Eastern Europe driving financial crisis fears

The financial crisis seems to add a chapter nearly every day. The major concern now is about emerging economies, especially in Eastern Europe, which have been on a credit spree that far surpasses the US.

Today I write in the Christian Science Monitor about how many of these countries' currencies are nosediving -- and how that is stoking  panic in Western Europe. 

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On Richard Linklater's "Before Sunrise"

A little while ago, Pop Matters asked some writers for short essays describing their desert island, indispensable DVD -- you know, that one movie you've watched over and over through the years, the movie about which one likes to say, "It's important to me."

The result is a pretty eclectic list of 30 DVDs that Pop Matters is calling its Cinema Qua Non.

For the series I contributed an essay on Richard Linklater's "Before Sunrise." You can read it on this page.

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Finding different angles to the financial crisis

One of the challenges, as all this financial crisis business continues, is to find different ways to tell this story, or at least to explore different aspects of it. I'm interested, for example, on how this is really affecting people. We hear a lot of doomsday stuff coming out of the TV and in our newspaper, but is your average Joe feeling this? I live in central Europe, so my thoughts are turning these days to the Czech farmer, or the Hungarian shop owner, and wondering how they feel the pinch, if they do at all. My thinking is as soon as the coverage can really paint a picture of a definitive, visual, everyday impact, then people can move out of the abstract with all of this and consider it in much more simple terms.

That's my thinking, at least. I'm going to look into that farmer...

Capping off a busy week, I write today in the Christian Science Monitor on the philosophical differences between Europe and the US underpinning reactions and responses to the financial crisis. 

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The lighter side to tax havens

A lot about the legal world can be pretty matter-of-fact, dry and dull. So when there's an opportunity to take a lighter approach to the field, it's nice.

Legal Week asked me recently to write an essay on the lighter side of tax havens, known in the legal world as offshore jurisdictions. It appears in the magazine today.

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More on the financial crisis

I wrote a short follow-up to the European Union financial summit, which appears today in the Christian Science Monitor.

Not surprisingly, the summit did not produce any unified approach for Europe to deal with the financial crisis. Instead, with several countries now rushing to guarantee all private savings in their banks, you're seeing a strategy emerge that will have individual EU members doing what each feels it needs to do to keep its own financial house in order, instead of a pan-European response. 

I talked a little bit about this in an interview I did with PBS' World Focus this evening.

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Financial crisis spreading across Europe

The global financial crisis continues to be big news, especially here in Europe, which has seen a host of bank failures in the last week. Tomorrow, European Union leaders will meet in Paris to see if they can agree on a pan-European response.

A piece I wrote previewing that meeting appears today in the Christian Science Monitor. 

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