For long-term investors, the banking system which will emerge in Greece from recapitalisation has its attractions http://t.co/7Dn2v6JFuY
17 minutes ago
Roubini Topic Archive: Geostrategy
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Neither Grexit, Nor Spexit, It’s Fixit or Fexit
The aftermath to last weeks EU summit has certainly proved to be a damn sight more perplexing than the actual summit itself. Contrary to earlier experiences, this time round the more the details have been “clarified” the more confused we have become. Just what exactly was approved? Will Spain’s banks really obtain capital directly from the ESM, and [...]
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On the Brink of What?
This weekend I have been thinking quite a lot about what the world is gonna look like on Monday, and have come to the conclusion that it won’t be that different from the way it was last Friday. The big news surprise of the weekend was in fact Greece related - since the national football team qualified for the [...]
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Can This Really Be Europe We Are Talking About?
In recent days I have been think a lot, and reading a lot, about the implications of Greece’s recent election results. At the end of the day the only difference this whole process makes to the ultimate outcome may turn out to be one of timing. If Alexis Tsipras of the anti bailout, anti Troika, party Syriza [...]
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It’s Time to Stop Using Chewing Gum and Chicken Wire in Spain
“Every leg of the eurozone crisis has been marked by denial of the full scale of the problems. Whether Spain’s authorities have been deceitful or wilfully blind makes little difference at this point. The banks will need more capital; the government will need external help, with all the market uncertainty and strings attached that this [...]
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A Deep Seated Hostility Towards European Construction?
The British decision to veto the proposed new EU treaty is not surprisingly provoking an avalanche of commentary this weekend. Among journalists, at least, there seems to be a consensus that David Cameron committed some kind of major diplomatic blunder. Possibly this is so, but given the difficulties presented by having to take this agreement forward outside the [...]
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Going Dutch – One Possible Solution to the Euro Debt Crisis?
Looking back over the last 18 months of Europe’s debt crisis, European Central Bank Executive Board member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi recently invoked Winston Churchill’s famous quip, “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing — after they’ve tried everything else.” Europeans too, he assured his audience would also get it right, eventually. [...]
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India’s Economy Hits What Has To Be A Very Welcome “Soft Patch”
“If you look at the world, it would inevitably appear India’s growth is preordained. The world needs working hands. The world needs back offices. India seems to be a natural fit…We are producing a workforce which is not only for India, but a global workforce.” Sunil Bharti Mittal, founder and chairman of New Delhi-based Bharti [...]
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The Baron Münchhausen Effect
Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, Freiherr von Münchhausen was a German baron born in Bodenwerder in the eighteenth century. Made famous by the Hollywood director Terrence Gilliam, the baron first came to public attention for his ability to recount outrageously tall tales about his adventures while fighting abroad in the Russian army. Among the astounding feats which legend attributes to him are riding cannonballs and travelling to the Moon. But perhaps his best known marvel is the story of how he managed to escape from a swamp by pulling himself out by his own hair (or by his bootstraps, depending on who tells the story). Which puts me directly in mind of the way some people are now expecting an export-dependent German economy to drag the rest of Europe – and with it the whole global train – up and out of the ditch in which it is currently sunk, simply by exporting to everbody else. Sounds just like one of those tall tales, doesn’t it. A very tall one.
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Latvia: The Demographic Price Of Procrastination
One of the things I think we can safely say about the impact of the current economic crisis is that the face of Macro Economic theory will never be the same again. Quite what the macro economics of the future will look like is too early to say, but what is clear enough is that the existing corpus has been tested and found wanting: it’s predictive capacity is very, very limited, and this is obviously a far from satisfactory situation. -
What a Difference a Day Made!
According to a once famous statement by the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, a week is often a long time in politics. But when it comes to financial market crises we seem to follow a pattern more reminiscent of a line from the Dinah Washington version of an old María Méndez Grever song: “What a difference a day made”. The day in this case was last Wednesday, at least for those of us here in Spain, since it was on Wednesday that the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded Spanish Sovereign debt to AA from AA+. As a result the cost of insuring such debt using credit default swaps (CDS) surged at one point to a record 211 basis points according to CMA DataVision prices. Contracts on Greece and Portugal also rose sharply, with Greece climbing 42 basis points to hit 865.5, while Portugal jumped 20 to 406.
