News Links: Europe’s rescue fiasco leaves Italy defenceless

  • The CME wanted to make sure that transferred MF Global customer accounts were not subject to higher “initial” margin maintenance requirements when receiving margin calls at their new clearing firm – that they were not whacked with bigger margin calls.   Normally, margin calls require the customer to replenish their margin level up to the “initial” margin level.  This rule change lowers the “initial” level so that the customer only has to replenish their margin level up to the “maintenance” level, which is the level “set to provide appropriate risk management coverage.”

    tags: credit crisis

  • After Greek Prime Minister Papandreou’s inspired gambit of a national referendum to approve the latest bailout pact was beaten back by an ugly combination of betrayal by his finance minister and bullying by the IMF, Merkel, and Sarkozy, the sad farce of the Eurorescue seemed to be back on track. The endgame is clearly default for Greece, or in lieu of that, a deeper restructuring down the road. In the meantime, the country is being driven into the dirt as a perverse showcase of the creditor sovereignity. Public services of various sorts are falling apart, young people who cannot find jobs are emigrating, suicides are skyrocketing. And the country now is running a trade surplus, which means default and abandonment of the euro is a viable option. And as we and other commentators have observed, Greece is only one of the many probable points of failure in the latest rescue scheme.

    tags: greece bailout sovereign debt crisis Europe

  • One group has been especially vocal about shaping a new narrative of the credit crisis and economic collapse: those whose bad judgment and failed philosophy helped cause the crisis. Rather than admit the error of their ways — Repent! — these people are engaged in an active campaign to rewrite history. They are not, of course, exonerated in doing so. And beyond that, they damage the process of repairing what was broken. They muddy the waters when it comes to holding guilty parties responsible. They prevent measures from being put into place to prevent another crisis

    tags: psychology regulation politics investing

  • The current critical situation Since last summer, Italy has been in play — the price of BTPs fell sharply, that is, the interest rate spread between BTPs and Bunden (German bonds) shot up to around 400 basis point 4%. As a result, Italy enacted a harsh austerity plan with painful spending cuts. The European Union fiscal nagging body (Ecofin) and, more importantly the European Central Bank (ECB) demanded more.

    tags: italy

  • The chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management has said that the need for a German-led fiscal integration in the eurozone would make it increasingly unattractive for all the countries who joined to stay in the single currency.

    tags: euro Germany fiscal sovereign debt crisis

  • Germany on Saturday rejected media reports that Bundesbank reserves would be used to fund the euro zone’s rescue facility after German newspapers said Group of 20 leaders had discussed the idea of tapping central banks.

    tags: Germany gold central banks

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

2 Comments
  1. Dollar Mill says

    I wouldn’t say Italy is defenceless. I would say Europe fiasco leaves whole Europe and the future of the eurozone defenceless and not so sure about. Indeed I don’t see at the moment any way out of this but trough sound fiscal and administrative reforms and a redesigned EUR currency. You need a lender of last resort, or as history shows, a printer.

  2. Dave Holden says

    “The Smartphone Wars: Signs and Portents” https://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3894

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