Creditors wonder if it is a case of wishful thinking
Europe
Want to Double Your Savings? Try Lending to Greece Mid-Crisis
The world’s top performing bond-funds bet on Greek debt in the middle of the crisis and won, big time.
The Indie Beer Business Is About to Boom
After a popular American craft brewer sold out to the “devil,” some are wondering if more mergers and acquisitions will inevitably follow. And what might that mean to the thriving, vehemently independent craft beer scene?
Time to Get Ready for a Smaller Hershey Bar?
Just in time for Halloween, chocolate prices are expected to hit record highs.
Europe’s False Recovery
How Two German-Owned Sister Supermarket Brands Became Hot Trendsetters in the U.S.
No matter their small selections and the near absence of brands you’d recognize: Trader Joe’s and Aldi are winning top honors in consumer surveys and proving to be enormously influential in the supermarket business.
What’s Europe Got Against Google? France Threatens Fines Over Privacy
With Google already trying to contain the damage to its reputation from the National Security Agency (NSA) leaks, it now risks another dent to its image, as European privacy officials threaten to fine the company for sucking up vast amounts of user information without explaining the purpose.
On Thursday, French officials gave Google …
Germany Has Become the Cut-Rate Prostitution Capital of the World
The presence of thousands of brothels and hundreds of thousands of prostitutes has heightened competition and pushed prices down steeply in the German sex trade. One tourist from Florida, who visits the country three times annually to pay for cheap sex, compares the scene to a discount supermarket: “Germany is like Aldi for …
Guess Who’s Bullish on Europe? China’s New Investment Play
Another day in Europe, another Chinese acquisition: over the first June weekend it was the turn of three prestigious Bordeaux wine châteaus, Bon Pasteur, Rolland-Mallet and Bertineau St.-Vincent, to be acquired by the Hong Kong–based Goldin Group for an undisclosed amount.
A new wave of Chinese investment is rolling across the …
Japan Market Crash: A Slow Leak in the “Central Bank Bubble”
There’s a truism in investing that the last one into a market is the first one out. And that certainly seems to be the case today, with Japan’s Nikkei index crashing off the back of two things: First, hints from the Federal Reserve that the U.S. economy is improving enough to justify a slow pull-back from the central bank’s …
Too Cold for a Cold One? Big Beer Companies Blame Mother Nature for Slumping Sales
Does bad weather correlate with less drinking? Well, perhaps it does with certain kinds of drinking. Unseasonably cold weather in Brazil, Europe and the U.S. is being blamed as one of the reasons sales are down in early 2013 for …
Is the Price of Gold Signaling an Economic Slowdown?
Gold and other commodities seem to be signaling that the U.S. economy is sluggish and will get weaker still.