Tag Archive: PIIGS

IMF World Economic Outlook

Alexander Gloy is founder and president of Lighthouse Investment Management       The IMF’s (International Monetary Fund) “World Economic Outlook”, a slim 250-page piece, came out. Some excerpts: Substantial reductions in estimated output (GDP) growth for 2013 for all major countries:   Unemployment in the Euro-Area (“EA”) is now expected to rise above the level …

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All roads lead to a euro zone break-up

For us all roads lead to a euro zone break-up and multiple sovereign defaults.   Our reasoning can be summarized as follows: Equities are worthless when associated debt becomes encumbered (risk capital takes the  first loss). Equity is not an asset; it is merely the remainder that is left over once debt is subtracted from …

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Guest Post: Six Reasons Why Italy May Exit the Euro Before Spain; Ultimate Occupy Movement

Six Reasons Why Italy May Exit Before Spain 1) Rise of the Five Star Movement 2) 44% of Italians view the euro negatively, only 30% favorably. That is biggest negative spread in the eurozone. In Spain more view the euro positively than negative, albeit by a small 4 percentage point spread.

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The win of the pro-bailout parties in the Greek elections was no win for the SNB

  The win for the pro-bailout parties in the Greek elections was no win for the Swiss National Bank (SNB), even if the fear of an immediate bank-run and extreme money flows into Switzerland are avoided.  Also the fact that QE3 is not coming in the next weeks did not help the SNB.

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The German supply-side reforms or will German companies take over the PIIGS ?

Words heart on German street in 2010 during the first Greek bailouts were that Germany should obtain the Greek islands as collateral if Greece is not able to pay back the debt to Germany. But even today German n-tv is reporting about many Greek real estate brokers that are currently delling islands. If it is not that type … Continue...

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The Northern Euro introduction: A retrospective from the year 2030

  A retrospective from the year 2030 on two decades of failed european integration policy and 10 years of successful disintegration policy The following essay shows that currency regimes come and go over the time. Nothing is stable with the time, especially the use of a currency. What has never happened in history is the use …

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Written in February 2012: Will the EUR/CHF never rise over 1.22 or 1.23 again?

Our analysis from February 2012 shows astonishing accurateness: It predicted that the euro would not rise against CHF and that the commodity currencies were overvalued and subject to correction. Basic foreign exchange theory, the SNB price stability mandate and strong fundamentals for Switzerland and bad ones for the peripheral countries of the euro zone speak for the thesis that the EUR/CHF exchange rate might never go over the level of around...

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Jürgen Stark’s resignation and the ECB 2005 warning about labor cost divergence in the Euro-zone

The Wirtschaftswoche reports about the real reasons of ECB Chief economist Jürgen Stark’s resignation. The reasons are rather political, namely a protest against European governments:

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