“The Rise of Zombies in the Wake of COVID-19″ Gerard Lucyshyn, courtesy of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy We are spending double the amount of time on our streaming platforms compared to last year, close to 45.4 billion minutes spent on Netflix alone in the first few weeks of March 2020. Movie titles such as: 28 Weeks Later (2007), Quarantine (2008), Carriers (2009), […]
Tag: finance
Spain faces tough choices for economic stimulus, qualitative reforms needed
“Will economic measures against the coronavirus be effective?” By Hugo Pereira, courtesy of Civismo We are, without a doubt, facing a historic moment. The coronavirus not only infected people, but practically all of the social spheres: politics, the economy, and even our own psychology. We have come to realize that we are not as […]
Reject a government takeover of consumer lending
By Phil Kerpen, courtesy of American Commitment Price controls don’t work, cause shortages, and have precipitated economic disaster in every sector and jurisdiction that has attempted to impose them on any significant scale. But their braindead simplicity – something is too expensive, so we’ll mandate that it be cheaper – makes them forever […]
Europeans take the Euro for granted
By Joris Melman and Giuseppe Porcaro, courtesy of the Bruegel Institute How can we understand citizens’ attitudes towards the euro and its politics? A previous research project studied narratives of the euro crisis and explored the blame game that marked these years. The study found part of the answer to why it has been so hard […]
Who will steer Brexit in months to come?
“Post-Brexit: who are the new thinkers that will reshape Britain” By Jack Powell, courtesy of the Austrian Economics Center Many in the anti-Brexit lobby are still trying to portray the vote to leave the European Union as the project of a very small number of Westminster elites. Carole Cadwalladr and her band of […]
In favor of climate-based stress tests for banks
“Climate risks to European banks: a new era of stress tests” By Alexander Lehmann, courtesy of the Bruegel Institute The release of a proposed methodology for assessing climate risks within UK banks and insurers by the Bank of England just before Christmas has fueled calls for a similar ‘climate stress test’ for European […]
Europe needs a money laundering czar to lead crackdown
“A European anti–money laundering supervisor: From vision to legislation” By Nicolas Véron and Joshua Kirschenbaum, courtesy of the Bruegel Institute The European Union is moving toward implementing a policy to strengthen anti–money laundering (AML) supervision across its Single Market, namely enforcing requirements on banks and other firms to ensure they do not facilitate […]
Don’t loosen bank rules for Green New Deal
“European green finance is expanding, a discount on bank capital would discredit it” By Alexander Lehmann, courtesy of the Bruegel Institute The Commission’s ‘European Green Deal’ sets out massive investment needs in a variety of areas, amounting to potentially 1.5 per cent of the EU’s annual GDP. If these targets are to be […]
New finance rules: Too much information?
“MiFID II: Too much consumer protection?” By Benedikt Schmal and Alexander Fink, translation by Anna-Maria Köhnke; Courtesy of IREF The recently updated European Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, commonly abbreviated as MiFID II, is supposed to enhance consumers’ protection. Adjustments of regulatory background questions aside, the EU aims to improve “protection of investors by prohibiting the […]
Bitte nicht! Germany still opposes banking union
“Germany Remains Firmly Opposed to Banking Union” By Gordon Kerr, Cavin O’Driscoll and Enrico Colombatto, courtesy of IREF In November, Germany’s Finance Minister Olaf Scholz wrote an article in the Financial Times claiming that he had devised a common European Deposit Insurance Scheme (EDIS)[1] that could be acceptable to both sides of the hitherto […]