MADRID | By Francisco López | Spanish debt’s low interests in the beginning of the year have resulted in a flood of Treasuries as well as corporate and regional bonds. Just last week, the country’s public Treasury placed more than €8 billion and financed 33% of € 133.3bn foreseen by the end of 2014 in less than three months.
WASHINGTON | By Pablo Pardo | Does anybody remember where the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index was five years ago? At 666. Since then, the S&P 500 has gone up a whopping 175 percent. The market has defied fiscal cliffs, Republican obstructionism, three rounds of Quantitative Easing, the start of the Fed’s ‘tapering’, the change in Chinese leadership, the euro near-collapse, a nuclear catastrophe in Japan, a wave of revolutions in the Middle East, and even a Russian invasion of Crimea.
BEIJING | By Andy Xie via Caixin | Poor economic data in China will make the short-sighted howl, but policymakers know it is really a sign of rebalancing – and raising per capita incomes.
By Jens Bastian at The Agora | The two economic adjustment programmes for Greece from 2010 and 2012 as well as the sovereign debt restructuring from April 2012 and the debt buyback initiative in December of the same year have had a significant impact on the debt profile of Greece as a sovereign debtor. Greece’s creditor structure in 2013 compared to the point of departure in 2010 hardly bears any resemblance.
The two economic adjustment programmes for Greece from 2010 and 2012 as well as the sovereign debt restructuring from April 2012 and the debt buyback initiative in December of the same year have had a significant impact on the debt profile of Greece as a sovereign debtor. Greece’s creditor structure in 2013 compared to the point of departure in 2010 hardly bears any resemblance.
– See more at: http://www.macropolis.gr/?i=portal.en.the-agora.672&itemId=672#sthash.BZtuYz92.dpuf
The two economic adjustment programmes for Greece from 2010 and 2012 as well as the sovereign debt restructuring from April 2012 and the debt buyback initiative in December of the same year have had a significant impact on the debt profile of Greece as a sovereign debtor. Greece’s creditor structure in 2013 compared to the point of departure in 2010 hardly bears any resemblance.
– See more at: http://www.macropolis.gr/?i=portal.en.the-agora.672&itemId=672#sthash.BZtuYz92.dpuf
LONDON | By The Economist via Presseurop | It’s not just sovereign borrowing; there are too many zombie firms and overindebted households.
THE CORNER | Negotiations over a Senate plan to reopen the U.S. government and extend the debt ceiling were placed on hold, then renewed on Tuesday evening. Rhetoric and accusations between republicans and democrats are intensifying, as the fateful day approaches. Will the U.S. default on its obligations?
Markets have started the week in a relatively directionless fashion amid slow-moving progress in Washington, Barclays analysts point out. That lack of decision could make the Fed delay the tapering until 2014, keeping downward pressure on the USD.
WASHINGTON | By Mike Konczal via The Next New Deal | There was a fantastic piece in The Atlantic back in 2000 about psychiatrists dealing with people who wanted to have their limbs cut off because it would make them feel more like themselves to be amputees. The doctors’ big dilemma was whether or not to treat “apotemnophilia” as a diagnosable mental illness. If they engaged with it as a mental illness that existed and was recognized by the medical community, they ran the risk of encouraging more patients to identify with it.
WASHINGTON | By Pablo Pardo | What is the difference between the current fiscal crisis and government shutdown and an eventual U.S. default after Oct. 17th? The same between a “disruptive” event and a “major macro systemic event”. Think of the 1929 Crash or the 1973 oil shock.
By Ray Kwong | China’s economy went from chump to champ in 30 years, with growth rates averaging 10% over three decades. To be sure, there are major downward shifts underway, but predictions that the Chinese economy will go down in flames—whether by crash, hard landing or [your favorite term here]—is crazy. Some detractors even foresee an economic apocalypse, one in which China will repeat Japan’s “lost decade” of stagnation.