Osborne looks to Carney to do the heavy economic lifting

Bloomberg Back in 2010, when U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne was kicking off his fiscal squeeze, he rarely tired of saying how his “credible’’ plans gave the Bank of England flexibility on policy. Six years later and the story hasn’t changed much. Cornered by his own pledge to post surpluses from 2020, Osborne must keep tightening the purse ...

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Euro-area industrial production surges most since 2009

Bloomberg Industrial production in the euro area opened 2016 with its strongest monthly performance in more than six years, boosted by energy and capital goods. Output jumped 2.1 percent in January from December, helped by growth in Germany, France and Italy, the Eurostat statistics office in Luxembourg said on Monday. From a year earlier, production rose 2.8 percent, the biggest ...

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Norway’s overlooked fact: Rate seen going deeper below zero

Bloomberg Here’s a little known fact: Norwegian banks may soon need to contend with interest rates even deeper below zero. While the key policy rate is at 0.75 percent, the rate on excess reserves fell below zero in September and is now at minus 0.25 percent. With 18 out of 20 economists surveyed by Bloomberg predicting another cut in the ...

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Amid protests, EU promises relief for crisis-hit farmers

Brussels / AFP The EU said on Monday it was looking for support from the European Investment Bank at crisis talks in Brussels aimed at helping dairy and other farmers hit hard by plunging prices. Around 100 farmers protested as agriculture ministers gathered just six months after Brussels announced a €500-million emergency package to tackle a crisis partly blamed on ...

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Bond traders can’t sleep as Fed policy becomes a foreign affair

Bloomberg Even in the mighty U.S. Treasury market, bond traders are taking their cues from central bankers in Europe and Japan. With Mario Draghi and Haruhiko Kuroda pressing ahead with their grand monetary experiments, negative yields in Germany and Japan are exerting greater and greater influence over U.S. Treasuries. Overnight trading of Treasury futures has exploded, reaching levels not seen ...

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Protest, graft can’t deter Brazil mall operator’s growth

Bloomberg Gazit-Globe Ltd., which manages commercial real estate worth about $21 billion in more than 20 countries, is extending its Brazilian business even as the country suffers the worst recession in over a century and the streets swell with protesters clamoring for mass political change. The company will invest $1 billion this year to expand existing shopping centers in Sao ...

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Argentina completing law to boost consumption of clean energy

Bloomberg Argentina is poised to approve the final details of a new law designed to give a boost to renewable energy as President Mauricio Macri steps up his efforts to fight climate change. The law will impose fines on large users of electricity that don’t get at least 8 percent of their power from renewable sources, starting in 2018, according ...

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Chile’s inflation rate falls in Feb as economy weakens

Bloomberg Chile’s inflation rate fell for the first time in three months in February after the economy expanded at the slowest pace in almost six years. Consumer prices rose 4.7 percent from the year earlier, the National Institute of Statistics said in a report on its website, compared with 4.8 percent the month before. The median estimate of 19 analysts ...

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Ignored for years, a radical economic theory is gaining converts

Bloomberg In an American election season that’s turned into a bonfire of the orthodoxies, one taboo survives pretty much intact: Deficits are dangerous. A school of dissident economists wants to toss that one onto the flames, too. It’s a propitious time to make the case, and not just in the U.S. Whether it’s negative interest rates, or helicopter money that ...

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