November 15

A PIGS 5-fer:
Europe stumbles blindly towards its 1931 moment. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.
love this quote:

“This is a breath-taking mixture of suicidal irresponsibility and farcical incoherence”

which for some reason reminds me of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s quote:

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

Sovereign default system makes sense. John Dizard, FT.

Within a month or so, the seize-up in the peripheral bond markets will lead to serious and immediate operating issues for the financial system. So the political leadership has no choice but to clarify how Europe will deal with sovereign default, and banking system insolvency.

Europe’s Monetary Cordon Sanitaire. Simon Johnson and Peter Boone, Project Syndicate.

Given the vulnerability of so many eurozone countries, it appears that Merkel does not understand the immediate implications of her plan. The Germans and other Europeans insist that they will provide new official financing to insolvent countries, thus keeping current bondholders whole, while simultaneously creating a new regime after 2013 under which all this debt could be easily restructured. But, as European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet likes to point out, market participants are good at thinking backwards: if they can see where a Ponzi-type scheme ends, everything unravels.

Portuguese hint at euro exit as cost of debt soars and Greek debt crisis 'worse than ever'. both from the Independent.


Wow -- Check Out How Blatantly Our Government Misled Us With The October Jobs Numbers! Henry Blodget. NFP surprised to the upside because BLS changed its seasonal adjustment factor

Open letter to Ben Bernanke. WSJ. the authors of this letter lost all credibility once they included Malpass as a signatory! and (Dow 36,000) Kevin Hassett! And Michael Boskin (who blamed Obama in late 2009 for the stock market crash)!

other fare:
Obama to switch party. Michael Collins.