpers have succeeded'' - The deed is done. Ireland has been coerced at a moment of acute distress into accepting an EU treaty that emasculates the Irish Supreme Court and that voters have already rejected once - 5th October
 * figures show there's trouble ahead'' - Private credit is contracting on both sides of the Atlantic. The M3 money data is flashing early warning signals of a deflation crisis next year in nearly half the world economy. Emergency schemes that have propped up spending are being withdrawn, gently or otherwise - 27th September
 * deflation laboratory of the Baltics'' - Property prices in Estonia's Hanseatic capital of Tallinn have fallen by 59pc from their peak in the Baltic boom, a remarkable state of affairs for an EU country nestled against Russia on the most dangerous fault line in Europe - 21st September
 * Britain is better off out of the Euro'' - Gordon Brown may find that his greatest achievement was to keep Britain out of the euro - 19th September
 * is a footnote in the great East-West globalisation crisis'' - You can see why markets and governments both like to blame Lehman Brothers for the "Great Contraction". Such wishful thinking shields investors from the nasty reality that deeper forces are at work: it absolves officialdom from its own destructive role in fixing the price of credit too low for 20 years, luring us into debt - 13th September
 * the world have the courage to deal with its debts?'' - Deflation is spreading from the core of the global system to the most unexpected regions of the world - 7th September
 * quarter-century penance is just starting'' - Never in modern times has there been such a flat contradiction between the euphoria of markets and the stern warnings of officialdom at central banks and financial watchdogs - 30th August
 * state to lend directly as second crunch looms'' - Fears recovery may falter as banks refuse to roll over loans may lead to drastic action - 27th August
 * powers ahead as it seizes the green energy crown from Europe'' - China is running away with the green technology prize. It has conquered a third of the world market for solar cells and is on a breakneck course to build 100 gigawatts of wind turbines by 2020 - 24th August
 * no quick fix to the global economy's excess capacity'' - There is one overwhelming fact about the world economy that cannot be wished away. Excess capacity in industry is hovering at levels not seen since the Great Depression - 16th August
 * krona proves the magic wand as Europe ails'' - Iceland's krona is working its magic cure. Well-heeled Japanese tourists – once a rarity – can be seen these days sampling halibut at Reykjavik's Siggi Hall, or buying Gymur jackets at the 66°North store on Bankastraeti - 27th July
 * ruin of the Western world beckons'' - For a glimpse of what awaits Britain, Europe, and America as budget deficits spiral to war-time levels, look at what is happening to the Irish welfare state - 19th July
 * digs its economic grave while the ECB answers to no one'' - The European Central Bank preens as the last guardian of virtue in a sinful world, yet its actions are devastating the public finances of almost every country under its care - 13th July
 * unemployment timebomb is quietly ticking'' - One dog has yet to bark in this long winding crisis. Beyond riots in Athens and a Baltic bust-up, we have not seen evidence of bitter political protest as the slump eats away at the legitimacy of governing elites in North America, Europe, and Japan. It may just be a matter of time - 5th July
 * banks are an accident waiting to happen to every one of us'' - Fitch Ratings has been warning for some time that China's lenders are wading into dangerous water - 29th June
 * believe the hyperinflation hype - dare to make cuts'' - London asset managers 36 South are launching a "hyperinflation fund" for those convinced that money-printing by central banks around the world must lead to Weimar or Zimbabwe soon enough - 21st June
 * risks trade suicide'' - Beijing is playing with fire by issuing a `Buy China' edict for its stimulus package - 18th June
 * crucifixion of Latvia'' - It is hard to pinpoint the moment when Argentina's currency peg became untenable in 2001, triggering the biggest sovereign default of modern times. The denouement sequence is worth rehearsing since it offers a crude guide for those with euro pegs in Eastern Europe, and ultimately perhaps for Club Med inside EMU. The explosive power of this broad group dwarfs Argentina - 15th June
 * inflationary fretting may wake the bears from hibernation'' - It is lonely in the diminishing camp of bears - 7th June
 * the EU seems intent on a putsch then UKIP should give it a shove'' - The European Union has slipped the leash of democratic control. It is one thing to advance the Monnet Project by treaty creep and stealth directives. It is another to put questions of sovereignty to a popular vote and then refuse to abide by the outcome - 1st June
 * tightens regulatory noose on City'' - The European Commission has seized on the financial crisis to bring the City under closer EU control and clip the wings of Britain's Financial Services Authority, unveiling far-reaching plans for a new EU regulatory machinery with binding powers - 28th May
 * bugs at last have their perfect trinity'' - China has doubled its bullion reserves and left us in no doubt that it will spend more of its $40bn monthly surplus on hard assets rather than the toxic paper of Western democracies - 24th May
 * looks to the land of the rising sun with envy'' - Loss of "AAA" status is not in itself a death sentence. A string of rich countries have been ejected from the club over the past decade without calamitous results, and most have clawed their way back in after a few years of penance - 23rd May
 * will author its own destruction if it triggers a crisis over US bonds'' - Japan beware, crashes have a habit of bringing regime change - 18th May
 * the rally while it lasts - but expect to take a sucker punch'' - Our delicious spring rally is nearing the limits. The 40pc rise on global bourses since March assumes that central banks have conjured away the debt overhang by slashing rates to zero and printing money. Nothing of the sort has occurred. Two thirds of the world economy will be in deflation by July - 11th May
 * in danger of falling victim to EU wiles and becoming another Antwerp'' - The City of London is on borrowed time. Great banking centres can prosper for 40 years or so after the host country has lost industrial leadership but then some shock or political upset exposes the fragility of it all - 5th May
 * capital well is running dry and some economies will wither'' - The world is running out of capital. We cannot take it for granted that the global bond markets will prove deep enough to fund the $6 trillion or so needed for the Obama fiscal package, US-European bank bail-outs, and ballooning deficits almost everywhere - 26th April
 * try to spot the great oil rebound'' - Oil is too cheap. At around $50 a barrel, it is trading far below the production costs of almost all new sources of crude and energy substitutes - 20th April
 * is ECB's sacrifical lamb to satisfy German inflation demands'' - Put bluntly, Ireland is being forced to roll back the welfare state and tighten fiscal policy in the midst of a savage economic contraction in order to uphold the deflation orthodoxies of Europe's monetary union - 12th April
 * slide into deflation signals the next chapter of this global crisis'' - Watch Switzerland closely. It is tipping into deflation, the first Western country to succumb to Japan's disease - 6th April
 * G20 moves the world a step closer to a global currency'' - The world is a step closer to a global currency, backed by a global central bank, running monetary policy for all humanity - 3rd April (G20)
 * a united front at the London G20 can save the world from ruin'' - Industrial production is collapsing faster than during the Great Depression. Social and political devastation will not be far behind, unless the G20 can heal global divisions - 29th March
 * fetches the monetary helicopters, at long last'' - Rejoice. After much pious posturing – and criminal wastage of time – the European Central Bank at last seems ready join the Anglo-Saxons, Japanese, Swiss, and Isrealis in printing money to fend off disaster - 27th March
 * to the Bank it's a crisis; in the eurozone it's a total catastrophe'' - The Bank of England may have averted a catastrophe. If ever there was a time when this country needed its own monetary authorities – acting with wartime urgency – this is the moment - 9th March 2009
 * need shock and awe policies to halt depression'' - As ordinary citizens with no power over the levers of policy, we watch from the sidelines, and weep. The whole global economy has tipped into a downward spiral - 1st March 2009
 * markets take fright at 'EU bond''' - The capital markets have become increasingly uneasy over proposals to use the European Investment Bank as an all-purpose fireman to prop up weaker regions of the eurozone or come to the rescue of Eastern Europe - 26th February 2009
 * Germany deliver on the Faustian bargain that created monetary union?'' - If Der Spiegel is correct, the German finance ministry is drafting rescue plans to prevent default on the edges of the eurozone leading to a full-blown collapse of Europe's monetary system - 23rd February 2009
 * must be rescued from tragi-comedy for Europe's sake'' - Ukraine is degenerating into tragi-comedy. The president and premier are at daggers drawn - 19th February 2009
 * to save East Europe will lead to worldwide meltdown'' - The unfolding debt drama in Russia, Ukraine, and the EU states of Eastern Europe has reached acute danger point - 15th February 2009
 * market calls Fed's bluff as global economy falls apart'' - Global bond markets are calling the bluff of the US Federal Reserve - 9th February 2009
 * Davos, protectionism is a dirty word'' - The beggar-thy-neighbour phase has begun in earnest. "Buy American" legislation has advanced from a barely credible threat to imminent reality on Capitol Hill in just weeks - 1st February 2009
 * news: we're back to 1931. Good news: it's not 1933 yet'' - Barack Obama inherits an economy already contracting at an annual rate of 6pc, much like the mid-Depression year of 1931 - 27th January 2009
 * euro is torture instrument for Spain'' - Ten years of euro membership have lured Spain into a terrible trap - 20th January 2009
 * union has left half of Europe trapped in depression'' - 19th January 2009
 * bond bubble is an accident waiting to happen'' - The bond vigilantes slumber. As the greatest sovereign bond bubble of all time rolls into 2009, investors are clinging to an implausible assumption that China and Japan will provide enough capital to keep the happy game going for ever - 13th January 2009
 * will emerge as undisputed top dog in 2009'' - Interest rates near zero across the G10 bloc will prevent a replay of the Great Depression, but they will not pull us quickly out of the doldrums - 6th January 2009
 * needs to fully wake up to the scale of the West's economic crisis'' - Asia is not going to rescue the world economy - 5th January 2009
 * euro's bitter-sweet triumph at 10'' - If the purpose of the euro is to confront US dollar hegemony and turn the European Union into a monetary superpower, it is a signal triumph. But politicians should be careful what they wish for - 1st January 2009



Articles: 2008

 * dominoes are beginning to tumble across the world'' - The riots have begun. Civil protest is breaking out in cities across Russia, China, and beyond - 21st December 2008
 * Reserve is damned either way as it battles debt and deflation'' - We know what causes a recession to metastasize into a slump. Irving Fisher, the paramount US economist of the inter-war years, wrote the text in 1933: "Debt-Deflation Theory of Great Depressions" - 19th December 2008
 * interest rates: Mr Bernanke correctly judged the risk of deflation'' - It is not yet clear whether America is sliding into a deflation trap but the risk is grave enough to justify radical measures as insurance against a potentially disastrous chain of events - 17th December 2008
 * Germany gets a free ride with its beggar-thy-neighbour policy'' - For the first time in my life, I am starting to feel twinges of anti-German sentiment - 15th December 2008
 * virus is moving the policy test beyond the 1930s extremes'' - Debt deflation is tightening its grip over the entire global system. Interest rates are creeping towards zero in Japan, America, and now across most of Europe - 7th December 2008
 * best left to its own (de)vices'' - Joining the single currency would only make Britain's situation worse - 2nd December 2008
 * stability hangs by a thread as economies continue to unravel'' - The political bubble is bursting. Spreads on geo-strategic risk are now widening as dramatically as the spreads on financial risk at the onset of the credit crunch - 2nd December 2008
 * ECB' calls for immediate and drastic rates cuts'' - A forum of top economists from banks and institutes across Europe have called for drastic cuts in interest rates to head off a slump in the eurozone, slamming the European Central Bank for reacting too slowly to the fast-moving crisis - 29th November 2008
 * should join euro says Hong Kong's Tsang'' - Efforts to hold on to sterling are doomed to failure in a global economy dominated by powerful currency blocs, said Hong Kong's leader Donald Tsang - 28th November 2008
 * is really no choice: we must back Gordon Brown’s blitz'' - The Prime Minister may be the architect of the financial mess we are in, but he is right about the measures that must now be taken – and the Tories are wrong to oppose them - 23rd November 2008
 * wary of Irish debt as fresh rescue looms'' - Ireland's bank rescue has begun to unravel despite a blanket debt guarantee for the country's top lenders, prompting concerns that Europe's credit crisis may be entering a second and more menacing phase - 20th November 2008
 * banal reality lies in between energy superpower and bankrupt state'' - Russia has been losing $10bn in foreign reserves a week since it snatched South Ossetia and ramped up the new Cold War with nuclear threats - 18th November 2008
 * all hope once you enter deflation'' - The price of white truffles has fallen 84pc. Fines wines have dropped 65pc. Lobsters are off 52pc. Deflation has reached the City. It has engulfed housing and now threatens to spread through the broader economy, lodging like a virus in the British and global monetary systems - 14th November 2008

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