Debt Crisis in Europe
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-05-11/debt-crisis-europe
The European Union pledges nearly one trillion dollars to stave off a debt crisis that began in Greece. What the package could mean for E.U. nations and financial markets worldwide.
Guests
Tom Gjelten
correspondent, NPR, and author of 'Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause.'
Domenico Lombardi
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Global Economy and Development,
Brookings Institution
Simon Tilford
chief economist, Center for European Reform
David Smick
chair and CEO, macroeconomic advisory firm Johnson Smick International, editor of The International Economy magazine, and author of the book, The World Is Curved
Comments
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Can one of your guests explain how the Greek/Europe crisis is different, and therefore of more concern, than the recent Iceland meltdown?
This is nothing more than a bank bailout.
The idea that all country's bond prices should be artificially effected/fixed suggests that investors are going to simply swallow whatever bond issuances (returns) there are regardless of price. Investors have choices. If there is no reward for owning a different type of asset why would you buy it? At the moment European banks can hoover it with the prospect of dumping on JC Bitchet. If ECB and Co are successful in removing this arbitrage why would you buy the stuff at higher prices??
This is another example of the ruling elite trying to force the working class to pay for the failure of capitalism.
What are Greek workers' wages compared to wages in other countries? (We know they're ridiculously small compared to the wealthiest of the world.) What are the prices of the commodities they have to buy compared to prices elsewhere? (My understanding is that their wages are on the low side for Europe while prices are similar.)
What impact did the buildup for the Olympics have to do with their current economic situation?
Shipping and tourism are major industries that have been impacted by the global economic "downturn."
This sounds like typical xenophobic euro bashing. Can your guest please explain how exposing individual country economies to the speculation of the financial markets is better than protecting Europe from these abusive financial actions of multi-national hedge funds by using a common currency?
I have been reading "The Next Great Depression" by Harry S. Dent, and his research shows that one unfortunate problem in the near future will be a global banking crisis - and governments will throw lots of money at the problem only to have massive debt to show for the effort.
Is this effort just politics with the effort paying off for a few powerful interests and not really solving the problem? This European action reminded me of the TARP - and I think powerful, well-positioned companies benefited from it, played it for profit and walked away from it when they were called on.
What is going on in Europe...is it really because of a general debt crisis or is it because of a single currency adopted by individual countries that has individual political and economical issues and euro doesnt have enough central money management or dont have enough control systems on individual countries?!?!
In the United States, we have winning states, and states having defecits...for example Michigan. And federal government is always helping states in need. The problem is in Europe things dont work the same way. Each country adopted Euro is trying to stay within some criterias. But if they have political or economical problems, they need to deal with individual debt and suddenly they dont qualify euro criterias. And there is no other support channel to those countries other than offering more debt as a bail out.
I think Europeans need to come together and realize they need to establish a more centralized money system then they have now...but of course if they can give up on their domestic political fights.
When the problem in Greece was first made public, it was partly attritbuted to fraud in financial reporting. What is the EU going to be doing, going forth, to audit or validate a countries financial status?