Cost of Portuguese debt rises to unsustainable levels

[Trajan]

well, looks like Portugal is next up in the box................ Balls in your court Merkel.
What? Thats a No go? We'll see about that.



Cost of Portuguese debt rises to unsustainable levels

By David Oakley in London, Peter Spiegel in Brussels and Kerin Hope in Athens

Published: January 18 2011 20:44 | Last updated: January 18 2011 20:45

Portugal’s cost of borrowing brushed close to euro-era highs on Tuesday as Germany resisted calls to bolster the eurozone’s bail-out fund for heavily indebted economies on the continent’s periphery.

Portuguese bond yields jumped above 7 per cent – a level that Lisbon has admitted is unsustainable – after concerns rose that the eurozone crisis could worsen, following comments from Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister.


Mr Schäuble appeared to put the brakes on plans to increase the size and scope of the €440bn ($588bn) European financial stability facility, at the end of ministerial meetings in Brussels.

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FT.com / Markets - Cost of Portuguese debt rises to unsustainable levels

 

[william the wie]

The EMU is not sustainable.

 

[Trajan]

yea, but they'll die trying.....(?)

 

[william the wie]

That was a simply awful pun whose only redeeming feature was its inadvertent origin.

 

[Trajan]

do you think they will wait till collapse is around the corner or wind themselves out of the euro in an 'orderly' fashion?

 

[william the wie]

do you think they will wait till collapse is around the corner or wind themselves out of the euro in an 'orderly' fashion?

My money is on catastrophic daisy chain explosive collapse.

 

[Trajan]

hummmm...well, the pressure on Merkel is going to be enormous. Everyone from the eu parliament to ban ki moon, I am sure obama will dip his oar in too......

I read an article, oh a month or so ago, from for. affairs that made the case that the euro really wasn't about money at all, that was thin patina, and thats why its doomed to failure in the end.

 

[william the wie]

hummmm...well, the pressure on Merkel is going to be enormous. Everyone from the eu parliament to ban ki moon, I am sure obama will dip his oar in too......

I read an article, oh a month or so ago, from for. affairs that made the case that the euro really wasn't about money at all, that was thin patina, and thats why its doomed to failure in the end.

I'll comment further when I get back from the gym but Milton Friedman called this one a while back. The Euro was a lousy idea from the get-go.