Germany: the Eurozone's fifth column | 67 comments (67 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Germany: the Eurozone's fifth column (4.00 / 3)

Maybe that's why the Slovaks want no part of it. Doubt any Slovak banks will suffer...German and French ones, though...

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill

by r------ on Sun Jun 20th, 2010 at 09:23:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Germany: the Eurozone's fifth column (4.00 / 6)

Don't know enough about the Slovak case, but, yeah, I agree with Mig. The bailout had nothing to do with propping up Greece and everything to do with Merkel bailing out Frankfurt and blaming it entirely on the stupid Greeks.

Spain doesn't seem interested in lying down and taking it like Greece though.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Sun Jun 20th, 2010 at 09:37:10 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Germany: the Eurozone's fifth column (4.00 / 5)

They probably know Sarko won't let that happen. French banks even more exposed than German ones down there. They just love real estate.

Oops!

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill

by r------ on Sun Jun 20th, 2010 at 09:49:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Germany: the Eurozone's fifth column (4.00 / 2)

The whole thing is a bit surprising to me. I'd heard for a few years that European banks were in a bad way, but I didn't know the extent of it.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Sun Jun 20th, 2010 at 10:08:47 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Germany: the Eurozone's fifth column (none / 1)

The bailout was Sarko's idea, and Merkel was brought along after all the others, so the politicians are more clueless than that.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Sun Jun 20th, 2010 at 12:17:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Banks (4.00 / 2)

A lot of the French and German banks' exposure to these countries is through direct ownership of banks there. I fail to see why these local banks would be in any worse position than the other local banks, which are not necessarily in a bad way because of public sector deficits (other than the fact they probably own quite a bit of government bonds, but that's still a fraction of their balance sheets, and in their case it makes sense to have your own government's bonds...

Wind power

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Sun Jun 20th, 2010 at 11:39:09 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Banks (4.00 / 2)

It's written in the media that just over half of Spanish debt owned by German banks is money lent to Spanish banks.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Sun Jun 20th, 2010 at 12:22:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Banks (4.00 / 12)

In the Germany-as-Machiavelli version, that doesn't really matter: What matters is that it can be spun as "shiftless PIGS creating a crisis - we have to save our stalwart German bankers from those irresponsible brown people."

In the Germany-as-Clueless version, it doesn't necessarily matter either, because the markets have the predictive power of a bipolar crack monkey and the attention span of a ferret on speed, and our politicians are so thoroughly indoctrinated that they could have most of their higher brain functions replaced by Bloomberg feeds and nobody would notice the difference.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sun Jun 20th, 2010 at 04:21:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Banks (4.00 / 2)

JakeS:

so thoroughly indoctrinated that they could have most of their higher brain functions replaced by Bloomberg feeds and nobody would notice the difference.

ROFLMAO

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Sun Jun 20th, 2010 at 04:44:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Banks (4.00 / 2)

As Mig suggested:

Migeru:

I am on the record suggesting to replace governments with roomfulls of monkeys at Bloomberg terminals.

by Bernard (bernard) on Mon Jun 21st, 2010 at 07:09:16 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Germany: the Eurozone's fifth column (4.00 / 3)

No, in Slovakia, this was an election campaign theme, and it was a populist "why should poor Slovakians pay for the irresponsibility of rich Greeks" argument (Slovakia having a much lower per capita GDP; and the Slovakian elite and media having swallowed the irresponsible-Greek-public-spending narrative like all others).

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Sun Jun 20th, 2010 at 12:20:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Germany: the Eurozone's fifth column | 67 comments (67 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Top Diaries

Zero Net Energy - November 11, 2025

City Agriculture - November 7, 2025

The Ritual of Civility

Energy (and Other) Events Monthly - November 2025

Recent Diaries

Zero Net Energy - November 11, 2025

Rightwing VVD Yesilgöz Party of NO

COP30 in Brazil

U.S. Justice: Lesson Constitutional Rights

The Roaring Twenties and a United Europe

True Sovereignty, Ban American Violent Culture

Türkiye Caught Between the Garden and Jungle

City Agriculture - November 7, 2025

The Loss of the Donbas' Key City Pokrovsk

The Ritual of Civility

Judeo-Christian Civilization Under Attack from the Left

Lucifer Added a Traveler Today [Update]

Dutch Model for Progressive Victory over Populism

Dutch Angry Mob In Voting Booth

Hero of Democracy: Zohran Mamdani Next Mayor New York

Rob Jetten the Youngest Dutch PM .. A New Era

U.S. Foreign Fallacy Seen Through Political Cartoons

Slow Demise One-man Show Wilders - Part 2 [update]

Big Oil Rewrites EU Sustainability Rules

Energy (and Other) Events Monthly - November 2025

Occasional Series