Nerd Analysis: The Screwed Generation

Well, that's just freakin' great.  Let's eat the young.  I'm weirdly reminded of The Grapes of Wrath and Rose of Sharon breastfeeding not a baby, but a starving old man.

Quote of the Day from Euroland: "The Greeks seem to have no understanding of the seriousness of their predicament."

Tragedy morphs into farce.  

Greek Euro Mess Nears Inevitable Conclusion

Here's the blurb:

The Greek euro tragedy is reaching its final act: it is clear that either this year or next, Greece is highly likely to default on its debt and leave the eurozone.

Bonus: the British newspaper choosing to slap a photo of Oedipus Rex on this news story. Meow!

Euro Notes: $170 Billion Bailout for Greece

Will it prevent a Greek default?  Everyone hopes so.  Well, you can certainly hope for the best, but the other half of that advice is "but prepare for the worst."  I'm bringing the "train wrecks" tag out of retirement.

Greece: Circling the Drain?

The S&P expects Greece to default soon.

Contingency Plans for Euro Collapse

Does this sound like a vote of no confidence to you too, or is it just me?

Euro Notes: Credit Rating Downgrades

Uh-oh -- some eurozone countries are getting coal in their stocking this Christmas.  Spain, Italy, Belgium ... you've been very naughty indeed.

Tom Friedman, Call Your Office

Has the Chinese credit bubble burst?

Quote of the Day: the Euro Currency

Oh, my:

The Euro is a spectacularly misguided attempt at a currency union in a sea of nation-states with different national interests, languages and stages of economic advancement.

Euro Notes: Greece and the Eurocrats

Oh, dear.   The slow-motion train wreck that is the Greek catastrophe in recent days has reached the point at which I am compelled to have "train wrecks" as an actual blog post category tag.

Self-evident metaphor.

Quote of the Day: Protests and Missing the Mark

From British MEP Daniel Hannan on the various and variously intellectually incoherent Occupy [Insert Location Here] protests:

The hard-Left protesters who marched in cities across the world today are wrong about many things, but they have got one thing absolutely right: bailing out first banks and then entire countries, is a form of class war against working people. 

The trouble is, the demonstrators are picking the wrong target. The people they should blame are not the financiers, but the politicians who obsequiously agreed to rescue them from the consequences of their malinvestments. 

Please understand, my Leftie friends, that what has taken place since 2008 is anything but capitalism. In a capitalist system, incompetent banks would have been allowed to fail, their profitable operations sold on to their competitors. Shareholders, bondholders and some depositors would have lost money, but taxpayers would not have contributed a penny.

Well, yes.  If these protesters had the least understanding of actual capitalism versus the perverse crony capitalism currently being practiced by corrupt-ocrats on both sides of the Pond and if these angry demonstrators actually had two economically-literate neurons to rub together, they'd be marching on government buildings.  But, of course, they don't.  And, so life imitates "Star Trek II": "You've managed to kill everyone else, but like a poor marksman, you keep missing the target!"  UPDATE: By the way, La Parisienne and I would like to note for the record that we always thought the massive government bailouts were stupid, but of course nobody listens to us.

Euro Notes: "the danse macabre of the euro"

The dream becomes a nightmare? 

Euro Notes: The US, Germany, the EU Rescue Fund, and a "Stupid Idea"

Hmmmm.

Internet Culture + Economic Gloom = ?

Behold a blog dedicated solely to photos of distraught folks looking at the stock markets: http://brokershandsontheirfacesblog.tumblr.com/

Nerd Analysis: Prof. Drezner on the World Cracking Up

Daniel Drezner, professor of international politics at Tufts University, wonders if we're repeating 1931 with a pretty pessimistic round-up of news.  May I offer some wry humor to go along with that?  Here's a sign that wouldn't be out of place on the road to serfdom.

Doom in the mirror is closer than it appears.

Uh Oh: German Economy Slowing?

It's tough supporting the eurozone's deadbeats.

World Leaders in Times of Economic Crisis: "When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout"?

I guess we're all pretty much comprehensively screwed.  Haven't we ranted before about the uselessness of our feckless political-intellectual class?  (I can't help but think of Buckley's famous quip about preferring to be ruled by people in the Boston phone than by Harvard eggheads.)  Anyway, Nile Gardiner has some home truths to say as well in terms of the US debacle in particular.  

I want Tim "There's no risk the US will lose its AAA rating" Geithner's head on a platter, but his resignation will do as a symbol.  Of course, it won't happen.  But can we all reasonable folks at least agree that the government's Keynesian madness has got to stop?  We now literally cannot afford to be so stupid.  Am I going to have to resort to hawking a kidney?  Dude.

Euro Notes: Beware Greeks Bearing More Panic

There's a metaphor in here somewhere:

One senior investment banker is more blunt: "People are scared that the government doesn't know what the [expletive] it's doing." He tells a story about an acquaintance who took out €30,000, wrapped it in a bag and stashed it in his garage. "The bag had previously had some food inside," he says. "So it attracted rats, who ate the notes."

*facepalm*


UPDATE: Of course, you could always just blame Zeus and the other Greek gods for your economic woes.

Beware Greeks Bearing Economic Ruin

Well, the Greek economy is in tatters and threatening to ruin a whole lot of other people while it's on a roll.  Here are two thoughts: the role of rampant tax evasion and whether Greek political elites ruined the country.

The European Bailouts: A View From Finland

How often do we get a perspective from the Finns?  Interesting.