liquidity

Yesterday, I showed you that contagion had spread and default probabilities were blowing out right across Europe. Every single name on the list for sovereign credit default wideners was European and names like Austria, Estonia, and Slovakia…

German central bankers (current and former) continue to voice their hostility to what the financial community now calls a Euro-style Quantitative Easing (aka big bazooka). This talk (by one of the boldest opponents of an ECB solution to the…

We are baffled by the analysis of the analyst community, some, of which, are not so analytical. They say that Europe’s fundamental problem is that it has a central bank which is unwilling to monetize sizeable debt maturities which…

The escalation of the European debt crisis and mounting evidence of new economic contraction has increased the scrutiny on the region. Yet it seems like many observers may be failing to grasp several important points, including the nature…

Warren Buffett was on CNBC this morning for three hours talking about a whole range of issues from the European sovereign debt crisis to too big to fail to housing in the US to penalties for corporate crime. The video of Europe is below,…

Marshall Auerback was on BNN yesterday talking about the sovereign debt crisis. He believes that there are two distinct issues at play. One is national solvency, the other is aggregate demand. In his view, the national solvency issues take…

Italian 10-year yields are now down below 6.5%, that’s a full percentage point lower than on Wednesday. Market players suspect ECB intervention is behind the sizable move. Still, everyone is breathing a sigh of relief as we head into the…

Jim Grant spoke to Bloomberg News earlier today about the sovereign debt crisis. He says the fundamental question is "What will the European Central Bank do next?" His answer: they will "print money". He believes that all of the central…

As for Italy itself, the country runs a primary fiscal surplus. As George Soros has noted: “Italy is indebted, but it isn’t insolvent.” Its fiscal deficit to GDP ratio is 60% of the OECD average. It is less than the euro area average. Its…

This chart from Der Spiegel shows you that the ECB has been buying a lot of periphery bonds. But, no matter how much they have bought, their purchases are dwarfed by the absolute magnitude of bonds coming due next year in Italy, over 300…