An entertaining graphic. (Interactive web version here.)
More (link fixed, sorry!) – “Having spent months warning readers about the incompetence of Europe’s political leadership and the incoherence of its institutional structures, I thought I had seen the worst. But for even this hardened and cynical observer who has had years of watching European ineptitude the last 24 hours have been a revelation: the Europeans are totally at sea.”
From the NYT? I don’t believe anything in that worthless rag.
Kate, the “More” link is wrong – you probably meant http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/11/03/the-comprehensive-eurofail/
I just don’t think this rat’s nest can be untangled. There just isn’t the will. JMO
It’s my uneducated view that many defaults are required, whether it’s nations, or corporations, and all of us must take our medicine. IMO it’s the only reasonable way to proceed forward. The alternative is to continue as we are, until we are forced to move forward.
Speaking as a Canadian, I recognize that we have very little influence on how the greater economic picture unfolds. I believe that our government should be working under this presumption.
It is hard to see how this situation is going to be solved without printing.
Italians, Portuguese, French and Spaniard socialists are not going to have any greater appetite for austerity (real not the 2% cuts variety) than the Greeks do.
So politicians – with their indexed pensions – will monetize.
Hmmm. The graphic is rendered somewhat useless without bank exposure.
And if you read between the lines, the disastrous EU discussion on Greece is really about how to save the banks, not Greece.
Take a look at the ‘austerity’ measures, which prevent debt hair-cuts as much as possible but relegate Greece to decades of unsustainable debt without chance of recovery.
There is only one way out of this; steep determined haircuts and fundamental structural change to the Greek economy. Everything else is fiddling. Which is all it has been so far.