James Saft

James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

It looks as if we will need to see some kind of miracle intervention from the European Central Bank — a Deus ex ECB — or the euro zone is heading for a nasty divorce.

Either the ECB comes across with a mandate-busting rescue, probably involving direct lending to Italy and rolling the currency printing presses, or the forces aligned against currency union will roll over Italy and into France.

Italian political chaos and a move by some clearing houses to demand more margin on Italian debt helped to drive 10-year yields of the troubled sovereign borrower to a euro-era record of 7.5 percent on Wednesday. The market appears to doubt that the EFSF rescue fund will be big enough and operative enough to back Italy effectively.

The sheer size of what would be required to backstop Italy, which has the world’s third-largest bond market, throws doubt in turn on support for Spain, whose bonds are also selling off, and the ability of France to maintain its AAA rating, without which Germany is left alone as the bulwark against a gigantic bank run.

The ECB has been buying Italian bonds in the secondary market but still sees itself as only providing transitional support until other European rescue initiatives can take its place.

James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

The plan to rescue the euro zone faces only three hurdles; democracy, reality, and supply and demand.If they can overcome those, it is going to work perfectly, and, amazingly, they just might.

Democracy reared its rather large head when the Greek government decided suddenly that it wanted a sign-off from its voters and moved to put the plan to a plebiscite.

While it is hard to argue with the idea of a people getting a chance to vote directly on a plan that will mean tough times for the better part of the next decade, the move jeopardizes not only the confidence on which the entire rescue relies but also the next infusion of much-needed cash Greece is slated to get in November.

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.

This goes beyond merely cutting back on pension benefits, rising to actual appropriation of supposedly long-term retirement assets to help fund short term emergencies.