default

The bottom line is this: many in Northern Europe see this crisis as the result of the fiscal profligacy of bad actors which were known before the Euro’s existence to be bad actors. All of these countries except Spain have been running huge…

The point is EMU is a political construct and unworkable in its present state. The question is whether the Europeans want to take the political steps like Eurobonds or fiscal integration that are necessary to support a stable currency…

Postmortems of last month’s European Union summit meeting have now turned to why the Greek debt rescue failed to restore investor confidence in the country’s finances. Many reasons are advanced: the failure to communicate clearly; the…

Here’s my take on the wideners.

Is the PBoC going to stop buying US treasuries? The debt ceiling debate and a potential default have brought this question back into the spotlight. The theoretical and the real world answer to concerns about China and US debt is the same:…

Separately, both Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Roach, two leading American economists with differing views on the Chinese domestic economy have pointed out the concern China has with the dysfunctional US political system. Increasingly, the…

Treasuries are more expensive to use as collateral for the borrowing that banks do in the ordinary course of business.

My take: The issue is real and if the debt ceiling is not increased, the US will slip into a double dip recession in which unemployment will rise higher and stocks will sink lower than in 2009. Voters now see this as a predominately…

Comstock Partners argues that while the stock market seems ready cheer any agreement that increases the debt ceiling and avoids a default, such cheering may be extremely short-lived as the economy sinks further under the burden of…

If I had to make parallels for today's time in history, I still say this is Hoover’s time, not Roosevelt’s and certainly not Clinton’s.