Thursday, May 26, 2011

Lagarde, Juncker, and Greece’s solvency | Felix Salmon

Lagarde, Juncker, and Greece’s solvency | Felix Salmon

More terrible choices. Is the IMF doing the right thing? Perhaps the middle ground of muddling through and hoping it doesn't end badly really isn't a strategy.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

FT Alphaville � German exposure to Greece, a bad bank tale [updated]

FT Alphaville � German exposure to Greece, a bad bank tale [updated]

Northern European bank (and sovereign) exposure is the real reason why bondholders can't take a haircut on Greece. If this goes bad, it could be a disaster for the whole Euro zone. I'm not sure what the solution is going to be or how this plays out, but the 3rd and 4th order results could be bad.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

FT Alphaville � Greek-out culminates in talk of eurozone exit [updated]

FT Alphaville � Greek-out culminates in talk of eurozone exit [updated]

If this Greece restructures, what's going to happen in Ireland and Portugal? Will they restructure too? Or will all of them leave the Eurozone. I'm pretty ignorant about this, but people keep mentioning a Lehman Brother's collapse type catastrophe. If that happens, what will happen to the Eurozone (mainly German, but French and Spanish too) banks? Are they capitalized enough for a Greek haircut? I don't think this is something we want to see. But the status quo will be a disaster for Greece. The austerity measures in Ireland will be a nice experiment on what not to do in a economic crisis. So much uncertainty and not enough people are paying attention in the US.