Sharon Bowles, Lib Dem MEP for South East England, was remarked has one of 100 people to watch by Times. We have been watching since prior to this bombastic announcement, and it was not good. Recently, she advertised herself as a 'woman and outsider' in the race for governor of BOE. The outcome? She was ousted. But more to the point, as we discuss below, she is no poster woman for gender equity, and no outsider. All matters pertaining to EU financial regulation and the ECB come to the attention of the committee of the EU Parliament she chairs, known as ECON.  Latest to date, the cap...

According to FT, Mari Draghi, tells us that 'national supervisors' are imposing capital controls on the banks in their jurisdictions to underscore 'national bias' in financial regulation. A similar scenario was imagined by Daniel Gros from CEPS—'who developed original plans for EMU—in promoting a banking union in general, and ECB supervision of banks in particular. DG Jonathan Faull was kind enough to refer us to a DG MARKT document dated February 2012 on capital controls monitoring, but we have not recouped Draghi + Gros' claim. Who is more credible in the eyes of...

David Frum makes some valid points about the consequences of QC separatism while staying within a CAD union, given the hindsight of EZ’s failure (National Post). But he overplays it by tying the fates of failing countries in the EZ to that of QC under that option. Having its own currency, OTOH, is presented as yet another calamity. Neither of these doom predictions are fatalities because QC  starts from a reasonably good standing  and its options are open.Read more »