The Great Debate UK
from MacroScope:
Can Greek public opinion be turned?
So we’ve got the fresh Greek elections we expected and markets, despite the inevitability that we would get here, have reacted with some alarm. European stocks have shed around 1 percent, and the harbour of German Bunds is pushing their futures price up in early trade. The Greeks will try to form a caretaker government today to see them through to elections expected on June 17.
The key question is whether the mainstream parties can mount a convincing campaign second time around, playing on the glaring contradiction in SYRIZA’s position (no to bailout, yes to the euro) and essentially turning the vote into a referendum on euro membership, which the overwhelming majority of Greeks still support. Don’t count on that. SYRIZA remains ahead in the polls.
To be able to pull it off, PASOK and New Democracy will need some help from Europe. There have already been hints from Brussels that if a pro-bailout government is formed, Athens could be given some leeway on its debt-cutting terms. But equally other voices are saying there is no more room for manoeuvre.
France's Francois Hollande used his presidential debut to frame help for Greece within his push for a European growth strategy last night, saying he hoped that could also foster a return to prosperity there. He and Germany's Angela Merkel are due in the United States for a G8 summit at the end of the week where doubtless they will come under heavy pressure to make sure Greece doesn’t bomb out of the euro zone or, if it does, that the effect is contained. Easier said than done. Given a Greek euro exit would probably require rapid concerted reaction from the EU, IMF (to shore up Spain?) and the world’s big central banks (remember the global monetary policy response after the collapse of Lehmans?), planning for that could well be bubbling below the surface at the G8.
IMF chief Christine Lagarde said last night that it was important to be technically prepared for the possibility of Greece leaving the euro zone while Finland’s prime minister said Greek euro exit would not cause the financial mayhem seen in 2008.
Another week, another E.U. bailout agreement
By Mark Hillary. The opinions expressed are his own.
Once again German Chancellor Angela Merkel has had to dig deep to ensure that the euro zone can limp along for a little longer without any single nation defaulting.
And this story changes day by day. No sooner has Germany rescued the euro, Greece apologises and says they can’t meet the deficit targets – no more savings can possibly be achieved through austerity.
from The Great Debate:
Europe’s Lehman moment
By Jeffry A. Frieden
The opinions expressed are his own.
Europe is in the midst of its variant of the great debt crisis that hit the United States in 2008. Fears abound that if things go wrong, the continent will face its own “Lehman moment” – a recurrence of the sheer panic that hit American and world markets after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in October 2008. How did Europe arrive at this dire strait? What are its options? What is likely to happen?
Europe is retracing steps Americans took a couple of years ago. Between 2001 and 2007 the United States went on a consumption spree, and financed it by borrowing trillions of dollars from abroad. Some of the money went to cover a Federal fiscal deficit that developed after the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003; much of it went to fund a boom in the country’s housing market. Eventually the boom became a bubble and the bubble burst; when it did, it brought down the nation’s major financial institutions – and very nearly the rest of the world economy. The United States is now left to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of its own debt crisis.
from James Saft:
Pension savers get the boot
From Dublin to Paris to Budapest to inside those brown UPS trucks delivering holiday packages, it has been a tough few weeks for savers and retirees.
Moves by the Irish, French and Hungarian governments, and by the famous delivery company, showed that in the post-crisis world retirees, present and future, will be paying much of the price and taking on more of the risk.
from MacroScope:
Banking on a Portuguese bailout?
Reuters polls of economists over the last few weeks have come up with some pretty firm conclusions about both Ireland and Portugal needing a bailout from the European Union.
Portuguese 10-year government bond yields have hovered stubbornly above 7 percent since the Irish bailout announcement, hitting a euro-lifetime high and giving ammunition to those who say Lisbon will be forced into a bailout.
Why we have to support Ireland
– Laurence Copeland is a professor of finance at Cardiff University Business School. The opinions expressed are his own. –
Supporting Ireland to the tune of a few billion quid must look like a no-brainer to the British Government. We should not make the same mistake as the Germans, who managed to get the worst of both worlds over Greece – forced by the scale of their bank exposure to support Greece, but providing the money with ill will, causing bitterness rather than gratitude – and now repeating the error in the Irish case.
from Breakingviews:
The world is wasting a good crisis
Rahm Emanuel, President Barack Obama's former chief of staff, popularized the motto that one shouldn't waste a good crisis. But there is a severe risk that this is precisely what the world has been doing by being excessively soft in bailing out banks and countries since Lehman Brothers went bust in 2008.
Bailouts, such as that being negotiated for Ireland, may be needed to prevent a descent into chaos. But the conditions must be tough. Otherwise, the world won't learn the lessons from the crisis and justice won't be seen to be done.
Will the euro survive Europe’s latest sovereign debt crisis?
Kathleen Brooks is research director at forex.com. The opinions expressed are her own.
Ireland’s banking crisis reached boiling point this week. The Irish authorities are still adamant the country doesn’t need a bailout and are trying to draw a distinction between a sovereign bailout (which Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan et al claim they don’t need) and banking sector support (which they most definitely do).
from The Great Debate:
Europe’s speculator full Employment Act
Far from setting a trap for the "wolfpack," Europe's $1 trillion bailout package amounts to a full employment act for speculators, or should that be the reality-based community, for the foreseeable future.
Hoping to tame markets it accused of "wolfpack behavior," the European Union on Monday unveiled a 750 billion euro package intended to avert a rolling sovereign debt crisis that has engulfed Greece and threatens to spread widely among the weaker euro zone countries.
Financial Crisis Part II
- Laurence Copeland is a professor of finance at Cardiff University Business School and a co-author of “Verdict on the Crash” published by the Institute of Economic Affairs. The opinions expressed are his own. -
Hollywood would never allow a record-breaking disaster movie to go without a sequel. The same seems to be true of the 2008 banking crisis.
