The Great Debate UK
Is Hyde Park for sale?
- 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. -
So Bundestag members have been suggesting Greece sell an island or two, or maybe even the Acropolis, in order to pay off its mountainous debts?
If I were a Greek taxpayer, or a civil servant whose job was under threat, I would jump at the opportunity. Why should I care? Is the buyer going to carry off his purchase in some kind of gigantic carrier bag?
Or ship it stone-by-stone to his mansion in Beverley Hills, Dubai or Tianjin? No, it would very likely be a matter of no more than translating a few of the signs dotted around the site into an additional language or two – probably an overdue change anyway – and maybe raising the entry prices a notch or two.
The Greek story is not over yet
- Jane Foley is research director at Forex.com. The opinions expressed are her own.-
By rushing extra austerity measures through parliament last week and finding very good support for its bond sale Greece last week pulled its way clear of the edge of the abyss. This is not the end of the story, however, but rather just another chapter in the fledging system which is European Monetary Union.
from MacroScope:
Brit shock horror: euro to survive
Britons have never really got the euro zone. "Its not really going to happen, is it?" was a typical question from a City analyst to Reuters back in the mid-90s. The political drive behind the creation of the monetary union was beyond many in eurosceptic Britain.
So the results of a straw poll at an event sponsored by independent City advisers Lombard Street Research were somewhat suprising. A hundred or so mainly British investors were asked whether the euro would be around in five years with its current membership. Response was about 80 percent saying yes to 20 percent saying no.
from The Great Debate:
Embrace reality, not fight speculation
Stock up on canned goods, the authorities appear to be opening a new front in the War Against Speculation; this time taking aim at the people who might profit from Greece and its European partners' woes.
Just days after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission voted new limits on short selling, Germany is investigating the credit default swap trading of speculators to try to prevent them from profiting from any bailout of Greece.
from Breakingviews:
Goldman Sachs needs to admit it made mistakes
By Chris Hughes
Even the mighty Goldman Sachs makes mistakes. The Wall Street bank's decision to help Greece keep some of its debts hidden from public view in 2001 was one of them.
The transaction allowed the Greek government to present accounts which understated the state's liabilities by 1.6 percent of GDP.
An alternative view of the crisis in Greece
-Mark Bolsom is the Head of the UK Trading Desk at Travelex, the world’s largest non-bank FX payments specialist. The opinions expressed are his own.-
Greece has been dominating the headlines lately with many commentators heavily criticising its burgeoning deficits and perceived threat to eurozone stability. But is such heavy criticism really justified, or are the Greeks simply being made scapegoats for systematic failings? After all, Greece did not cause the current financial crisis, but is instead one of the major victims.
Is a queue forming at the EU’s fiscal soup kitchen?
- 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. -
Back in the prehistory of the euro zone, I wrote an article in the Times trying to work out how the game currently being played out in Europe would end.
from The Great Debate:
Watch banks for clues on Greece
-- James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own. --
As odd as it sounds, concerns about the effects of a euro zone sovereign crisis on Europe's still poorly capitalized banks may prove to be the tipping point that leads to a swifter bailout of Greece.
While discussion of contagion may seem very 2008, the problems with Greece, which faces a huge fiscal deficit, are becoming tougher for euro zone authorities to leave uninsured.
from MacroScope:
Political economy and the euro
The reality of 'political economy' is something that irritates many economists -- the "purists", if you like. The political element is impossible to model; it often flies in the face of textbook economics; and democratic decision-making and backroom horse trading can be notoriously difficult to predict and painfully slow. And political economy is all pervasive in 2010 -- Barack Obama's proposals to rein in the banks is rooted in public outrage; reading China's monetary and currency policies is like Kremlinology; capital curbs being introduced in Brazil and elsewhere aim to prevent market overshoot; and British budgetary policies are becoming the political football ahead of this spring's UK election. The list is long, the outcomes uncertain, the market risk high.
But nowhere is this more apparent than in well-worn arguments over the validity and future of Europe's single currency -- the new milennium's posterchild for political economy.
from Global News Journal:
Does Greece really deserve such a market pummelling?
So there's no question Greece has work to do to improve its bookkeeping.
Not only must it get spending in check, but it needs to be a bit more honest about where its finances stand in the first place. After all, it's not often an EU country says one month that its budget deficit is a little over three percent of GDP and admits a few weeks later that, oh dear, it's actually nearer 13 percent.
Yet it's hard not to have a little sympathy for Greece at the same time.
Its government bonds have been hammered and the price it has to pay to finance its debt has soared as financial markets have relentlessly taken it to task over the past six weeks for its profligacy.
