The Euro Zone Is A Slow-Motion Train Wreck

[koganbot]

"'The euro zone is a slow-motion train wreck,' Mr. Roubini said during a separate panel discussion."

Slow-wreck aficionados will note that this is better than a couple of months ago, when Europe was on the train-wreck fast track owing to the ECB's then-unwillingness to purchase Spanish and Italian bonds.*

Confused centipede attempts to mate with mealworm pupa


*It's not directly purchasing them now, but, according to Krugman at any rate, it's doing the functional equivalent, essentially laundering the purchases through banks.

Comments

[koganbot]

Krugman recommends as "very good" a Crooked Timber piece by Davies (which I haven't had a chance to read yet, but presumably Krugman doesn't take issue with Davies' ideas about what's happening in Greece):

http://crookedtimber.org/2012/02/16/so-what-would-your-plan-for-greece-be

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

Yes, I too very much recommend this post and have been planning to post something about why at my NEW BLOG (except it's not yet ready or unveiled: I'll send you a link when it is).

I still think there's a fundamental disparity of approach or "philosophy" between D^2 and Krugmanbot, so I'm not entirely persuaded, even when they're now and then on the same page, that they're "coming from the same place". KM is a high-end US academic and theorist; D^2 a small-p pragmatic technician from within the heart of the UK banking industry, who's repeatedly argued (for example) that the freshwater/saltwater feud is not really a useful framework to understand or explain the choices actually being made on the ground in the EU.