Foreclosures have also risen sharply. The available data suggests that lenders initiated 2-1/4 million foreclosures last year, more than twice the number seen in 2006. 3 In the past, about one-half of foreclosures initiated were cured through a repayment plan or some other arrangement, but the remaining one-half resulted in the loss of a home.
My third observation is that the euro area is an attractive place for FDI. A breakdown reveals that inward FDI amounts to more than 27% of euro area GDP, against 22.5% for the United States. The euro area seems to have received, proportionally to GDP, a similar amount of FDI as China – 27.3% for both economies – according to IMF statistics.