liquidity

Investors are anticipating the unravelling of the 21 July 2011 “solution” and a breakdown of the interbank-market that would throw the economy into an “immediate recession” like the one experienced after the Lehman bankruptcy. This column…

A U.S. downgrade is, in itself, almost meaningless. A nation that issues debt denominated solely in its own currency and which is in full control of its monetary policy, cannot default unwillingly. Nations default because they run out of…

This statement was issued to demonstrate coordinated global support in view of recent market turmoil.

The European Central Bank is now deciding how much liquidity to provide because it has received a quid pro quo from Italy that some analysts knew were necessary before the ECB would provide any liquidity. We will see soon whether this will…

This is a classic liquidity crisis. Bond markets in Europe are selling off. Commercial paper markets in the US are seizing up. Retail investors in Asia are already running for safety in overnight trading. What we are experiencing is a…

In case you did not notice it, the much discussed "range" on the SP500 broke in spectacular fashion today as the short rollers bypassed the 1250 mark in the same style as the Germany panzer passed the Maginot line back in the early stages…

Elga Bartsch, a ECB shadow council member and Chief European Economist at Morgan Stanley, talked to Bloomberg about the sovereign debt crisis today. She said that the ECB would be hard-pressed to do a 180 on its hawkish tightening position…

It would easy to say something like, “The euro is an abomination and the peripherals should simply leave or be tossed out of the euro zone.” But, we are here now. The political imperatives for closer European ties that created the single…

I believe the sovereign debt crisis will deteriorate further. And then we will just have to see what the politics of the individual countries in Euroland look like. If austerity brings the economy to a crawl and europopulism is well…

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