Europe

[Coronita]

[quote=The-Shoveler]Looks like the ECB is not buying up the Spanish and Italian bonds,

Me thinks there is a game of chicken afoot to see if the U.S. federal reserve will step in and buy up the bonds.
ECB is not ECB enough (my speculation)
Or more practically they are coming around to the realization that the quicker they abandon the euro Idea the better off they will be, as there is no good way to make it work IMO.[/quote]

no worries.

[davelj]

[quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=pri_dk][quote=Nor-LA-SD-GUY2]Maybe a split into a north EU and a south EU ?[/quote]

South EU women are hotter.

Feel free to debate, but bring data.[/quote]

Pri: I won’t disagree that South EU has some definite talent, but I’d suggest you take a spin around Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland before being so quick on the trigger.[/quote]

Agreed. And let’s not forget Romania. I’ve been to Romania five times over the last decade; I was in Constanta this time last year. Lots of beautiful women with questionable morals – a combination for which I have a demonstrated weakness.

[SD Transplant]

x2 as agree w/ all of the above & don’t ask me how I know

[CDMA ENG]

[quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=pri_dk][quote=Nor-LA-SD-GUY2]Maybe a split into a north EU and a south EU ?[/quote]

South EU women are hotter.

Feel free to debate, but bring data.[/quote]

Pri: I won’t disagree that South EU has some definite talent, but I’d suggest you take a spin around Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland before being so quick on the trigger.[/quote]

I am with you Allan… I love nice eastern bloc talent…

CE

[CDMA ENG]

[quote=davelj][quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=pri_dk][quote=Nor-LA-SD-GUY2]Maybe a split into a north EU and a south EU ?[/quote]

South EU women are hotter.

Feel free to debate, but bring data.[/quote]

Pri: I won’t disagree that South EU has some definite talent, but I’d suggest you take a spin around Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland before being so quick on the trigger.[/quote]

Agreed. And let’s not forget Romania. I’ve been to Romania five times over the last decade; I was in Constanta this time last year. Lots of beautiful women with questionable morals – a combination for which I have a demonstrated weakness.[/quote]

Unfortunately… A lot of them all have the same Zsa Zsa Gabor attitudes too.

[The-Shoveler]

[quote=flu][quote=The-Shoveler]Looks like the ECB is not buying up the Spanish and Italian bonds,

Me thinks there is a game of chicken afoot to see if the U.S. federal reserve will step in and buy up the bonds.
ECB is not ECB enough (my speculation)
Or more practically they are coming around to the realization that the quicker they abandon the euro Idea the better off they will be, as there is no good way to make it work IMO.[/quote]

no worries.[/quote]

Here it comes, get ready to grab your ankles.

Activity across Europe today looks like it is softening up the Euro area for the Euro’s official demise. Italy’s borrowing costs are being drawn north by Spain’s, which today exceeded the psychologically important 7% barrier. But perhaps more importantly Angela Merkel has begun to show signs of wear and tear. Today she warned the political world that Germany probably can’t take much more and tried to turn the spotlight on the USA.

[ucodegen]

About the Washington post article.. did the author remember that Britain does not use the Euro? They are still on the Pound, though they are a member of the E.U. Therefore, what the rest of the E.U. who use the Euro does, does not directly affect them, and it could only hurt their country if they use the Pound to try to bail out the fiscal irresponsibility of some of the member states of the E.U. It would be best for them to ‘sit out’.. they did not ‘hold out’ – different, yet important, meaning.

And of course they want to look to the U.S. to bail them out.. while we are trying to put our house together after blowing it up with loose credit. Considering that a large segment of TARP money went to European banks, I think they need to be careful on that request.

Personally, I never thought the Euro was going to survive. You had responsible governments mixed with irresponsible. Normally currency exchange rates ‘adjust’ to compensate for the fiscal well being of a country. If the exchange rate can’t adjust, then something else has to give – which would be the spending behavior of that country’s government — austerity. Either way, the Piper has to be paid… either by the children/descendants or by those that incurred the debt.

[The-Shoveler]

“Everybody wants foreign bailouts.”

Greece chooses the left-wing Syriza party (which vows to ditch the euro zone) or opts for the conservative New Democracy party (which vows to renegotiate from within the euro zone system).
(Though official polls are allowed between now and Sunday, Business Insider was reporting Thursday morning that Greek markets were rallying on word of a lead for New Democracy. Obviously that could change at any moment.)
Jon Najarian of optionMONSTER.com says it makes sense for the Greeks to opt for New Democracy. “If you’re Greek you want something that kicks the can down the road,” he reasons.
“Everybody wants foreign bailouts.”

[Coronita]

Greece might end up leaving the EU. But if there is any tailspin going on, it will probably stop at that. Spain/Italy will probably be bailed out imho afterwards

At least italy makes some nice cars.

[The-Shoveler]

I think Greece and the others will play the game for as long as they possibly can, draining as much as they possibly can out of the U.S.A. and any other Euro countries in an effort to avoid going back to the pre-euro days (really they never had it so good in most cases).
They will not be able to balance trade IMO. That’s just a fool’s fantasy.

They need to be able to inflate (devalue their currency) (actually so do we, but we are trying to pretend we don’t have too much debt to service, it’s laughable really but it hurts too much when I do that).

[spdrun]

Nah, they’ll keep the panic at the low sweat stage for the next year or so. Bailout-crisis-bailout-crisis. Hey, at least it’ll keep the economy from improving and real estate from appreciating all THAT quickly, so investors will have a bit more time to do their thing 🙂

[paramount]

Another must watch video on the EU:

[The-Shoveler]

The euro-zone economy is about 17 trillion dollars, the U.S.A. economy is about 15 Trillion dollars.
China’s GDP is about 6 Trillion dollars.
Anyone saying the euro-zone does not matter obviously did not look at the above stats.

[The-Shoveler]

Looks like Germany blinked,
I think a new cycle of currency devaluation and inflation is about to begin.
Just my take anyway.

[spdrun]

~$200 billion bailout? Not enough. Another temporary solution, thankfully. Hope this will fester for another year or five, and keep people on our side of the pond niiiice and jittery.

The other good thing is that faith has been lost in the ability of the Euro-peons to fix their “crises.” Euro “only” went up about 2%, whereas if the news were announced a year ago, it would have jumped 5%.

[Author]

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