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Systemic risk is not driven by close macro integration. If this were the case, US states would have far higher exposure to systemic credit risk. Instead, systemic exposure is very high for European sovereigns. The roots of systemic risk lie…

The unscheduled meeting between several euro zone finance ministers, Eurogroup head Juncker, EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner Rehn, ECB President Trichet and a few other senior officials was important. It marks the official recognition that…

On Friday I spoke to RT America about the mockery of a sham that is US public discourse on the debt ceiling issue. First of all, the US government creates dollars. They can always manufacture more if they so choose. It's a rubbish argument…

The euro took another leg lower in thinned afternoon North American markets after Der Spiegel online reported that Prime Minister Papandreou is contemplating a Greek exit from the euro zone and that the EC is calling a "confidential"…

This is my translation of an article from the German magazine Der Spiegel which says: "The debt crisis in Greece is getting worse. According to information available to SPIEGEL ONLINE, the country's government is considering leaving the…

The main driver that has led to a persistent decline in the US dollar through the last several months is the divergent thrust of monetary policy. It has left the Federal Reserve as a laggard in the global cycle and, in turn, has left the…

In April 1989, Mexico's external debt negotiator, Angel Gurria, asked his country's commercial bank creditors for a 55 percent haircut. This was the opening pitch of the newly created Brady Plan, which finally addressed both the debt…

Regardless of the actual numbers, the housing market has one more mountain of mortgage resets to climb; it started last month and will continue through late 2012. This will only aggravate the number of foreclosures. With house prices…

Moody's, the rating agency, has cut the credit rating for the Republic of Ireland two notches from Baa1 to Baa3, which is the lowest investment grade rating. They also left the outlook for further rate cuts as negative, meaning that more…

The euro zone periphery debt market has moved back into the fore, with Greece taking center stage again. While additional news flow out of the Ireland indicates that the Irish government is now considering the term “structured default” as a…