Markets in Italy are freaking out today, mainly because of the pronouncement of one man, Silvio Berlusconi. The former Prime Minister plans to run for office yet another time, and Mario Monti, the current caretaker leader, has resigned, setting up new elections probably in February.

While debating how much austerity outside of the magic no-budgetary-impact spending on the Pentagonto enact, the United States could take a lesson from, well, from the rest of the developed world. The relative lack of austerity in the US compared to Britain and the rest of Europe led to better economic performance (and it’s important [...]

For a Congress spending every waking minute talking about deficits, they sure know how to spend gobs of money above and beyond requested budgets – as long as it goes to the hands of defense contractors. The Senate version of the defense authorization bill costs $631 billion. This is $17 billion more than the Pentagon asked for. It passed 98-0. It now goes to a conference with the bill passed by the GOP-led House, which costs $3 billion MORE. The White House threatened to veto the bill over the budget overages, which is just adorable.

Republicans have enough problems dealing with their own internal insurgencies, but it should be explained that their biggest problem in the fiscal slope negotiations is that the public is poised to blame them if things go awry. Four-in-ten (40%) expect that the president and congressional Republicans will reach a deal by Jan. 1 to prevent [...]

Joblessness in the Eurozone reached new highs in October, with 11.7% of the population in the member states out of work. This compares to a 10.4% unemployment rate just a year ago. And inflation has slowed, suggesting that consumer spending activity has weakened even further. 23.9% of young people under 25 are unemployed. There’s considerable [...]

European Union finance ministers and the IMF reached another in a series of deals with Greece on long-term debt. The deal will lead to the release of another tranche of around 44 billion euros in bailout funds for the country to pay its debts to creditors, including government payroll and pensions. The deal aims to [...]

The White House is getting more vocal on pressuring Republicans to extend tax cuts on the first $250,000 of income. They supplement this today with a new report from the NEC and the CEA, showing the impact of tax rises on the middle class on consumer spending, which comprises about 70% of the economy. It [...]

I’m ensconced in the relative comfort of the ‘rents home for the holidays, but let’s just lay this down as a marker for the austerity bomb negotiations to come. As I wrote previously, Democrats and Republicans have operated on separate tracks so far in the early stages, writing soothing press releases and assuring folks of [...]

Ben Bernanke’s speech on the economy today offered no new information. It was more of an overview on the state of the economy, and it hit on many very familiar themes which Bernanke has expressed for a long time now, including the need to loosen lending standards in a type of reinflation of the housing [...]

A coalition of unions has released the first set of ads pressuring Democrats on the grand bargain, with an explicit message of “Jobs Not Cuts.” The ads target some Republicans as well Democratic lawmakers in several states who have made noises in favor of a grand bargain that would cut social insurance programs like Medicare, [...]

Over 10% of all bank assets in Spain consist of bad loans, a major impediment to economic recovery. The total value of the bad loans, mostly mortgages gone sour, equals 182 billion euros, about 17.4% of total Spanish GDP. This causes banks to resist additional lending until they clean up their books. It’s not clear [...]