Europe

There appear to be no happy outcomes here (although as my friend, Tom Ferguson always reminds me, “If you want to have a happy ending, go see a Disney film”). We appear to be entering most dangerous time for Europe since World War II.

This week's Outside the Box is in the tradition of showing the other side of the argument. Normally, anything George Soros says or does politically has my blood pressure up about 20 points. Yet, I posted another piece of his today in Over…

The Italian debt markets are a lot calmer this week than they were the week before last because the level of Italian bond yields is now more or less completely guaranteed by the European Central Bank (the ECB). However, Italy’s problem is…

In 2010, Euro area’s savings were insufficient to finance investment. Business needed to borrow to finance their investments and households savings were not enough to fill the gap. This is why the euro area runs a current account deficit,…

Markets stable but tone remains fragile. SNB expanded its sight deposit target; no EUR/CHF peg. BoE’s decision to stay on hold was unanimous. New measures announced by China boost CNY internationalization and integration with HK.

Dangerous stuff being kicked around at a dangerous time. Our sense is both leaders were relieved by the success of ECB intervention to bring down Spanish and Italian bond spreads and they will continue to rely on Trichet’s monetary bazooka…

In characteristic form, the currency traders and those who trade in what is dubbed "financial news" woke up last week and discovered, à la Rip Van Winkle, that the Swiss franc was a haven currency charging higher. Never you mind that it has…

Remember, this is a solvency crisis too, not just a liquidity crisis.

It is also worth stressing that this solution is far from perfect. We do not live in an ideal world. It is only one possible way of breaking the vicious circle into which the Euro Area countries have now fallen. It is one possible way, and…

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…