Free Republic

Jefferies strategist David Zervos is back again with new recommendations about how the U.S. could step in and save the global economy. This week: threaten complete disaster if EU leaders don't act right away. Akin to what he said about the matter last week: The game in Europe is as we have described many times before - the Germans want budgetary control throughout all of Europe and the rest of EMU wants Eurobonds. Its a game a chicken with the entire global financial system on the line. The US should not allow itself to become a casualty in this Euro...

It is not so much that Berlusconi has been toppled. That had been coming for a long time. It is that he is to be replaced by a former EU Commissioner, (Mario) Monti, which demonstrates the extent of the power exerted by those Masters of Europe. It is the second coup d’état in less than a fortnight. “Who next?” we might well ask. Could it be us? Certainly not just now, but who would be Brussels’ man in London and how might they hope to get him into office? Despite the recent extraordinary posturing of Michael Heseltine, we can be...

DELONG: It Is 1931. We Are Austria. If The Fed Doesn't Save Us Here Comes Another Great Depression... Henry Blodget Nov. 9, 2011, 5:21 PM How does Berkeley professor Brad Delong feel about what's going on in Europe? He's freaking out: Time to Spread Foam on the Runway: The Federal Reserve Needs to Act Now to Firewall Off the Eurocrisis I have been complaining for some time now that Reinhart and Rogoff think that the time is always 1931 and that we are always Austria--that the great fiscal crisis is about to erupt and send us lurching down toward Great...

"The plan of initiatives calls for a confidence vote," Papandreou told his Socialist party lawmakers in parliament, moments after he had also announced a referendum would also be held on the EU deal. "The command of the Greek people will bind us," he said.

David Cameron clashed repeatedly with Nicolas Sarkozy today after the French President tried to exclude Britain and non-eurozone countries from a critical Brussels summit to rescue European banks. During two hours of bitter exchanges during a meeting of all 27 EU leaders before a crisis summit of the eurozone’s 17 members on Wednesday, President Sarkozy fought hard to get the Prime Minister barred from talks that would finalise a 100billion euros cash injection into banks. ”We’re sick of you criticising us and telling us what to do. You say you hate the euro, you didn’t want to join and now...

Unions representing around half of Greece's 4 million-strong workforce have called a 48 hour general strike for Wednesday and Thursday to protest against a sweeping package of austerity measures due to be passed in parliament this week. A wave of smaller strikes over recent days by groups ranging from rubbish collectors to tax officials, journalists and seamen has given a foretaste of this week's protest which will culminate in mass demonstrations in front of parliament, the scene of violent clashes in June. The protest, dubbed "the mother of all strikes" by the daily Ta Nea newspaper, is expected to be...

Slovakia's parliament has ratified a plan to bolster a eurozone rescue fund, just two days after MPs rejected it. The vote came after the government and opposition agreed to hold snap elections next year. The decision means all 17 eurozone states have now approved the plan to tackle the eurozone debt crisis.

Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and Greece are all vulnerable to default Europeans are underwhelmed with the latest Obama Drama. With the sanctimonious attitude of a faux professor, Obama lectured Europeans on the importance of restoring fiscal responsibility to the European Union. As humorous as it sounds, the Europeans found nothing to laugh about; in fact, they are insulted and indignant over the presumption of a profligate wastrel like Obama lecturing anyone concerning fiscal responsibility. In California on Monday the 26th Obama warned the Europeans about their debt, stating that the European inaction was: scaring the world. (That they)...have not fully...

The Federal Reserve, chastised by Congress for lending money to foreign institutions such as the Central Bank of Libya, is once again the lender of last resort for banks around the world it knows little about. Three years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., money-market borrowing rates for dollars are rising, leading the Fed and European Central Bank to make the currency available to Europe’s institutions for as many as three months. U.S. prime money-market funds cut their exposure to euro-zone bank deposits and commercial paper, or short-term IOUs, to $214 billion in August from $391 billion at...

US President Obama has given the Europeans a harsh lecture on the dangers of their ongoing debt crisis. Offended by the unsolicited advice, Europeans have suggested the US get its own house in order first. Obama's remarks were "arrogant" and "absurd" German commentators say on Wednesday. Europeans are well aware of the seriousness of their ongoing debt crisis. But they don't, it seems, like to receive lectures from other countries -- especially the United States, which is struggling to deal with its own mountain of debt. On Tuesday, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble curtly rejected recent American criticism of Europe's...

With gold dropping $200 in the past several weeks on ongoing much anticipated liquidations to cover margin calls, there are those who have wondered if the precious metals have lost their safe haven luster? Well, no. All they have lost is some value against the dollar even as all other global currencies have fallen faster than even gold as was pointed out yesterday by Mike Krieger. In other words all that is happening is a relative devaluation of the DM currencies relative to the one absolute, and to the dollar as well. However, as the Swiss National Bank so...

<p>PARIS (Dow Jones)--The former International Monetary Fund's Managing Director, Dominique Strauss Kahn, Sunday said Greece is unable to pay its debt and its creditors will have to take losses on the debt they hold.</p> <p>"Greece got poorer, we can say Greeks will pay on their own, but they can't," Strauss Kahn said in an interview on French TV channel TF1. "There is a loss and it must be taken by governments and banks," he said.</p>

“They tried to make me go to rehab but I said no, no, no,” British singer-sensation Amy Winehouse sang before joining Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin in the “Dead at 27” Club. Seeing the media atwitter over the “Euro Crisis” makes me think Winehouse's unfortunate demise is a metaphor for what ails Europe. Winehouse thought she didn't need treatment; similarly the new head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Largarde, fears “policy makers do not have the conviction” to 'go to rehab' at this “dangerous new phase of the debt crisis.” Yet with such high stakes, European politicians...

Europe's leaders have finally run out of time. If they fail to agree on some form of debt pooling and shared fiscal destiny at Thursday's emergency summit, they risk a full-fledged run on South Europe's bond markets and a disorderly collapse of monetary union. "We are heading towards fiscal union or break-up," said David Bloom, currency chief at HSBC. "Talk is no longer enough as the fire threatens to leap over the firebreak into Spain and Italy. "What the market is worried about is Germany's long-term committment to the euro project. If we see unreserved and absolute backing from the...

The feud between ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet and German finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble escalated in a major way today with members of German Parliament siding with Schaeuble and against the wishes of the ECB. German Politicians Demand Private Creditors Participate Please consider Germany MPs discuss resolution on Greece aidGerman members of parliament are discussing on Thursday a joint motion for a resolution demanding the fair participation of private creditors in future aid to Greece, a draft of the paper obtained by Reuters said. The deputies from all three parties in Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right coalition are demanding to have a say...

The euro was weak again early Thursday and, predictably, global stocks followed suit. Japan's Nikkei fell 1.5% overnight, major European bourses were down 1.85% to 3% in recent trading, while U.S. proxies were down 2.5% to 3%. In recent trading, the Dow was below its 200-day moving average of 10,250, while the S&P 500, Dow Transports, Nasdaq and Russell 2000 were each more than 10% below recent highs, or in official "correction" territory. Traders watch such technical indicators closely, and concerns about moving averages and the like can become self-fulfilling and generate more selling. At the same time, the selloff...