New Data on Loans and Deposits

The Central Bank has continued its excellent work in making more statistical data available with two new releases “Trends in Business Credit and Deposits” and “Trends in Personal Credit and Deposits“. I don’t have time to get into a detailed discussion of these releases but, on a quick look, there appears to be lots of new and interesting information in these releases.

Steinbrück: Admit Greece will need restructuring

Given the recent discussions of  the views of Professor H-W Sinn on this site it seems only right to point out that there are also other opinions in Germany. A number of current and former German politicians (Helmut Schmidt, Joschka Fischer) have been critical of the leadership provided by key politicians. Now the former finance minister Peer Steinbrück (still an active opposition politician) has found some clear words: “Greek default is inevitable – lets call a debtors conference.”

Credit-Less Recoveries

A new ECB working paper examines the nature of credit-less recoveries in the wake of banking crises: you can download it here.

United Left Alliance convention

My invitation to the above event at the week-end being unaccountably delayed, it’s interesting to see the Irish Times relaying the views of colleague Professor Terrence McDonough (IT do note correct spelling please.) here.

In summary:

“He said the country should default on its debt, leave the euro, build a single public bank, provide a jobs guarantee for all workers and nationalise the Corrib gas field.”

Commission proposals for the next EU budget Multi-annual Financial Framework to be published this week

On Wednesday (June 29th) the Commission is scheduled to reveal its proposals for the next Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF) which will set out the scale and composition as well as the proposed financing of the EU budget over the period to 2020. However, some reports suggest that Commission President Barroso is putting aside two days for the Commission College to agree the proposal so it may be later in the week before it sees the light of day. This is an important issue for Ireland, and this post discusses the issues to watch for in the Commission’s proposal.