Category Archives: Economic fundamentals

Germany’s Short Selling Bans: Prudence, Populism or Bank Protection?

Some commentators on the surprising and not terribly well received unilateral move by Germany to ban naked credit default swaps on sovereign debt and shorting of bank stocks assumed it was intended to placate domestic voters. Merkel’s move to join the Eurozone rescue effort was wildly unpopular at home; taking a tough line with speculators […]

Should Greece Follow Argentina’s Playbook?

Some readers and commentators have argued that the EU should not have bailed out Greece, but instead should have restructured its debt. The logic is that Greece is a goner; there is no way it can meet its existing obligations, and a bailout serves to throw good money after bad. Better to engage in triage […]

Kregel/Parenteau: No Sidestepping the Eurozone Implosion?

By Jan Kregel, former professor of economics at Università degli Studi di Bologna and Johns Hopkins,m and currently a senior scholar at The Levy Economics Institute and Rob Parenteau, CFA, sole proprietor of MacroStrategy Edge, editor of The Richebacher Letter, and a research associate of The Levy Economics Institute A week ago eurocrats launched their […]

German Households Owe More Than Greece’s Do

Be careful about your cultural stereotypes! From Bloomberg, via Marshall and Andrew: Update: Hah! I missed a post from Mark Thoma that also shows that Greeks work more hours than Germans, a LOT more.

Geithner on Europe: “Subprime is Contained” Redux?

Most of the major figures in the financial crisis have had an “insert foot in mouth and chew” moment, although none have yet proven as memorable as Irving Fisher’s “Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” less than a week before the Great Crash of 1929 commenced. Bernanke’s was his March […]

Noted Bear Bob Janjuah Sighted on Bloomberg

Reader Scott pointed me to this video on Bloomberg featuring Royal Bank of Scotland’s Bob Janjuah. He has he has more company in his sober views than usual (Jim Rogers and Nouriel Roubini, among others).

Campaign to Cut Entitlements Picking Up in U.S.

The first part of this two part series proved to be very popular among blog readers, given the level of comments, so I thought I’d feature the second part, which was posted by Real News Networks on Monday. Enjoy!

Is the Eurozone Shock and Awe Enough? (Updated)

The EU announced a €750 billion salvage operation, funds to shore up economies in economic difficulty, with the program consisting of €440 billion of loans from eurozone nations, €60 billion from an EU emergency fund, and €250 billion from the IMF. There are several layers of complicating factors, however. The first is that the German […]

Eichengreen: It is not too late for Europe

By Barry Eichengreen, from VoxEU: EU and IMF efforts to rescue Greece have failed to stabilise Europe’s financial markets. Now there are significant concerns about Spain and Portugal’s financial circumstances. This column says Europe needs to wake up, face the facts, and take action. It outlines what the IMF, ECB, and Eurozone members need to […]

EU to Defend the Euro

The only moderate reduction in market havoc on Friday has all eyes on the European officialdom. Will they mount a credible enough plan over the weekend to buy them a bit of breathing room so they can come up a better salvage operation for the euro experiment? The odds are against both steps in the […]

On the Fat Fingered Trade and Market Freakout

We’ll know in due course, now that an investigation is underway, why the equity markets in the US went into complete freefall for about twenty minutes, with the Dow dropping 998 points. Per Bloomberg: Larry Leibowitz, chief operating officer of NYSE Euronext, said trades sent to electronic networks fueled the drop. While the first half […]

Auerback: Yes, Virginia. There is a Difference Between Greece and the US

By Marshall Auerback, a fund manager and investment strategist who writes for New Deal 2.0. Many market analysts, commentators and economists claim to be having a hard time finding a metric in which the US is in better financial shape than Greece. Ken Rogoff, for example, recently warned that a Greek default would usher in […]

Greenspan Hid Fed Debate Over Housing Bubble to Keep Control

Ryan Grim at Huffington Post has parsed recently released transcripts of 2004 Fed Open Market Committee discussions that show the debate over the rapid rise in housing prices and concerns about global imbalances were downplayed at Greenspan’s insistence. For instance, the minutes reveal that Fed governor from Atlanta, Jack Guynn, was worried about signs of […]

Auerback/Mosler: Greece CAN Go it Alone

By Marshall Auerback, a fund manager and investment strategist and Warren Mosler, a fund manager and co-founder and Distinguished Research Associate of The Center for Full Employment And Price Stability at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. Greece can successfully issue and place new debt at low interest rates. The trick is to insert […]

Bank Runs in Greece – Harbinger of Another Axis of Euromarket Risk?

Sometimes I can miss the blindingly obvious. Like other observers of the widening sovereign debt crisis in Europe, we’ve commented on the fact that the big reason for Germany to work towards a rescue (more likely, the end game is a restructuring) of Greece and other Club Med members at risk is that its own […]