What is Europe?

Posted on 27 October 2014 by Erik Hare | 9 Comments

What is this thing we call the “Europe”? Is it an aspiration or a government? Is it a business agreement or a marriage? Is it simply a mass of land that many different people share?

While Ukraine fights a nasty civil war over the desire by many to join Europe, the UK is starting to question whether it belongs. Where the European Central Bank (ECB) has given its stamp of approval or withheld it for many important banks a scramble has taken place to comply at all cost.

Whatever it is, Europe has always moved in many directions at once. The last few months even moreso.

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Exit the Eurocrisis – Slowly

Posted on 22 January 2014 by Erik Hare | 12 Comments

Now that the Eurozone Crisis is over, we can all breathe a little easier. Right? While it’s good to not be loping along from one crisis to the next, the aftermath of the flood that lasted from 2008-2012 in drips and drops is still being mopped up. The hits are just being absorbed by the banks and growth is going to be sub-par through 2014, meaning that the lingering unemployment problem is not going away.

There are two parts left to this clean-up – what comes next and what can we learn? They are both important and will dominate 2014 in Europe and the developed world.

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Credit Unions

Posted on 12 June 2013 by Erik Hare | 9 Comments

Fed up with banks? You’re hardly alone. Credit unions have grown dramatically in the last 20 years, fueled largely by high fees charged by commercial banks. Low rates for ordinary loans are also a big draw. But for all the growth, not much has been written about credit unions other than the occasional puffy story about how much a consumer can save by ditching their bank. That’s not to say that the growth has gone unnoticed at all – or indeed that it isn’t creating its own problems that need to be addressed.

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