Greece

Spain has become the new Greece. Actually, in many respects Spain is now worse than Greece. The Spanish unemployment rate is already so high and unlike Athens, Madrid has made no headway in reducing its public debt levels (whereas the…

The Greek private sector can generally only rely on the Greek banking system for credit. At the same time the Greek private sector is moving liquidity out of the country, dramatically shrinking the availability of credit.

In last week's weekly newsletter, I explained why Spain was in big trouble. Today I want to present the full context euro zone-wide and why there will be more sovereign defaults to come in the euro zone. This will be a very comprehensive…

"The anger that prompted Christoulas to take his own life in Syntagma Square in view of the Greek parliament is shared by much of the middle-class and low-income Greeks who have carried a disproportionate burden of the stringent tax…

One Greek outstanding bond is a 450 mln euro FRN that is due May 15. It has a 30-day grace period to make the payment, according to press reports. The new Greek 10-year bond yield rose today to 20.55%. It is the fifth consecutive session…

Greece argues that its needs to strong defense spending for two threats. The first is from Turkey. Yet relations have improved and a military confrontation between these two NATO members seem quite remote. The other threat Greece is thought…

The shockingly weak euro zone flash PMI, especially the sub-50 reading for German manufacturing, is the main focus today. New orders have been weak and the Bloomberg consensus does expect the euro zone economy to contract not only in Q1 but…

Germany and Papademos have ended Greece’s political sovereignty, but Greece gave up its economic sovereignty long ago when it adopted the euro. Two aspects of national economic sovereignty were inherently lost with nations that gave up…

The following explanation of the recent Greek ratings action was posted at Fitch Ratings website.

This is a bronze level post. These are the links with my daily commentary for 9 Mar 2012 on the Greek PSI deal and the renewed urgency this makes for Spain and Portugal.