05/16/10 Stockholm, Sweden – The financial crisis that began in housing, and then with banks and insurers, has now moved onto the balance sheets of nations. And, among the fiscally unsound, it’s the euro that is suffering the most. It recently hit a 14-month low in dollar terms, and the ongoing uncertainty facing the EU continues to break records for pessimism.
According to MarketWatch:
“In early February, the cost of insuring against a sovereign default in Western Europe exceeded the price of similar protection against default by North American investment-grade companies. That was the first time this had happened, according to data compiled by Markit from the credit derivatives market.
“The move ‘symbolizes how credit risk has been transformed from corporate to sovereign risk, as the solution to the financial and economic crisis was government intervention,’ Hans Mikkelsen, credit strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, wrote in a note to investors at the time.”
But it’s not just a European problem…
“Even though the current epicenter of the crisis is focused on the euro zone, the overall fiscal position of the single currency area is stronger than that of the U.S., the U.K. and Japan, he noted.
“‘Unless there is a radical change of course by those in charge of fiscal policy in the U.S., Japan and the U.K., these countries’ sovereigns too will, sooner (in the case of the U.K.) or later (in the case of Japan and the U.S.) be at risk of being tested by the markets,’ Buiter said.”
In response to these market pressures, Greece, and now Spain and Portugal, have begun austerity programs to rein in government spending and get deficits under control. As Daily Reckoning editorial director Eric Fry recently pointed out in the chart below, the US has similar debt funding requirements as the troubled EU countries… but has yet to start acting like the party’s over.
Visit MarketWatch to read more details on the second debt storm.
Best,
Rocky Vega,
The Daily Reckoning
Rocky Vega
Rocky Vega is publisher of Agora Financial International, where he advances the growth of Agora Financial publishing enterprises outside of the US. Previously, he was publisher of The Daily Reckoning, and founding publisher of both UrbanTurf and RFID Update -- which he ran from Brazil, Chile, and Puerto Rico -- as well as associate publisher of FierceFinance. Rocky has an honors MS from the Stockholm School of Economics and an honors BA from Harvard University, where he served on the board of directors for Let’s Go Publications, Harvard Student Agencies, and The Harvard Advocate.
The Daily Reckoning is your premier source for making sense of the news Washington and Wall Street generate. Each business day, The Daily Reckoning calls on its stable of world-class writers and thinkers to show you how to get ahead.
Start your 100% FREE subscription to The Daily Reckoning today and you’ll get a free research report, “How to Survive the Fall of Social Security.” Simply enter your email address below to get your free report and join over 495,000 worldwide Daily Reckoning subscribers!
We Respect Your Privacy and We will
Never Share or Sell Your Email Address
This is already baked into the cake…such is the way within the Money Masters’ completely rigged kleptocracy. Maybe the Mogambo has some extra space in his Bunker of Paranoid Seclusion?