Realistically, a 5% tax rise should prompt a 5% spending cut, with the earning power lost to inflation adding more belt tightening. You can't squeeze blood from a stone. Workers have no money.

The Eurozone is suffering from restricted growth according to the European Commission which now forecasts that 2014 growth will be 0.8% overall for the 18 countries in the currency bloc. This is well below the earlier forecast of 1.2% growth, which was already low.

Today's blog focuses on Brazil, which faces difficult times under a re-elected Dilma Rousseff.

Low growth can be as much of a catalyst for high debt as high debt can be a catalyst for low growth.

Abengoa reported flat revenues and net income for H1 vs 2013 H1, with sales at euros 3.4 bn and net income of euros 69 mn, up all of 2%.

The deal being worked out over eastern Ukraine sounds like the 1937 Munich capitulation and unlike the British rush to defend Polish borders 75 years ago in Sept. 1939—right down to the presence of a supposed outsider in the deal (Hitler in 1937; Putin in 2014.)