Word: euros
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...weakest in eight years. Yet beyond Argentina lurk at least three more insults that could make things worse. In the Middle East, OPEC is flexing its muscles again. Last week it vowed to cut oil production 4% to prop prices. In Europe, the single-currency system called the euro may be fighting for its survival if stagflation continues to cripple the region. And in Asia, Japan's new Prime Minister is struggling to carrying out his ambitious reform to revive economic growth. Failure will deepen Japan's coma and take Asia with...
...economic downturn. After expanding 3.4% in 2000, the single-currency system could see its growth plummet to 1% or less this year. But here's the rub: even as the 12 member countries' economies languish, the European central bank, which conducts a single monetary policy for all euro-zone nations, has been very skimpy in lowering interest rates. After seven rate increases within a year, the ECB grudgingly dropped rates just once, on May 10--and then by a quarter of a percentage point...
...dragging its feet? Because despite the region's subpar growth and high unemployment (8.3%), every one of the 12 euro-zone countries has inflation rates in the red zone, defined as anything above 2%. Higher energy costs, rising wages and the outbreak of livestock disease have plunged the Continent into stagflation, a brutal combination of poor growth and high inflation. That could prove to be the first big test for Europe's 2 1/2-year-old single-currency system. If the ECBfails to respond soon, it will antagonize European governments and possibly influence coming elections in Germany and France...
...Japan--would be doing fine, so that even if growth sputtered elsewhere, there wouldn't be a disaster. The global economy showed the virtues of asymmetry during the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98. Fiscal and monetary corsets constrained Europeans as they prepared for the introduction of the euro; Japan was flat on its back. Assisted by the Fed's aggressive rate cutting, the U.S. consumer became the world's buyer of last resort, mopping up goods that would not otherwise have found a market...
...What all that means for the U.S., from Washington to Wall Street, is that in globalized antitrust regulation the higher bar is the only bar. A merger of Connecticut-based GE and New Jersey-based Honeywell qualified for Euro-scrutiny because the combined revenues of the two companies exceed the EU's circuit-breakers of $4.3 billion in global sales and $215 million in EU sales...