Won’t buy you what it used to.
Remember when the (place your favorite currency here) used to be worth something? I guess it’s the euro’s turn now. Hey, what goes up must come down, right? There must be something going on in the euro zone these days or something.
Die Gemeinschaftswährung sank am Mittwoch erstmals sei Mitte Januar unter die Marke von 1,30 Dollar. Am späten Nachmittag wurde der Euro bei 1,2988 Dollar gehandelt.
Women and children first! No offense there, Nicolas.
It looks like Germany and France may have had enough of broke weeny Europeans (other than themselves) already and now appear to be planning a secret and very “exlusive stability pact” just for the crème de la crème of ze Europe. You know, for that handful of European countries that can still pay their debts, maybe. But don’t tell anybody yet. This is still a secret, like I said.
Deutschland und Frankreich sind nicht mehr gewillt, auf eine Einigung aller EU-Länder zu warten. Notfalls wären sie bereit, mit einigen Ländern voranzugehen und so innerhalb der Währungszone eine Art Klub der Super-Europäer zu gründen, deren Mitglieder sich strengen Sparauflagen unterwerfen.
What, me worry?
The German debt agency was forced to retain almost half of a sale of 6 billion euros due to a shortage of bids by investors, sparking fears that Europe’s debt crisis is now even starting to threaten Berlin.
The German government is still resisting calls (from France and elsewhere) to allow the ECB to act more decisively.
“It is a complete and utter disaster,” one financial expert dude in London said. “And everybody has hurt feelings,” I replied. “And that’s the main thing.”
It’s starting to get ugly, folks, in other words. Uh, are we having a panic yet?
“The debt crisis is burrowing ever deeper, like a worm, and is now reaching Germany.”
I got your role model for you right here. Do as we say, folks. Not as we do.
So far the German government has based its budget forecasts solely on the presumption of strong economic development.
Europe’s largest economy, may slow to a near standstill next year as the region’s debt crisis saps demand for exports.
You know that scene in Austin Powers when Dr. Evil says an evil funny and he and his evil cronies start laughing loudly in a sinister fashion and just laugh and laugh and laugh and then finally stop laughing because, well, you just can’t keep on laughing like that forever, no matter how evil the joke?
Well it’s the same thing with German Schadenfreude about being fein raus (off the hook) and everybody else out there doing the suffering, economically speaking. You can only enjoy that Schadenfreude for so long, folks. So like export a few more good chuckles out of this while you can.
“The global economic recession triggered by the international financial crisis will be long-term.”
So, is it time for the sweet poison or the silver bullet? Germany (or one German) is the last man standing and it’s time to pay up or shut up.
Can Germany (and Germany’s “independent” Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann) jump over its/his shadow and allow the European Central Bank to become the lender of last resort in Europe’s never-ending efforts to prop up the euro?
Pump up the volume already. Half a dozen bailout packages and half a trillion euros later, Greece is closer to leaving the euro zone than ever before and Italy now seems bound for bankruptcy, too. Who’s next? And where’s the money? It looks like Europe’s arsenal is down to one last taboo here: Let the ECB vouch for all of the outstanding debt of the debtor nations, “permanently, to an unlimited extent and in violation of all applicable laws.” Germany, for some strange (and wonderful) reason, is still against doing this.
You know the deal, my fellow Americans. It’s the easy way out: “Print money and drown the debt crisis in a sea of liquidity.” Look what its done for us – so far.
Hey look, I don’t know much about economics (nor do at least half of the world’s economists, for that matter), but I do know that if President Barack Obama, President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso are all urging the Germans to abandon their resistance to the ECB plan, it’s probably best for the rest of us out there if this Weidmann guy sticks to his guns. I wouldn’t bet money on him doing so, though. And I certainly wouldn’t bet using the euro.
He mechanically recited the traditional mantras of the Bundesbank: “independence,” “a culture of stability” and “credibility.”
But only from behind. It’s another one of those German schizoid personality disorder things.
When history dictates humility, and modesty proves so profitable, reticence endures.
Germans tell the pollsters they fear for their money—and then add that they like both Europe and the euro. They sense that it is cheaper to throw up firewalls than to pay for the devastation of the blaze. They bridle at rewarding the vices of the “Club Med” countries. But their real horror is to be left alone in Europe once more.
It’s getting ugly here, folks. Ugly and angry (and that makes everybody happy here).
“We’ve had enough!” Germany’s Bildzeitung readers read. “We’re spending hundreds of billions of euros to save the Greeks and now a referendum there should make clear whether they want to be saved at all. Now we want our own referendum: no more billions for the Greeks, Greece out of the euro!”
Place your vote here: “Yes, keep throwing money at them!” or “No, not another cent for bankrupt Greece, take the euro away!”
Die renommierte FAZ fragte gestern, „warum eigentlich die Griechen darüber abstimmen dürfen, ob sie gerettet werden wollen, nicht aber die Deutschen, ob sie und ihre Kinder für solche Zwecke Bürgschaften in Milliardenhöhe schultern möchten“.
German politicians everywhere were shocked at Greek prime minister George Papandreou’s shocking decision yesterday to call a referendum on the latest greatest financial rescue package just put together by EU bureaucrats after marathon summit talks held in Brussels.
“One can’t help but think that the Greeks should be more grateful to selfless Europeans like ourselves who are only trying to help,” said one distraught Berliner politician. “Everybody knows that if you’re dumb enough to actually ask the people what they think about our grand European rescue visions they are very likely to speak their minds.”
A poll at the weekend showed nearly 60 percent of Greeks had a negative or partly negative view of the rescue.
Circular commitments lead to a Ponzi economy.
If the ECB announces that it is willing to lend, in unlimited amounts, to peripheral governments and to the European financial stability facility then the immediate crisis is at once “solved”. But at what cost?
If governments stand behind banks and banks stand behind governments and the central bank lends freely to both and also underwrites financial markets, then financial asset prices become completely detached from economic reality.
Observing Hermann 