Monday, June 18, 2012

Euro Dodges First Bullet, More Coming

It appears the eurozone dodged a Greek bullet this past weekend, see the story in The Telegraph (U.K.). Now they can get braced for the next challenge - Spain. That story is here, also in The Telegraph. See also the Associated Press article in the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

Wonder what comes after Spain? Italy should follow after Spain, or maybe Portugal, or both. The eurozone contains no end of threats. The basic threat - lack of a unified budgetary policy - has not been repaired and political will to do so seems lacking.

At some point the German-in-the-street will get fed up with footing the bill for everybody else's profligacy, the question is when? If Herr and Frau Schmidt are going to bail out, sooner is better than later. Wading out into the middle of the swamp before giving up is bad strategy, giving out closer to shore is more likely to work. (Please pardon the overused metaphors.)