Saturday, December 14, 2013

Helmut Schmidt and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing interview (ARTE TV)

Yesterday, December 10th 2013, French-German TV station ARTE TV aired an interview with former president of France, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, and former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.

The whole interview is in English, the language they also used during the 1970s when both had regular consultations (by phone & at meetings).
The interview is accompanied by footage of stations of their career and also by file footage describing the economic situation after the war in France and Germany.

Although ARTE TV published dates for rebroadcasting this interview again, it's perhaps more convenient for German and French viewers to watch the full video again. It's however very unfortunate that ARTE TV obviously blocks access to this video from other countries than France & Germany.

Full video (90 minutes):
SCHMIDT UND GISCARD D'ESTAING - EINE MÄNNERFREUNDSCHAFT (German version)
[update] Schmidt und Giscard d'Estaing - Teil 1 (ZDFInfo, Youtube, video, 43 minutes) [/update]
VALÉRY GISCARD D'ESTAING ET HELMUT SCHMIDT (French version)

Trailer zu Helmut Schmidt und Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (Youtube trailer, video, 4 minutes)

related:
The euro should either be made growth and employment friendly as fast as possible, or it should be dismantled (Professor Christopher Pissarides, LSE blogs, Dec 13th 2013)(via @pierrebri)
Helmut Schmidt conversation with David Marsh, Hamburg December 2013 (omfif.org,pdf, 7 pages)
(via @pierrebri)

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Slovenia: bank stress test results

(bsi.sl, pdf, English, 4 pages) (via @GovSlovenia)



Tuesday, December 10, 2013

A.D. 2013: Deflation is back in Europe

Although the Germans still are convinced there is no danger looming:
(source: http://thomsonreuters.com, by Vincent Flasseur/Reuters)

outright deflation arrived in some countries of the euro area:
Greece:
by Vincent Flasseur/Reuters (via @ReutersFlasseur)

Details by Greece's statitics agency ELSTAT:


 Cyprus:


Debt /GDP trajectories for EA countries will be added later, but you can imagine it doesn't look good 
(revisit for updates)
Slovenia:
closing in:
Portugal: 
Ireland:

Sweden: (EU, not euro area) 


Poland: (EU, not euro area) 


Price index of consumer goods and services in the fourth quarter of 2013 was 100.0 as compared to the third quarter of 2013 (prices remained on the same level).
             source: Central Statistics Office, Poland (Jan 15th 2014) 
Price index of consumer goods and services in November 2013  decreased 0.2%, as related to October 2013.
             source: Central Statistics Office, Poland (Dec 13th 2013) 

Latvia: 2013 During the year, consumer prices have dropped by 0.4% (Statistika Latvijas, Jan 13th 2013)  



A look back in history (Germany, early 1930s, short version by Wikipedia)

revisit earlier blog post: The forgotten catastrophe... Deflation [EZR, December 2011]
(including analysis by Paul Krugman)

recognizing that deflation is in fact dangerous:



France: The Consumer Prices Index decreased by 0.6% in January 2014; it rose by 0.7%, year-on-year
                 (Insee, Feb 20th 2014)

reactions by ECB officials:



related articles:
Eurozone 'sleepwalking into a decades-long deflation trap’ (Telegraph, Dec 28th 2013)