Benjamin Cole | The econosphere is again rumbling about Chinese debt and China banks, evidently forgetting the long serious faces made many times about Chinese debt and China banks in the recent past. But China keeps growing. Japan is another story that defies Western orthodox macroeconomics.
Telefonica posted profit of 2.369 billion euros in 2016, up 3.8% from a year earlier. Last year’s figure reflected non-recurrent items, mainly a 1.290 billion euros charge in the fourth quarter related to restructuring costs. Excluding that charge, profits rose 4.8% to 4.038 billion euros year-on-year.
Nearly six months after Telefonica announced the IPO of its infrastructure affiliateTelxius, venture capital firm KKR said it plans to buy 40% of the company for 1.275 billion euros, or 12.75 euros per share. So one headache less for the Spanish telecommunications giant.
There are some items of Spanish public debt which are eliminated from Bank of Spain’s accounts, reducing the total figure. In other words, 450 billion euros ignored. Basically, what is being removed is public companies’ debt, the debt issued by a public institution in the hands of another public institution, as well as other adjustments, which really should not be discounted.
Greece’s creditor countries in Europe do not feel like giving it a debt ‘haircut’. Furthermore, Greece says that the IMF is too pessimistic about the future. But Europe wants the IMF’s participation, which would give the agreement a greater hallmark of respectability.
Reagan is a precedent for Trump as Krugman says. We can envisage what Trump’s early years will be like thanks to Reagan. And we could see a similar situation to what was known in the Reagan years as the twin deficits due to the size of the fiscal and external deficits.
Miguel Ángel Tramullas | Investment in public debt has traditionally been one of the most popular fixed income assets with both retail and institutional investors. It’s considered as a safe-haven. But in the last few years, it has lost part of its attraction because of lower interest rates which in some places are now in negative territory. To protect themselves, many countries like the US, Japan, the UK, France, Italy and also Spain have begun to issue inflation-linked bonds.
“What is clear is that Greece cannot pay its debt and will never pay it. There needs to be an acquittance. And European legislation does not allow for waivering of debt. What they are going to do now, and it should have been done seven years ago, is to modify the conditions in such a way that the debt will be practically waivered,” says Spanish economist Fernando Eguidazu, as he leaves his Foreign Office post of Secretary of State for the European Union.
Nick Malkoutzis via Macropolis | The Greek government expects the economy to grow by 2.7 percent and living, working and investing in Greece might seem a more enticing prospect. It is difficult, though, to be anything other than cautious about the prospects of such a turnaround. Firstly, there will have to be a dramatic improvement in several sectors of the economy for this kind of growth to be achieved.
Yiannis Mouzakis via Macropolis| From the beginning of the crisis, Greek debt has often been the elephant in the room. Over the last year it has taken on the form of an unsolvable equation as key decisions makers have taken positions that do not appear to overlap.