Bloomberg Attempts to avoid a snap election in Italy are now riding on the future of caretaker Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, as a deadline to reach a deal nears. Whether or not Conte stays in his job to lead a new alliance has become the main sticking point in talks between the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the center-left Democratic ...

It’s getting harder and harder to write these budget columns, because it must be obvious to almost everyone by now that hardly anyone in Washington (or perh-aps any place) cares ab-out the budget deficits. The assumption is that we can raise spending and cut taxes forever — or until some crisis occurs that forces us to do involuntarily what we ...

If you are searching for the EU’s next bad idea, look no further than the “European Future Fund.” The 100 billion euro ($110 billion) pot, first reported in Politico, would be a way to boost strategic sectors which are seen as lagging behind China and the US. It’s not a formal policy plan, and the details are still scanty. But ...