Fortunately There's A Policy For That

For a long time the people who ran the world has a social welfare function which was equal to GDP. Now their social welfare function is equal to some measure of banker feefees.

Dire industial output figures from Spain were published this morning.

Output in January fell by 4.2% compared with the previous year, on a seasonally adjusted basis, as Spain's economic downturn picked up pace. It had dropped by 3.5% year-on-year in December.

At least the new Spanish government is slowing the austerity a bit. And at least Germany is destroying itself, too.

In a report, Deutsche Bundesbank said factory orders tumbled by a seasonally adjusted 2.7% in January, defying expectations for a 0.6% increase.