Europe

According to Austrian daily Der Standard, Italy is to receive a 600 billion euro bailout courtesy of the IMF. Note: the article has what I assume to be a typo, referring to 600 million euros instead of 600 billion. I have fixed that in the…

Boxed in by the ever-worsening sovereign debt crisis, the Franco-German euro zone axis is trying to formulate a policy that both adheres to the German economic orthodoxy without worsening the crisis any further.

Almost exactly one year ago I wrote the following: In practice, you could have sovereigns conduct a ‘sovereign debt swap’ whereby the ECB buys an agreed-upon portion of the existing debt from the sovereigns and then uses these funds…

So here we are, with the ECB demanding deflationary austerity from the member nations in return for the limited bond buying that has been sustaining some semblance of national government solvency, not seeming to realize it can’t inflate…

As I have been saying at Credit Writedowns, the ECB’s opposition to monetising sovereign debt is not about inflation concerns but rather its resistance to moving into a politicised quasi-fiscal role.

Foreign-language economic and finance links for 26 November

Here are the English-language links for 26 November.

Those that call for the ECB to substantially increase its sovereign bond purchases, or for Germany to agree to euro bonds, want the opposition to unilaterally disarm. They insist on putting the cart before the horse. In effect, under…

I have already highlighted some of the issues being reported on Eurobonds. But I should point out that I believe the Germans are already considering Eurobonds despite official denials. The other major story is contagion. Poland’s currency…

Neither the current governing coalition nor the German populace is anywhere close to getting where Schröder is. The most Germany will deliver is what’s on the table now: EU fiscal oversight with penalties and potentially expulsion for…