New feel-good website aims to cheer up crisis-hit Greeks

I’ve mentioned repeatedly that Germany wants contradictory things: it wants to stop financing its trade partners (the periphery countries in Europe) and yet wants to continue to run large trade surpluses. I took this to be a sign of German wishful thinking, or just politicians figuring the incoherent strategy can still be maintained for the duration of their time in office.

From Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg Greeks Raid Forests In Search Of Wood To Heat Homes

THE Financial Times reports today that euro-zone leaders have reached a deal on a series of measures designed to solve the currency area's ongoing debt crisis. At first glance, the numbers look impressive. Euro-zone members will bulk up funding levels for the European Financial Stability Fund and its post-2013 successor, the European Stability Mechanism.

Greece has been hit by protests in central Athens, after its prime minister agreed to strict new austerity measures in return for the next €12bn instalment of the International Monetary Fund's bail-out.

If he's like the rest of us, George Osborne is probably thinking about Japan today. But he's also supposed to be thinking about growth. Having spent his first months deciding how to shrink the deficit, the focus of next week's Budget, we're told, will be how to expand the economy. He's not the only one. It feels like every day I get another invitation to a "high level seminar" or conference on the subject of growth. But where, exactly, does economic growth actually come from? And what, if anything, can governments do to help?