COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Monday, July 18, 2011

A Word to the Wise: Keep Your Own Currency

Today, Italy’s benchmark 10-year bond yields rose above 6%. Spanish yields hit 6.35%. Should Italian rates cross the 7% mark, it is unlikely Italy can repay its debts.

Record-high Irish borrowing rates are at 14%.

Unemployment in Portugal is 12.4% (youth: 28.1). The figures for Spain are 20.9% (44.4), Greece 15%(38.5), Ireland 14% (26.5), Latvia 16.2% (32.9). You cannot stimulate growth in an economy with rising real interest rates. This is meltdown, EU-style. Are there any good reasons for a country not to have its own currency?

The Euro is still north of USD 1.40.

11 comments:

  1. Banks face demands from the European Union to more than triple the minimum levels of core capital they must hold to stave off insolvency under proposals that some lenders complain will hamper the region’s economic recovery.

    I should say.

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  2. The figures for Spain are 20.9% (44.4)


    Things don't change much in Spain. That sounds about like it was in their pre-civil war times.

    Meanwhile here we are darn near in a depression and we're supposed to have the best currency in the world.

    It all started with the damned farmers. Sometimes I think we'd all be better off as hunter-gatherers again.

    bob

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  3. We're in for one long, hard row.

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  4. The only difference between now, and 1931 is we've kept the banks open, so far.

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  5. No credit to the idiot, thieving bankers, of course.

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  6. Cotton on the roadside, cotton in the ditch;

    we picked that cotton but we never got rich.

    Alabama

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  7. I loaded 16 tons
    And what did I get
    Another day older
    And deeper in debt


    16 Tons


    bob

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  8. I owe my soul to the Company Store.

    Tennessee Ernie Ford.

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  9. It was one night in Memphis, a redneck grabbed me by my shirt. He said "go back to the cotton patch,"

    and I left him dyin' in the dirt.

    But, I never picked cotton.

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  10. gnite Rufus my daughter is happy she got a job at the stables

    bob

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  11. :)

    Good deal, Bob. Funny things make wimmin happy. :)

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