Euro zone current account surplus and global imbalances

First, the EU as a whole has moved from a roughly balance external position to a net creditor position as the German and Dutch export-led model is forced onto the periphery via internal devaluation used to achieve export competitiveness. Second, the Germans and Dutch have been forced to turn elsewhere to maintain their mercantilist trading …

Claudio Borio on the dollar-based post-Bretton Woods international monetary non-system

The other, related, group of arguments includes variants of the “exorbitant privilege”. Considerations of “fairness” aside, the United States is regarded as an unreliable anchor because the high demand for dollar-denominated debt means that it is not subject to sufficient discipline. It can run larger and more persistent fiscal deficits; it can run larger and …

President Obama’s commencement speech remarks

Graduates, each of us is only here because someone else faced down challenges for us. We are only who we are because someone else struggled and sacrificed for us. That's not just Thurgood Marshall’s story, or Ciearra’s story, or my story, or your story -- that is the story of America. A story whispered by …