Quoteit can be a nasty spiral

my thought. So why do it?

unless they have decided that it is time to push them over the edge.

(BTW 4eyes, its 6.30 am.... have you not gone to bed yet?)

Quotemy thought. So why do it?

cos the options are :
* don't lend them any more money = worse
* lend them money at the same interest rate = bad business decision, better to lend to people who can pay you back
* increase interest rates to reflect the risk

... I guess their view would be that they are reflecting the situation, not causing it.

Quote6.30am

Guilty as charged - bollocks to sleep, can get enough of that when I am dead

Related: The Fallout.

BBC News - Germany and France 'discussing' radical overhaul of EU http://bbc.in/uYjtJm

I could use a little insight too: what is it about Germany that is making it so strong now?  I assume it's their auto industry, and general engineering and manufacturing, but is there anything else?  I was thinking that after the second war they wouldn't have that much of an armed forces but I guess they still have one, although I don't really hear of anyone's military besides the Brits and the French.

Germany was the world's largest exporter up until a year or two ago when China overtook it. Pretty impressive for a country of 80 million people.

And one of the only areas which the Greek and Italian budgets have not been forced to slash?

(Both being heavy consumers of the German, French, US and UK arms industry...)

Dogboy, it's also down to lack of personal debt. (And the fact that Germany post-WW2 essentially had the same happen to it as Argentina did when it defaulted.)

>Personally, I'm in a straddle position; 50% cash, 20% tax-free municipal bonds (NC supposedly has low risk of default), and 30% equities.

>Straddle = too scared to get in, too greedy to get out.

I called a meeting with the financial advisor for a couple of hours yesterday to discuss how the EU financial drama was going to knee-cap the US stock market for the next year.  The scenario I outlined says that though the US is showing signs of an upturn the cascade of problems with the PIIGS is going to take a year to smear enough lipstick on it to make it look even nominally resolved.  During that time, the market will be (emotionally-driven) boom or bust with every news update out of Europe sending it off on a tangent.  Overall, there isn't much chance of a structurally sound, sustainable plan coming out of this mess in the short term but there IS a big risk of taking a substantial hit.  The advisor didn't disagee.  He's cutting the equities by roughly a third for the next year or so.

This, IMO, is the best explanation of what's to come. 

http://www.businessinsider.com/staring-into-the-abyss-2012-1