On Sun, 7 Feb 2010 23:55:07 -0800, "azotic"
wrote:

Indeed the euro is in deep doodo this morning.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTOE61704V20100208

The vortex is sucking in Japanese stocks.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...talks-end.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTKW00680220100208

Looks like we are stuck in a endless loop until congress steps in and hits
the reset button with some legistation. It will be to little to late as
usual.
Don't confuse an endless loop with a "death spiral."
Apparentley we have reached critical mass and are only waiting for the
trigger to start the chain reaction.
====================

When you play with fire, sooner or later you will get burned.
{Where are the responsible adults???}

This just in from the UK.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/c...ence-ebbs.html
For the third time in 18 months the global financial system risks
spinning out of control unless political leaders take immediate
and radical action.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Published: 5:46PM GMT 07 Feb 2010
snip
Flow data shows an abrupt withdrawal of German and Asian capital
from Club Med debt markets. The EU's refusal to offer Greece
anything beyond stern words and a one-month deadline for harsher
austerity – while admirable in one sense – is to misjudge how
fast confidence is ebbing. Greece's drama has already
metastasised into a wider systemic crisis. The world risks a
replay of the Lehman collapse if this runs unchecked, this time
involving sovereign dominoes.

Barclays Capital says the net external liabilities of Greece are
87pc of GDP, or €208bn (£182bn). Spain is worse at 91pc (€950bn),
and Portugal worse yet at 108pc (€177bn); Ireland is 68pc
(€123bn), Italy is 23pc, (€347bn). Add East Europe's bubble and
foreign debts top €2 trillion.

The scale matches America's sub-prime/Alt-A adventure and
assorted CDOs and SIVS of the Greenspan fling. The parallels are
closer than Europe cares to admit. Just as Benelux funds and
German Landesbanken bought subprime debt for high yield with AAA
gloss, they bought Spanish Cedulas because these too had a safe
gloss – even though Spain's property boom broke world records.
==They thought EMU had eliminated risk: it merely switched
exchange risk into credit risk. ==

A fat chunk of Club Med debt has to be rolled over soon. Capital
Economics said the share of state debt maturing this year is even
higher in Spain (17pc) than in Greece (12pc), though Spain's
Achilles' Heel is mortgage debt.
snip
---------
Be sure to at least scan the comments. I find it noteworthy that
California's budget problems seem to be as well known
internationally as Greece's.


Unka George (George McDuffee)
...............................
The past is a foreign country;
they do things differently there.
L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author.
The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).