Eurozone Crisis
Articles on the eurozone crisis.
European Commission publishes first Alert Mechanism Report on Macroeconomic Surveillance
What should one make of this report?…
Spain’s Rajoy Goes ‘All In’ On Austerity
Unless Rajoy’s bet to go “all in” on austerity is backed by Brussels and Frankfurt, Spain may not end up doing “something similar” to Portugal, but Greece.…
Greece’s PSI is Dead on Arrival
The Greek PSI was always an error in search of a rationale. It gave shadow banking a great new opportunity to profiteer at the expense of Greece and of Europe and escalated the latter’s crisis rather than help tame it.…
Would a Ponzi by any other name smell as bad?
Asides from giving Ponzi a bad name (at least until the ECB just admits that they are printing faster than even Big Ben) this is tying the banks and the countries ever closer.…
WTF is up with LTRO?
In the end, this won’t do much for the sovereign debt market, but will shine a spotlight on which banks should be shorted and will possibly expedite their default.…
The State Of The European Monetary Union
In our view only there are two options for EMU 2.0: A hardening of EMU or a redrawing of the boundaries of EMU such that only countries meeting the real economy criteria for a currency union are members.…
Abandoning a sinking ship? A plan for leaving the euro
How a peripheral member-state could try to minimise the (huge) socio-economic costs of an exit from the eurozone forced upon it by the latter’s steady disintegration.…
A Simple And Boring Common Bond
Europe has no time left in its hourglass. It must act now. What it needs to do is to empower the ECB to issue its own (euro)bonds.…
You Can’t Spell Tooth Faeries Without EFSF
The EFSF reminds me of the tooth fairy – there are those who believe because they are told it will work, and those who try to figure out how it will work, and come out on the non-believer side.…
Greek Democracy Could Be Costly
When the Greek referendum looked like a possibility, a thinly disguised panic erupted along the corridors of power in Europe.…
Spain’s Infrastructure Spending: A Flight to Nowhere
As with all politically motivated spending, economic necessity is never a high priority.…
Euroland’s Hidden Balance-of-payments Crisis
Below the surface of the euro area’s public debt and banking crisis lies a balance-of-payments crisis caused by the misalignment of internal real exchange rates. The path of least resistance seems to be an appreciation in creditor countries through the inflation of goods, services and asset prices. But will the electorates in the creditor countries accept a policy of easy money and exchange rate depreciation or push an exit from EMU?…
