sovereign debt crisis

Here's a great graphic on the Irish bailout, quantifying the exposure of foreign banks to Ireland as well as the pots of money from which the 85 billion euros for the Irish bailout is coming. My understanding about the ' funds which Ireland…

by Win Thin Details of Ireland’s four-year budget plan are emerging and it contains the expected mix of spending cuts and tax hikes that is needed to get IMF/EU aid.  Ireland did not bow to outside pressure to hike the corporate tax…

by Win Thin We continue to be concerned about contagion risks in the peripheral euro zone.  The package for Ireland has ultimately been shrugged off by the markets this week after initial gains in the euro and peripheral bond…

From Irish Government The Government today agreed to request financial support from the European Union and the Euro Area Members States. The IMF will also be requested to assist in the provision of support. The Government welcomes…

by Claus Vistesen The Eurozone seems to be the place where the party never ends these days, as one skeleton after the other comes rattling out of the closet. Indeed, one has the impression that history is in the making right now; and the…

The U.S. dollar declined in September and October as the market priced in the likelihood that the Federal Reserve would resume buying Treasuries. From late August through the actual QEII announcement itself, the dollar declined about 7.6%…

One might be forgiven for thinking that a 110 bln euro EU/IMF package would suffice for Greece and stabilize the situation as IMF packages typically do over time.   However, over the past month 10-year Greek yields have 260 bp and…

A first look at why Ireland has gone to the heights and crashed spectacularly, and what options it has that other nations in crisis have used successfully.

I think this trio of videos from Latvia really puts the whole Irish crisis in perspective. After a spectacular property bubble, Latvia imploded in 2008. I was calling the Baltics the next Argentina. Indeed, by early 2009 we eventually saw…

A recent CNBC article highlighted for me why the Irish are being pressured to accept a bailout when they have repeatedly said they don't want one yet. The problem is Portugal (and Spain). To the degree that the Irish situation continues to…