At this time of the year, my students are preparing for their exams with a mixture of trepidation, confidence, resignation, hope or fear. The best way to prepare is to simply do one thing at a time. Concentrate on making small improvements and importantly keep practising past papers. Students who just do a bit of …
Quantitative easing is an unorthodox monetary policy aimed at stimulating economic growth and preventing a fall in the money supply. Just to recap, Q.E. involves: Central Bank creating money electronically. Using this extra money to purchase government bonds (and other securities) from banks and financial institutions. Q.E aims to: Increase bank liquidity. When commercial banks …
The global economy faces many difficulties, both short term and long term. In the short term, the global economy risks a prolonged period of sluggish growth, which will lead to problems such as high unemployment, debt default and low investment. In the longer term, the global economy faces greater threats from the environment, demographic changes …
Forgive me, I’m not an economist, but I am a working woman and a taxpayer and a consumer. Lowering prices does NOT encourage us to put off spending…if I see something I want or need for a lower price you can bet your butt I’m getting it before the price goes back up! When an …
Readers Question: I only recently discovered your site, which is spectacular, and have been reading every article since then. However, I found that two of your articles are contradicting. In your article “Problems of Deflation” you state that the current monetary policy of the EU is tight due to 0.5% inflation and interest rates. In …
Recently, the Euro has fallen from 1.5 Dollars to 1 Euro in 2011 to near parity in March 2015. The fall in the value of the Euro has been very steep in the last six months. This is a very significant depreciation in the Euro, and primarily reflects the greater economic weakness in the Eurozone. …
Readers Question: Is there an inbuilt deflationary bias in the Eurozone? Note: I originally wrote this post in 2010. Unfortunately, every year there is a reason to update the post and suggest the deflationary bias in the Eurozone keeps getting stronger. Deflationary bias means that there is a tendency for economic policy to promote lower …
Readers Question. Just saw a video called ‘How to waste £375 billion? (The Failure of Quantitative Easing)’ by Positive Money. I’ve recently started reading your blog and find your posts very informative. I wonder what you make of the ideas in this video and of this group in particular? (I haven’t seen the video. For …