Portugal

Just to follow up on the last post, which was relatively optimistic about the eurozone, I want to show you this chart of non-performing loans in the periphery. I believe it tells a story of debt deflation and explain why the contraction in…

In a number of posts recently I have highlighted the impact of declining workforces on economic growth and the way the policies pursued to address the Euro debt crisis are having the impact of accelerating the movement of young people away…

Portugal is going to market with a 10-year sovereign bond issue, its first since 2011. I think this is a pretty big deal. Think of it as a complete return to public market access for the Portuguese government, one of the critical…

This is an important day for Portugal. It is selling 10-year bonds for the first time in more than two years. Demand is reportedly strong. Today's 10-year sale follows the 5-year bond sale in January and heralds to full return of Portugal…

Over the past weekend, Italy's caretaker cabinet formally approved plans to begin paying its overdue bills to domestic suppliers and service providers. Its official arrears have aggravated underlying problems, such as access to credit by…

It is not at all clear where things in Portugal are headed. The economy is in a deep depression. Yet, sovereign bond yields have come down. The Troika is even relaxing Portugal's austerity target, hoping this will drive yields down further.…

The European Union released figures for Q4 2012 GDP today and they were awful. GDP fell by 0.6% in the euro zone and 0.5% in the entire EU. Stock markets are getting clobbered on the news and the euro is selling off. This is not unexpected…

According to the Irish Times, the government of Ireland has entered into a deal with the ECB to cut the country's debt by liquidating the nationalised Irish bank Anglo Irish. As I noted in the Saturday post on Ireland's superior economic…

In today's links were two articles which highlighted the juxtaposition between declining sovereign yields and worrisome economic fundamentals in Spain and Portugal.

I had intended to write this post yesterday morning. However, after the bank scandal in Italy and the surprise drop in US GDP, I waited a day. The gist of what I intend to say here is that Italy is in the process of decoupling from Spain.…