Infographic of the Day: The Debt Superhighway

[baronWastelan]

Enjoy!

[nearmiss]

The European Union as we know it today will bust up. The charts above are unbelieveable and these kinds of irresponsibility cannot be sustained. It's just a matter of time until it breaks apart. It won't be a bad thing, except for the countries that will be excluded.

The PIIGS will go first, then...The PIIGS were broke (I mean broke) countries for generations before they were allowed into the EU. Their contributions to the EU have been marginal to negative since they were admitted.

I can understand the interest of the PIIGS countries to be apart of the EU. They have done more for their people financially by expanding debts (they never intend to repay). Those countries were in abject poverty prior to EU, and I'm sure their thinking is very different. So what if you go in debt and can never repay, at least you eat good and can live a better life for awhile. They'll never repay the debt. They'll make austerity measures and pander to the EU to continue to create more debt.

The greedy bankers think they will take the land and property of those countries to repay the debt... LOL Those are soverign nations, they'll just nationalize any bankers interersts. The sooner the EU kicks those countries out, the better for the EU.

The US doesn't have this option, because states that haven't made adequate contributions are grandfathered in since the formation of the US.

[Bewolf]

Nothing new, however, those numbers are not that much higher then ten years ago. Just the attitude towards it changed. Italy in 1999 had a much higher debt then today, for example. Nobody was bothered about it. And that is why this whole finacial hokus pokus is such a pervert affair, it's pure psychology, defined by speculators and rating agencies. Has nothing to do anymore with any kind of laid out rules or fixed margins. A simple rumor can decide about the solvency of entire countries now.

That said, I personally, and to be clear, I speak here for myself only, as a german I rather pay and try to make the EU work then drop back to the times of european national states with all that implies.

[Wolf_Rider]

yeah, but when unemployment is taken into account the EU is heading towards something really scary...


http://www.businessinsider.com/today...t%202012-02-02

[fruitbat]

how broken does something have to be, before people realise its broken......

[JG52Krupi]

Originally Posted by fruitbat

how broken does something have to be, before people realise its broken......

Its hard to fix things that were broken from the start

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by Bewolf

Nothing new, however, those numbers are not that much higher then ten years ago. Just the attitude towards it changed. Italy in 1999 had a much higher debt then today, for example. Nobody was bothered about it. And that is why this whole finacial hokus pokus is such a pervert affair, it's pure psychology, defined by speculators and rating agencies. Has nothing to do anymore with any kind of laid out rules or fixed margins. A simple rumor can decide about the solvency of entire countries now.

That said, I personally, and to be clear, I speak here for myself only, as a german I rather pay and try to make the EU work then drop back to the times of european national states with all that implies.

+ 1
Eloquently put as usual, I totally agree with you Bewolf.

It's all media scare, they change the size of exchange currencies (selling debts for instance), but it will sort itself out,it's in everybody's interest. The only important aspect is understanding what the next exchange currency will be before the others get at it.

Historically we've been in far worse scenarios, and don't get scared by trillions of dollars in debt,because it's all proportional to your GDP, it's not that we're more in debt today than 20 years ago,it's only inflation caused by capitalist market.

To make it simple: a bag of crisps was 5p 20 years ago,today it's 70p,but it's all proportional to the changes in the costs of life,same rule applies to debt.

Truth is that we're ALL on the same boat: if Europe and USA go down,so will China and India,cos they wouldn't have anybody to do business with.

We've been mostly ignoring the exponential growth of India and China,the cause being that markets move way faster than public opinion.

It's a very large and complex topic (I just got out of a 2 days' conference on it!),but fascinating nonetheless

[Damixu]

I think we Europeans should use US tactics on boosting our economy. We should wage war let's say for example against US, so we both could boost our economies immensely
Although, "boosting" of economy was not what happened with war in Iraq and Afghanistan so I guess I made my point moot.







And for the slow minds this was purely a joke, no wish to raise animosity against anyone nor any country.

[baronWastelan]

Sure is nice of those bond holders to voluntarily accept a loss of more than 70 percent.

Bond Payment
Open questions involve how much more aid Greece needs, how much more austerity is required, and how to involve the European Central Bank in the debt swap. Facing a 14.5 billion-euro ($19.1 billion) bond payment on March 20 and general elections as soon as April, Papademos must heed calls for tighter austerity to complete the talks on a second aid package in time. Venizelos said everything needed to be completed by tomorrow evening.
The discussions have led to tussles among European central bankers and political leaders. The rescue blueprint includes a loss of more than 70 percent for bondholders in a voluntary debt exchange and loans that will probably exceed the 130 billion euros now on the table.
Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Officer Josef Ackermann said Greek debt talks are a “make or break” issue and that a collapse of Greece’s economy would open a “Pandora’s box” that would kill a euro-area recovery.
“We are in a make-or-break situation and Greece plays a very important role -- and if we find a solution in the next few days, I think we’re on the right track,” Ackermann told a panel today at the Munich Security Conference. The executive said earlier that he’ll fly to Athens tonight as talks go on over the swap involving Greek debt with a face value of about 200 billion euros.

Article at Bloomberg.com