Comments on: Eurozone crises: the bigger picture

By: ClementKnorr

ClementKnorr — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 19:43:58 +0000

The Scots hate the English, the Flemish hate the Waloons, the Southern Italians hate the Northern Italians, the Catalonians hate the Spaniards, the Bosnians hate the Serbs and of course the French hate everyone. Then along came the “let’s all play nice together folks” and they made a European Union. The idea that a bunch of out of touch bureaucrats could get dozens of nations marching in the same direction was utter nonsense and doomed from the start!

By: UncleBillly1

UncleBillly1 — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:49:54 +0000

The Treaty of Mas Dreck.

By: Bludde

Bludde — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:51:41 +0000

The Meriwether clones pre 1998 bought Spain, Italy, Belgium vs Germany… Greece was not in the picture then..However, whilst So Europeans cannot become Germans, and none would like to, they can coat-tail off the German weighted ECB.. and the markets, believe that in a crunch some mechanism will be found to “buy” Greek bonds.. One such scheme is for a Spanish bank to buy Greek bonds at 350bp spread and repo Spanish bonds with the ECB at 120bp over, pocketing the difference.. its really heads I win tails you lose because if Greece does fail, the bank will just “pass the buck” (the defaulted Greek bonds) to the Spanish Treasury.. NOT much difference here in the USA where the Fed has guaranteed to bail out everybody…

By: Gotthardbahn

Gotthardbahn — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:22:11 +0000

Good article Felix. You’ll turn me into a fan sooner than you might think.