Last week, I wrote about the sorry state of Europe and the person most responsible for it: Angela Merkel (A mess of Merkel’s own making, January 28). This week, we will take a closer look at the German Chancellor, her record — and her prospects of staying in power. Read more

Albert Einstein said, “for an idea that does not first seem insane, there is no hope.” If Einstein is right, there is hope for the Greens’ proposal to establish a new office to cost political parties’ new policies. It did not take long for the government to reject the Greens’ idea out of hand. Read more

‘Never let a good crisis go to waste.’ For a long time, this was the unofficial motto of the EU. Whatever challenges it faced, overcoming them often enabled it to progress with the process of political and economic integration. Read more

As we begin year seven of the euro crisis, observers may ask what all the fuss was about. Wasn’t the euro supposed to collapse? Read more

The EU may not work particularly well. The euro crisis is far from over, and there are plenty of sound economic reasons to criticise the project of European integration. Read more

The EU likes to portray itself as a good and modern place to do business, despite the hiccups of the euro crisis and other distractions. Between this self-image and reality nevertheless lies a gap, and nowhere is this more evident than in spread of corruption around the continent. Read more

You were probably expecting our usual take on the week as in the previous 47 editions of Insights we sent out this year. But since this is our last bulletin before Christmas, please allow me to digress, just a little. Read more

Some things are worth doing even if they do not directly improve the company’s bottom line. Other things that could improve a firm’s profitability could nevertheless be wrong to do. Read more

On Tuesday, Minister of Commerce Paul Goldsmith decided not to proceed with the long debated criminalisation of cartel behaviour. The Minister’s explanation was telling: “In weighing up the benefits of criminalising cartel activity, the government had to consider the significant risk that cartel criminalisation would have a chilling effect on pro-competitive behaviour between companies.” If you are unfamiliar with competition law, you would be surprised by such a statement. Read more

Imagine you lived in the middle of a dry desert and people from the coastal lowlands approached you with an ingenious proposal: to join their new flood insurance scheme. Unless you are very altruistic or insane, you would politely decline the offer. Read more

There is a great deal of debate on the causes and solutions of the housing crisis but little disagreement that the problems we face are enormous: The number of new homes consented dropped from a record 39,800 in 1973 to a little over 24,700 last year. Over the same period, New Zealand's population grew by 50 per cent. Read more

Bankers are overpaid, bonus payments are useless and there is an inflation of fancy job titles in banking. That was the essence of a speech recently delivered at Frankfurt’s Goethe University. Read more