Berlin must find a way to keep Greece, and others, from infecting Europe, which is already suffering from chronic financial fevers.

not gonna happen. the germans will put in guarantees, but no money. this will work short term, but won't make it til the summer. remember, germans are smug and have a superiority complex. this will probably strengthen the dollar.

Parasites have a tendancy to have growing appetites. And they seem to all latch on to the same host. Jus sayin'

Deficits...don't...matter...

[In the 2011 budget...] 94% of all revenues are entirely consumed by mandatory spending plus the interest payments (also arguably "mandatory"). So no matter how much politicians say they want to "cut spending', rest assured that they have backed themselves into a very sharp corner. There's no maneuvering room left.

2010 - The Emperor Has No Clothes - Feb. 9, 2010 | Blogs at Chris Martenson - 2010, budget deficit, Chris Martenson's Blog, external, Federal Reserve, individual income taxes, mandatory, military expenditures, NYT editorial, revenues

**One weak link **in the financial chain and the unraveling begins i.e. Germany is considering a plan with its European Union partners to offer Greece and other troubled euro zone members loan guarantees ...

How much snow before everyone freezes?

(snow variety)

I can't help but wish for Greece to semi-collapse. Just enough to drive down the cost of me being able to retire in the cyclades, but without a complete loss of order as I can't afford a personal Xe army.

Showing just how far his previous economic ideology has fallen from grace, White House senior economics adviser Larry Summers went on to CNBC Tuesday morning and sounded off against a "bloated financial system" while offering a ringing endorsement for the president's effort to regulate Wall Street.

Once a cheerleader for Wall Street immoderacy, Summers decried a "system that is based on massive borrowing, intermediated through a bloated financial system, in order to support excessive consumption."

He's Come A Long Way: Summers Attacks 'Bloated Financial System'

So it’s more about finding firewalls, containing the problem, than principally about helping the Greeks.” [A German government official]

If there's anything the Germans are good at, it's keeping a population contained to a concentrated area.

I said this late last night, but Spain = Arizona.

Spain's problem isn't that it's in the Euro. It's that it based government spending plans on the dream that an unsustainable real estate bubble could last forever.

We all know about your crush on Mark Harmon.

Productive person

The is running on overdrive to keep the global financial house of cards afloat but am hoping to see a

Yes. merchants of fear has documented extensively here at HCN the progression of denials that get louder and louder until the implosion occurs.

mp, someone secretly slipped a sprig of marijuana into a tobacco hooka filled with apple-spiced tobacco at a party I was at, and I smoked the hooka. That means no FBI for me for three years, which is very, very annoying to me. I was not happy when I found out. I didn't experience any effects, but I'm not going to lie about it at the interview, because I don't do that.

So is there any economy anywhere on this planet right now that is not in the process of going down the drain?

Crickets?

Speaking of stimulus and bailouts, when will Obama announce stimpack 2?

Cape teachers could face job cuts | delmarvanow.com | The Daily Times

LEWES -- The Cape Henlopen School District could lose 19 teachers in the next two years as federal stimulus funds disappear, officials said.

outsider:

China and India have the capability to make things people want to buy. They'll do fine in the long term.

πῦρ σκευαστὸν

Outsider wrote:

So is there any economy anywhere on this planet right now that is not in the process of going down the drain?

All the CBs are printing like mad hatters and governments are spewing deficit bonds. I don't know what kind of long term effect this might have on prices.

@Oxtail (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Tue, 2/9/2010 - 5:22 pm
Germany bailing out the PIIGS means that now they're forced to be heavy handed in demanding massively unpopular austerity plans across those countries. The Nazi jokes just write themselves.

Extrapolate accordingly about analogies to and global financial house of cards.
YouTube - Downfall of AR and the Gartner Magic Quadrant

Great vid

Who was the talking head from IHS on the Newshour? Sure is a great lot of kettle-blacking going on....
If you didn't frequent here, and only watched the news, you'd be confused!

No FBI for You!

Outsider wrote:

China and India. Economies that include massive amounts of poverty and almost (?) slave labor.

Is that what we have to look forward to?

Maybe their poverty is what motivates them to work hard? As opposed to most of the US whose fat asses feel entitled to cush jobs that over pay?

Just an FYI, for those wanting to check the weather forecast right now, NOAA (weather.gov) must be overloaded because it's not loading.

edit: never mind, it's working now.

Charles Kiting wrote:

Is this a Berlin firewall?

I think they meant "firebreak".

outsider use nws(national weather service)

Mel wrote:

Don't know much about India,

Well India has more children under 15 than the US population. So India has to do what it needs to feed the folks. India is also quickly becoming a auto powerhouse. So much so that Tata is hiring in MI !

PLA aims guns at Bernankecopter 

Never has the need for a dimsum icon been more palpable.

gaby - I tried nws.com and it brought me to the musicians New World Spirits. Never heard of them, but they sounded interesting. Thanks.

Outsider wrote:

China and India. Economies that include massive amounts of poverty and almost (?) slave labor.

Isn't that what the U.S. had in 1860?

The Oil Drum | Iraq Could Delay Peak Oil a Decade
I missed this January 6, 2010 article until now

Charles Kiting wrote:

Isn't that what the U.S. had in 1860?

SE US mostly, right?

Do all you folks have any idea just how ugly your Greece bashing is?
We really have learned nothing.

yagij wrote:

SE US mostly, right?

No. Lots o' log cabins in the midwest.

Charles Kiting wrote:

No. Lots o' log cabins in the midwest.

I was focusing mostly on the slave part. The poverty was everywhere.

Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes!

outsider try nws.gov

gaby - nws.gov didn't work for me. But nws.org brought me to new world symphony. And that looks interesting.

You are taking me on a great tour tonight.

(nationalweatherservice.com seems good tho)

try this and put your zip code in for local forecast upper left hand youll see it.
NOAA's National Weather Service

Works great gaby - thank you.

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

the know-nothings were.

Yes, but the know-nothings are now the have-nothings so it worked out okay.

So what are the Germans going to do for SPIL (Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Latvia)?

On the scene in weatherland, the sprinkles commenceth.

Nuke wrote:

They can sink or swim.

There is always the third option: Turkish statehood!

ot radical french left view on iran
Une autre guerre Américaine ? Obama menace la Chine et l’Iran - Egalite et Réconciliation

The reaction of China's arms sales to Taiwan has been severe and resulted in the imposition of "an exceptionally broad range of retaliatory measures ... including sanctions against U.S. companies that provide equipment this sale. "The U.S. arms manufacturers are multinational giants that have an enormous political influence on the Obama administration and will probably push the government of the United States to respond with even more aggression.

Obama not only mimics that of Bush, but its consequences could be even more devastating, with the real possibility of a regional war. Iran and China have much more capacity on the military than did Afghanistan or Iraq, a war against them would cause countless more deaths.

China PLA officers urge economic punch against U.S.
| Reuters

I expect them to become the most forlorn folks in the country when the dust settles...

Nuke wrote:

The choice is also ours.

Can we get a 40-60 year intermediary period where we can enjoy a higher standard of living (without the EZ credit) above our production before we sink?

"So it’s more about finding firewalls, containing the problem, than principally about helping the Greeks."

Absolutely predictable, given the players involved.

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

I expect them to become the most forlorn folks in the country when the dust settles...

And watching those S. Palin highlights from over the weekend, they deserve whatever they get. They were played like a fiddle.
.
Also caught last night's TDS with Ms. Sanford, and I have to agree with you that it was rather unseemly to see her talk so fondly in regards to her slave labor.

Just a reminder that the Optimistic Bear internet radio show will be airing live tonight (Tuesday the 9th) at 9:00pm Pacific Time. We will be discussing the past week in economics and finance. Feel free to call in and share your thoughts.

Pomp & Surkanstance: Introducing the Optimistic Bear Weekly Economics and Finance

for weather==try wunderground.com

A guy I worked with is Counter Inteligence with the FBI. It sounds like an interesting job. They even have a tiny little airforce if you want to fly.

I lived in Greece. Arrogant, ignorant, lazy stupid people.

I've been to Germany. I found them to be well read, articulate, and polite.

I'm assuming you stayed in the tourist areas. In that case, you were probably talking to Albanians and Bulgarians, not Greeks.

You can't fix stupid, unfortunately.

Don't get him started on kinky sects...

Youse guise need to laugh more.

An oldie but a goodie.

Obama Saves The Economy!

YouTube - Swinging Safety Last

Generalizing is pretty ridiculous. I've always liked Mediterranean culture.

Arrogance is not limited to Europe.

Germany's Choice | STRATFOR

A quite provocative analysis of the EU with respect to Germany from Stratfor. A nice job of framing the issue in terms of Germany's geographic situation, and historical context.

I haven't caught up with the comments above, but the comments in response to Krugman's NYT post seem to me to make a good case that the blame in spain lies mainly in the plain of central europe. Germany exported its cash seeking higher returns and much of it went (literally) south - to S. France, Spain, Portugal, Italy (and maybe) Greece. How does a country stop foreign investment becoming a cause of bubbles led by foreign investment? They usually can't, and don't. Isn't the US equally guilty of taking Chinese and Petrodollars and making too much new CRE and RRE? Spain, especially, didn't even have the freedom of controlling interest rates (like the Fed) or valuing their currency in forex.

Summary: the banksters run things, and nobody can control where they shift their gigantic flows of cash. We should be hanging the banksters (like Goldman, SP Morgan, ShitiBank, Deutsche Bank, et. al.) They make the investment decisions and hedge bets. They should bleed for their errors.

They won't mind bailing out the Greeks...

The business information and credit collection association Creditreform said that some 210,000 firms are expected to become insolvent in Western Europe during the current year.

The German-based association announced in Dusseldorf on Wednesday that 2009 saw a 22 percent increase in the number of bankruptcies in the region, with about 185,000 firms making a beeline for the bankruptcy judge.

Insolvencies almost doubled last year in Spain and Ireland, Creditreform said. Germany got off relatively lightly with some 34,300 businesses becoming insolvent - but even that was a 16 percent rise over the previous year.

How does a country stop foreign investment becoming a cause of bubbles led by foreign investment?

The Russians just issued a decree against hot money.

That evang was having weekly meetings with the president, until his lover gave him up.

yogi:

Agreed. But we should judge the tree by the fruit it bears. Germany gives us good cars, medical equipment and advanced machine tools. Greece gives us default and financial ruin. Advantage Germany.

pavel:

I'm leaving the service anyway. We will always need a military. The question is what kind. I would argue we should have small, well trained armed forces like the Aussies. We don't need a huge, global military bureaucracy whose main purpose is to enrich defense contractors.

Firewall them pigs into their own Euro. The Bananeuro.

I like Italy & Germany but the 2 countries couldn't be more unalike...

Italy is a chaotic mess that works in spite of itself, and Germany feels like the midwest in many ways, albeit with a liberal mindset.

Low wages! Germany! Bullshit. They have some of the highest paid (and most productive) workers in the world.

Yes, they do, and the whining is very familiar, same as our bellyaching about China, just a different language.

Nuke wrote:

we should have small, well trained armed forces like the Aussies.

If we have a small well trained armed forces, who's going to defend Australia? Or Japan? Or Germany?

S&P: More Euro-Zone Ratings Cuts Possible In '10 - WSJ.com

who's going to defend Australia? Or Japan?

It was originally a matter of defending Australia from Japan. From who now?

Germany gives us good cars, medical equipment and advanced machine tools.

My uncle drives a German car. (My grandmother was pissed). My father, a doctor, admired German medicine. I don't think anyone in my family would feel comfortable being treated by a German doctor, to this day. No bedside manner. To this day. Making bank payments and trains run on time only goes so far.

The problem is not the euro or the dollar or the yen, it's central bank control of the money supply. Yeah, if Greeks choose strategic default they will face consequences. It's not a moral issue, though. I wouldn't be able to say "advantage Germany" with your confidence.

rajesh
australia should defend herself,japan herself and germany herself
and we should keep our noses only in our business, if the multinationals dont like it they have ix,or ex or xe aka blackwater.

I'm just reminded of my relation who spent a career as a trooper, sheriff and federal employee informing me that we only get 30 cents or so of service for every federal dollar spent.

Sounds about right.

1 currency now -yogi wrote:

it's central bank control of the money supply

Have to agree with that.

But if I treat it as a modeling problem with cultural overtones, the currency has to mold to the culture. This talk of splitting the euro is the classic example - subclassing the existing euro to allow small variation == better mapping to specialized case.

If you believe the culture is real, then there has to be an accounting for it in the currency.

Poor countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia have to defend themselves; I don't see why Japan or Australia are any better in status...

IIRC, the Euro notes have a mark of the printer...

this may lead to a run in France and Germany to cull the notes.

The point of the euro was reduced transaction costs.

Reduced transaction costs == conformity & standardization.

The model is a bad fit.

Either Greece becomes Germany or the euro becomes the euromark.

Atlantic City, NJ - 11 aides to city council members earn 485K

N.J. Gov. Chris Christie warns Atlantic City mayor to 'get his house in order' after audit findings | - NJ.com

Shouldn't that be baklova?

This is lesson we should learn and use to fight against a 1 world currency.

Rob Dawg wrote:

Teutonic architects of a Greek revisal.

You're either pursuing marginal utility (differentiation) or you're pursuing standardization (lower transaction costs).

The creation of the Euro says it has to be the second case.

Shouldn't that be baklova?

I don't know her personally.

11 aides to city council members earn 485K

Who makes their togas for them?

.. although in fairness Paulson didn't have legal authority to do what he did... they only gave him authority to purchase troubled assets... those illiquid CMBS clogging up the financial system...

I don't know her personally.

Take my word for it. Very sweet.

yeah, UBS has an avalanche alert.

Hey Arbitrage, no one said every German is this or that. Someone said Greeks are this or that, and that it was "advantage Germany".

I prefer listening to good music in a shitty car than skinhead crap in a precisely tooled sportscar. So the tiny poor country of Jamaica has added much more value to my life, even with its inefficient economy and deadbeats sitting around smoking ganja instead of propping up the banks' currency. If every country were like Jamaica instead of Germany we'd be much worse off, but Germany is not better, just more powerful.

Outsider wrote:

Take my word for it. Very sweet.

So sweet in fact that even bugs stay away! TJ's sells these assorted Baklava thing, with no expiration date that I could find.

Isn't anyone concerned that a Greek devaluation will give their auto industry a competitive advantage?

Someone said Greeks are this or that, and that it was "advantage Germany".

The difference is that the Greek state, after decades of mis-management, is asking the Germans for a bailout. So, yes, advantage Germany. I am glad you enjoy Greek music. However, it has nothing to do with the subject at hand.

I think that would be George Michael.

pavel.chichikov wrote:

The Euro problem is undeflectable. Is that the rumble of an avalanche I hear?

YouTube - Leonard Cohen - First We Take Manhattan 

greenchutes wrote:

I think that would be George Michael.

EarlGrey sprayed all over!

pavel:

When the Portuguese arrived in India, they found Christian sects who traced their ancestry to St Thomas (I think). Some of the chuches survive to this day. Unfortunately, most of these sects were wiped out by the Inquisition.

Financial problems can be worked out. It's the political and social consequences of the solutions that can be serious.

bANK fAILURE

yeah, he's someone we can try to pin the Euro problem on, right?

YLSP

You're forgetting he had 535 accomplices.

That son-of-a-bitch is brave and gett'n braver ... if America was not run by the mafia, he would have been hung for treason a year ago...

Stupid PIG

no one said every German is this or that

oh really?

"I don't think anyone in my family would feel comfortable being treated by a German doctor, to this day."

Interesting Times wrote:

If there's anything the Germans are good at, it's keeping a population contained to a concentrated area.

The U.S. showed much earlier on that it knows a thing or two about concentrating people in small areas.

Doc, we all live in consequences, truth is only a place we sometimes visit.

grind an axe long enough and all you're left with is a dull shtick.

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

Once a cheerleader for Wall Street immoderacy, Summers decried a "system that is based on massive borrowing, intermediated through a bloated financial system, in order to support excessive consumption."

The words are good. But his actions are in the opposite direction.

That's right, when it comes to health and safety of one's family, you use all available data, even probabilities. The comfort level can be established. I'd be more confident opening a German bank account than a Nigerian one, but I don't believe every Nigerian will cheat me. At this moment, I have a loan outstanding to a Nigerian friend, and another one has extended me merchandise to sell (racquets) on a handshake. (No need for stupid comments, I know it's anecdotal).

I've been treated by a Nigerian doctor. No complaints. I was recently treated by a Polish dentist. Efficient, but a nasty bitch. I won't go back. Doesn't mean I will avoid all Polish care givers. Stereotyping is stupid. So is ignoring cultural patterns.

Do you have a problem?

Dinner time. Oldie but still great:

YouTube - Aris san - Bum Pam

can someone explain to me in simple terms how this loan guarantee will be done? I was under the assumption that they had borrowed too much money and are not in a position to pay it all back.

1 currency now -yogi wrote:

Stalin and the Soviets are long gone. Why do you always bring them up?

So is McCarthy, but communist is still a dirty word in US politics.

Nuke wrote:

They should live with the consequences.

What would those be exactly? Banned from the credit markets? Lack of access to international trade?

rosethorn wrote:

Yes. merchants of fear has documented extensively here at HCN the progression of denials that get louder and louder until the implosion occurs.

Which comes first, contained or well capitalized?