Alex Harrowell:
Chart of the week, IMF edition: [Y]es, Virginia, the Germans bailed out the banks… carried out the biggest discretionary fiscal stimulus in Europe at 5% of GDP… German public debt increased as a percentage of GDP by more than Italy or France’s and second only to the UK’s…. Italy’s problems are entirely to do with growth or else with interest rates. And it looks like the political ability to pull in taxes is pretty important…