Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Apple set to lose billions in EU state aid case

The Financial Times reported on September 30th that the European Commission has decided to open a formal investigation into whether Apple received illegal subsidies (“state aid,” in EU-speak) from Ireland going as far back as 1991. The FT quotes “people involved in the case” as saying that this can cost Apple billions of euros. What […]

Apple, Starbucks, Others Under EU Tax Investigation

No sooner do I comment on the difference between tax planning and tax avoidance than Richard Murphy points out that several multinational corporations are having their tax deals looked at for potential violations of the European Union’s state aid rules. As The Guardian and The Wall Street Journal report, there are three cases currently under […]

Is ‘overbanked’ going to be a common household word?

Via The Big Picture and Ritholz comes Nervousness in over banked Europe Go no further than the following two charts to understand why markets freaked out over Dijsselbloem’s comments.    Europe is way overbanked and vulnerable to financial sector shocks.Even in the so-called “safe haven” Switzerland the banking system is outsized relative to the country’s GDP.  […]

Europeans, Republicans Dreaming Up New Ways to Destroy Global Economy

While we are busy paying attention to the 550th edition of Republican-caused fake crises (aka the sequester), a much more real crisis is brewing in the Eurozone. Richard Field at Trust Your Instincts flags a Reuters report that that Eurozone regulators are strongly considering a proposal to make not just investors in Cyprus banks pay […]

European Daily Catch: Know Your Consumers

by Rebecca Wilder European Daily Catch: Know Your Consumers Today’s European Daily Catch compares the aggregate implications of the reported January 1-point rise in French household confidence to the reported January stabilization of Italian consumer confidence. Specifically, French consumers could be ‘happier’ but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re spending more, while Italian household confidence translates rather […]

Start from Silliness and the Product is…?

Begin with a Really Stupid Assumption: Assume Tom Friedman is correct. Not about the brilliance of cab drivers, or the flatness of the Earth, or even that AGW is the route to revitalize the U.S. economy.* But assume as valid his claim that the “global economy” makes war less likely; that Pakistan and India won’t […]

The Pound’s Not Sinking, The Yen’s Not Keeping Up…

Spent the past few minutes reading Alea. jck notes that, over the past five years, the Pound has grown in importance at the expense of the yen and that the Euro has done the same against the dollar. If this goes against your memory, you’re not part of the IMF. Even better is when jck […]

A Conversation with George Soros

With thanks to Felix Salmon for arranging the invitation. There’s an episode of House where he has to get rid of one of the people for his new team.  By the end of the episode, the sharpest person in the group has said everything that we would have expected to hear from House—and is therefore […]