The Ticking Euro Bomb: What Options Are Left for the Common Currency?

[marmar]

from Der Spiegel:



.....(snip).....

A few people had also become nervous at the headquarters of the Pacific Investment Company (PIMCO) in Newport Beach, California, about an hour's drive south of Los Angeles.

PIMCO is by far the world's largest investor in government bonds. The company lends governments money by buying their bonds. When PIMCO stops buying a country's bonds, it's a clear sign that the country is on the verge of crisis and possibly even bankruptcy.

PIMCO controls more than $1.3 trillion (€1.05 trillion) on behalf of its customers. It is an absurd number, even in these times of superlatives, times of bailout funds and banks being supported with billions upon billions in taxpayer money. Though far from a household word, PIMCO has four times the German national budget to invest.

.....(snip).....

Fear began to spread in places like Frankfurt and London. European banks had invested more than €700 billion in government bonds from the five crisis-stricken countries. And Greek banks alone were holding €50 billion in Greek government bonds. When the government bond rating was downgraded, so were the ratings of Greek banks, as part of a chain reaction that would not stop at Greece's borders. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,790568,00.html

[DonCoquixote]

1. Schaenfreude

I hate to sound happy, but I remember when London, Berlin and Paris loved the idea of telling the rest of Europe what to do; now, the mask is off, the contempt they had for fellow Europeans (like the PIIGS) is shown, and the attempt to make a Superpower out of whole cloth was shown to be yet another imperial exercise. At this point, the French and Germans should just abandon the Euro and make their own kingdom: call it the new Holy Roman Empire.