Category: Global Debt Crisis
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Ireland Bailout Threatens to Reignite Euro Debt Crisis / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
Don Miller writes: Ireland's reeling banking system, and the government's reluctance to accept outside help, is threatening to reignite the European debt crisis that nearly led to the demise of the European Union (EU) and its currency last spring.
EU officials are trying to persuade Irish officials to shore up the country's devastated banking sector with a possible $100 billion (73.5 billion euros) aid package as Irish policymakers continue to insist that the financially troubled nation doesn't require a bailout.
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Monday, November 15, 2010
Growing Signs of Renewed Debt Crisis in Europe / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
Stefan Steinberg writes: There are growing signs of a renewed debt crisis in a number of European nations, as bond yields soar to record highs and the continent’s economic growth stagnates.
The heads of leading European countries took the exceptional step of using the Group of 20 meeting in Seoul to announce that the European Union had confidence in the measures undertaken by Irish leaders to address the nation’s budget deficit. At the same time, the leaders of Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom issued a statement declaring that the EU had no plans for an additional bailout of European nations until at least 2013.
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Sunday, November 14, 2010
Bankrupting Ireland in Economic Depression Announces Policy of Quantitative Cheesing / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
Ireland's economic depression is intensifying as the economy remains in recession and Irish bonds plunged sending yields soaring on concerns of more banking sector losses that continue to send Irelands public debt and liabilities soaring as the bankrupt banks continue offload their huge losses onto Irish tax payers, that negates all of the austerity pain suffered to date, which requires even more sacrifice to ensure that the bankster's and bond holders are bailed out 100%, resulting in an country bankrupting annual budget deficit of 32%, which Ireland cannot monetize through money printing.
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Wednesday, November 03, 2010
How to Bully a Country into Bankruptcy / Politics / Global Debt Crisis
Cristian Gherasim writes: We are all familiar with the power gained by trade unions in present-day Europe. Lately, it seems that they have also gained the privilege to turn to violence each time their demands aren't met. It's safe to say that a union's decision has become as important as a governmental decree.
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Sunday, October 24, 2010
Iceland Inflation, Debt and New Mortgage Crisis, U.S. How Far Behind? / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
The Icelandic financial crisis has been ongoing since 2008 when all three of the country's major commercial banks collapsed after they failed to refinancing their short-term debt and a run on deposits in the U.K.
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Saturday, October 09, 2010
The Golden-Real Estate Project / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
Japan has taken an interesting approach to preventing people from accumulating so much debt that they default; The Wall Street Journal reports that Japan has a new law "restricting total loans from all lenders to one-third of a borrower's income." Hmmm! Criminal penalties for accumulating too much debt? Wow!
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Thursday, October 07, 2010
Debt Alarm, Financial Toxic Waste Continues to Unravel, Loan Assets Created Out of Thin Air / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
DEBTCON-1 (as in DEFCON-1, the highest level of the alarm system for impending military threats/crisis) have been triggered, but the FED, global central banks and regulatory authorities are still in deep denial and treat the ongoing global financial crisis as still in the state of DEBTCON-5 (i.e. DEFCON-5, the lowest threat alert).
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Friday, October 01, 2010
World Sovereign Debt Map / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
Debt creates problems. It is seldom known to solve problems, especially in the long run. Countries with high debt are vulnerable to currency weakening as debt drives assets out of those countries towards low risk, high yielding countries.
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Tuesday, September 21, 2010
How Governments Will Default on their Sovereign Debt / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
As I am traveling in Europe for a few more days, it seems appropriate to review the very fascinating work of Arnuad Mares of Morgan Stanley in London. He poses the very provocative question: "Ask Not Whether Governments Will Default, but How?" and comes up with some very interesting statistics. He suggests that simply looking at debt to GDP misses the point and offers four other ways we should also evaluate sovereign debt risk. This is a very worthy contribution to Outside the Box.
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Thursday, September 16, 2010
The European Banking Crisis Next Phase, Greek Debt Default Inevitable / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
The European banks are still in deep trouble. They are being protected only by the ability of the politicians of the PIIGS to persuade the public that they will be able to maintain interest payments in the near term. Investors care nothing about long-term prospects. They assume that they can sell bad bonds to the next group of naïve investors. Each group assumes that those who follow will be suckers. They regard themselves as sophisticated investors who know what will happen and who will be able to unload the bonds on really stupid investors.
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Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Government Debt Defaults and Inflation Are the Norm, Not the Exception / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
The past 15 years have certainly been exciting for investors. During the second half of the 1990s we experienced one of the largest stock market bubbles of all times … and its bursting. Then, only a few years later, one of the biggest real estate bubbles … and its bursting.
In the aftermath of these events the world stumbled into the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. And the banking system came to the brink of a total collapse.
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Friday, August 06, 2010
Debt and Deficits Are Too High for Many Countries / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
David Galland, Managing Editor, The Casey Report writes: A couple weeks ago, the family and I watched Dirty Jobs, an altogether entertaining show from the Discovery Channel. In the episode we watched the host, Mike Rowe, serve as a mechanic in the military. There were a couple of things that caught my eye.
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Sunday, August 01, 2010
Debt is Devouring Sovereign Nations, U.S. Deficit is being Monetized by the Fed / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
While we wait, watch and listen, the Fed decides when the banks will be given the word to start lending to get the domestic economy back to neutral. Action is needed quickly because the world economy is quickly deteriorating, and the recovery is simply not happening, as the administration admits to a fiscal deficit of $1.4 trillion. That would be down from a deficit of $1.9 trillion in 2009. Our long-term estimate has been $1.6 to $2 trillion.
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Tuesday, July 27, 2010
European Sovereign Debt Crisis, Running Through a Minefield Backwards / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
Before we get into today's Outside the Box I want to clear up a few ideas from this weekend's letter. There have been posts on various websites equating my piece on deflation with Paul Krugman. They say I am advocating kicking the can down the road and not reducing the deficit.
Wrong. What I have been trying to point out for several years is that we have no good choices. We are down to bad and very bad choices. The very bad choice (leading to disastrous - think Greece) is to continue to run massive deficits. The merely bad choice is to reduce the deficits gradually over time. As I try to point out, reducing the deficits has consequences in the short term. It WILL affect GDP in the short term. Krugman and the neo-Keynesians are right about that. To deny that is to ignore basic arithmetic.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
U.S. Need Not Fear Sovereign Debt Crisis, Unlike Greece, It Actually Is Sovereign / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
Last week, a Chinese rating agency downgraded U.S. debt from triple A and number one globally, to “double A with a negative outlook” and only thirteenth worldwide. The downgrade renewed fears that the sovereign debt crisis that began in Greece will soon reach America. That is the concern, but the U.S. is distinguished from Greece in that its debt is denominated in its own currency, over which it has sovereign control. The government can simply print the money it needs, or borrow it from a central bank that prints it. We should not let deficit hawks and short sellers dissuade the government from pursuing that obvious expedient.
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Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Europe Credit Crisis Stage Two, Internal Bank and Sovereign Debt Crisis Combined / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
The crisis affecting Europe is nothing new. It goes back three years and the beginning of the credit crisis, 60% of the subprime CDOs, collateralized debt obligations, had been sold to European institutions. These were the mortgage bonds, which contained a variety of toxic waste, which the rating agencies, S&P, Moody’s and Fitch, in collusion with banks and brokerage houses, had sold as AAA bonds, when in fact their ratings should have been considerably lower. The holders of these bonds in many instances became insolvent and had to be bailed out by capital injections from central banks, most of the funds were lent by the Federal Reserve.
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Monday, July 19, 2010
Debt, Deleverage and Default: What Next? / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
The relentless forces of debt, deleverage and default were set in motion by the financial market excesses of the last decade. This is hardly surprising, but the details are sobering.
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Sunday, July 18, 2010
The Debt Supercycle Path to Profligacy and End Game / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
The Debt Supercycle
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
The Path to Profligacy
Things That Cannot Be
I have been writing about The End Game for some time now. And writing a book of the same title. Consequently, I have been thinking a lot about how the credit crisis evolved into the sovereign debt crisis, and how it all ends. Today we explore a few musings I have had of late, while we look at some very interesting research. What will a world look like as a variety of nations have to deal with the end of their Debt Supercycle. We'll jump right in with no "but first's" this week.
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Thursday, July 15, 2010
Illinois Higher Debt Default Risk than Iceland / Economics / Global Debt Crisis
Illinois made headlines a few weeks ago when it overtook California as the worst credit risk among American states. Now, the fifth most populous state in the U.S. has officially overtaken Iceland in the default risk category as well. (See screenshot below from CMA site today)
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Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The Emperor Has No Credit / Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis
As political leaders forsake the few shreds of credibility they have left, at least one observer is willing to state the obvious: If credit is clothing, the emperor goes bare.
As the global financial crisis marches on, the world's leaders face a growing problem: The utter loss of not just credit, but credibility.
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