It’s been a year since from what was then the deepest moment of euro crisis came agreement to go back to building the “e” of economic and monetary union that was dropped in 1992. Progress however has been extremely slow, and the supposed milestone now reached is hardly worth the paper it is written on. The ecb has got little for losing its virginity in lending a hand to fiscal policy. Even the minimal steps agreed show little has been learned from the stability and growth pact, with powers to be given to the commission to fine euro area member states that a majority of them can block. This is all just the slightest of steps in economic integration, with…

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Two things have created the precipice of economic meltdown we find ourselves overlooking. One is powder keg, the other is sparks. The keg is the huge global imbalances that built up in our years of plenty, when china and the emerging world were very happy to lend us an endless amount of money to buy their goods, as anyway they had little faith in their own governance to manage it. The first spark was three years ago, with the implosion of the american sub-prime market, which took every fiscal policy lever we had to stabilise. The second was greece, which became the whole euro area, as inept leadership allowed the problem to fester and grow enormously. It is clear to…

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At a private lunch today with robert chote, the charming and excellent poacher-turned-gamekeeper who now provides the authoritative analysis of the uk's public finances from his semi-autonomous seat as head of the office of budget responsibility. As a former economist at the imf (before his stellar stint at the ifs) we had much to talk about, taking on all comers talking of a euro collapse. Just as independent central banks spread in the 1990s, so now independent budget offices (like that of the us congress) now seem to be becoming international best practice, and for all the brickbats about having no teeth (which it doesn’t), this new institution is shaping up well as a marginally important piece of the macroeconomic…

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Nick clegg (5 february 2011), who I had the pleasure of debating with at close quarters a few months ago, tried to make a landmark speech this morning, on the theme of the moment, growth. Henry overmans was not impressed, being rather sniffy about the value of one of the main drivers the deputy prime minister identified, infrastructure. In fact, the literature is rather more ambivalent, or even supportive, provided of course its the right infrastructure, in the right place, which tends very much towards where an economy is growing already and where there is potential for more. Aschauer, gramlich, the british treasury, lau and munnell may all argue about the exact quantification of the multiplier effects of infrastructure…

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For the last generation, it was when kennedy was shot; for us it’s 9/11. I was interviewing for my job at the european central bank in frankfurt. As I walked into the office of my future boss, his secretary was bouncing up and down, saying that a plane had crashed into the world trade centre. I thought her slightly eccentric. When I came out half an hour later, she was semi-hysterical, saying another plane had crashed into the world trade centre. I said my goodbyes and that I hoped I’d see her again. When my taxi arrived at the airport I still had no inkling, and even when a huge slew of planes were showing up delayed or cancelled, it…

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The debt clock was, I think, an invention of the reagan era, laid to rest when clinton balanced the budget, but now as relevant as ever, as it continues to tick rather wildly up. Today, every us citizen owes almost fifty thousand dollars each, and as the leeway that the dollar being the world’s reserve currency provides finally begins to run out, that is forcing america down the now well-trodden road of fiscal contraction that the rest of us have already been following for some time. Many think this is not the right path, but it is that debt, and its echoes in other parts of the western world, that make it inevitable. As growth slows, so will tax revenues,…

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The seventh of seven cousins, my brother's on sunday was the last wedding of a generation for us, and quite a long time coming, and quite wonderful. A rare but memorable meeting of so many different strands of family and friends, old and new. Meticulously planned by the bride and groom, it so clearly reflected their own styles and selves, from the lastminute.comness, to the all going swimminglywellness, to the mix of humour and melancholy of the speeches, to the more original events of the day, to the guests, to the everyone pitching in, to the amazing but so them venue, to the kids and the babysitting, to the drinks, to the afterparty, to the day after, as they left…

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As you may have noticed, I've been on holiday. Usually, we go to hungary every summer, but this year hungary came to us, in the form of my other half’s entire family coming over for a week. Having filled our boots with her family, we then did the same with mine, going down to london for my brother’s aufruf, the ceremony a week before a wedding. It took place at a charming little synagogue in the east end, an area the centre of jewish sweatshop existence when the hordes came before the first world war. All have long since moved to north london and beyond, but my brother was one of a group who brought life back to this historic…

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Another part of that same multitude of humanity I saw having fun on the brighton seafront at the weekend has been displaying a more vicious side over the last days, as riots have exploded across london’s more deprived high streets, echoes have savaged birmingham city centre and violence has reared its head in liverpool, nottingham, bristol and elsewhere. In london, shops are shutting early and the knock-on economic effects are only just beginning to be felt. Although policing and its community relationship in a racially-charged area provided the spark, these don’t feel like race riots. Nor do they have ideology at their heart like the student riots earlier in the year. Austerity and the cuts may be the talking point,…

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