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Angela Merkel, political leadership and the Euro crisis
Many observers expect the German elections on Sunday to result in a third mandate for Angela Merkel but with a switch in government coalition partner from the more free market liberals of the FDP to...
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The Boston Red Sox turnaround and lessons for leadership
As a newcomer to the Boston area I rejoiced on Friday night when the Red Sox clinched the division championship in the Eastern baseball league. I started reading about how the Red Sox evolved from...
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Divided leadership in the biggest world economies?
Lack of leadership is how many have characterised the European Union over the past years. Europeans reacted too slowly to the Euro crisis, it is argued, and kicked the can down the road as their...
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Can you trade in a shotgun for a car?
I googled buying a used car in the Boston area upon arriving here, and now I get ads like: “$0 dollar Down/Low Monthly Lease Payment. Bad Credit, No Credit, No Problem!” Picture taken at the lot of a...
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Political leadership: should party unity trump clear purpose?
Let’s assume that House Republican leader John Boehner is a reasonable man, as Democrats repeatedly say. Let’s also assume that he wants a Republican candidate to win the 2016 presidential elections....
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Do governments solve problems, or merely apply solutions?
Are governments driven by a search for better solutions, or do they apply existing solutions to new problems? Can a country be competitive and enjoy life? At a Harvard talk last week French Finance...
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Shopping on Thanksgiving? Time to talk turkey
If your brother or sister earns a living at JCPenney you may have to cut short the Thanksgiving family time spent together. At 8pm, the retailer announced last week, most of its 1,100 stores will open...
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Getting rich slowly – by selling frozen water
In 1833 Frederic Tudor, a Boston merchant, shipped New England ice to hot, humid Calcutta in India. Nearly half of the cargo arrived intact after a voyage of several months. The story of Tudor is a...
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Surprise surprise? You haven’t been paying attention
Will an ecological crisis surprise us, just like the 2008 financial crisis did? This question sets up a trap, because there was no surprise in 2008. What is going up so fast: house prices, derivatives’...
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Sinners and Saints in the Eurozone Crisis
In a talk at Harvard, German central bank governor Jens Weidmann warned against an overload of expectations on the European Central Bank for resolving the Euro crisis. Having recently opposed a...
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Who are the most powerful politicians?
Ranking political leaders is a tricky matter. Forbes’ list of most powerful people recently put Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of “the handcuffed” Barack Obama, with German Chancellor Angela...
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2014 European elections: an electoral shake-up, and a similar Parliament?
From January onwards, the election heat will rise in Brussels. Next May, people in 28 European Union countries can vote for a new European Parliament. With widespread anger at austerity and record...
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A bonus under your Christmas tree?
End of the year marks the start of the bonus season on Wall Street and in the City of London. Stories on who gets what will be followed closely, not just by anti-bank populists but also by traders...
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Elections, change and policy legacy
European Union watchers are bracing themselves for the political excitement of the next seven weeks. All major political parties will nominate their candidate for the European Commission Presidency,...
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Crisis, deficits and democracy
As the May European elections are approaching for the 28 member countries, it is time to revisit the famous or rather infamous “democratic deficit” in European Union decision-making. Singing Power to...
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The German Judge and the Italian Banker
Wednesday, on a flight from Brussels to Boston, the NSA agent sitting next to me had a transcript from a telephone conversation between Herbert Landau, who is a judge on Germany’s Federal...
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What kind of EU democracy is emerging?
All political party candidates for the European Commission Presidency are known since last Friday when the majority of European People’s Party delegates in Dublin designated Jean-Claude Juncker from...
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Crimea and Kosovo, one stands where one sits
Vladimir Putin stated on Tuesday that Crimea and Kosovo are both break-away regions where an ethnic minority used its unilateral right to secede from their state. He accused the US of applying double...
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