Listen people, I don’t want to hear any nonsense about how bad it is over here until you start hearing the suck that is Euroland. I mean seriously. (Yes, we are aware that we vacillate between Eurosuck and Eurorule at the whim of the gusty winds of the press- you must see our fickleness as satire to fully understand the veins of humor that run through our lean flesh).

The euro area is falling into such a deep hole that the recovery, when it eventually comes, will be a long, hard journey. Figures released on Friday May 15th showed that GDP in the 16-country currency zone fell by 2.5% in the first quarter, an annualised rate of some 10%, far worse than many analysts had feared. Germany, the largest economy in the group, fell even harder: its GDP shrank by 3.8% in the three months to March and has plunged by almost 7% since its recession began a year ago. Italy’s GDP fell by 2.4% in the quarter; Spain’s by 1.8%. The 1.2% fall in France, large by any normal standards, almost counts as a boom.

The euro-area economy is slumping faster than most had feared [The Economist]