Italy

The Europeans can’t catch a break. The crisis has already flared before they have had a legitimate opportunity to deal with the medium- and longer-term issues. Willem Buiter says the Europeans need a 2.5 trillion euro EFSF to deal with…

Felix Zulauf spoke to Barron’s Alan Abelson about his thoughts on the European sovereign debt crisis now that Greece has received its second 100 billion euro bailout. Here I discuss what Abelson says about the conversation and why I think…

Tom Ferguson gives a comprehensive view of the politicss of the European sovereign debt crisis.

The ECB does have the power to end this. They are not doing so for ideological reasons. Let me suggest two scenarios.

The contagion to Italy is a turning point in the euro zone crisis. I feel we have reached a point where the wrong decisions could mean disaster. However, I continue to hope that the Europeans will recognize how destructive the current…

Clearly, the Europeans’ dithering has had catastrophic consequences. The extend and pretend strategy has not prevented contagion from infecting the core. So we need to see a response here. In the shorter-term, the Europeans are likely to…

Tolstoy tells us in the first line of Anna Karenina that "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." This is directly applicable to Europe. It is easy to tar all (growing) peripheral countries with the…

The problem is if “markets become skittish about Spain or Italy, which cannot be bailed out. So EU leaders will cut Greece loose” and indeed, there is talk about doing just that – allowing Greece to default. The policy of extend and pretend…

Now that Italian bonds are getting crushed and contagion is clearly spreading to the core, Greece will have to be cut loose.

Multiple news sources are reporting about a secret meeting due to take place on Monday amongst European officials to discuss the deepening sovereign debt crisis that has now spread to Italy. Below is my translation of an article in German…