Posts Tagged 'Debt'

Is Greece About to Default?

By: Daryl Montgomery

Yields on two-year Greek governments reach 46.84% last Friday. This is roughly comparable to yields on Argentine bonds in early December 2001 — only a month before the country defaulted on its debt.

Similar interest rates occurred this spring in Greece before the second bailout package was put together. The bailout saved Greece from defaulting back then, but the bailout is now falling apart while the fiscal situation in Greece continues to deteriorate. The risk ...

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U.S Credit Rating Downgrade – A Humpty Dumpty Moment

U.S Credit Rating Downgrade – A Humpty  Dumpty Moment

By: Daryl Montgomery

As everyone knows by now, S&P downgraded the U.S. sovereign debt rating from AAA to AA+ on Friday. While the extent of the downgrade is minor, the implications are major. As the recent debt ceiling negotiations revealed, the U.S. cannot run its day-to-day operations without borrowing money. It lives on credit (as do most countries in the world today) and anything that impacts its ability to borrow money has serious consequences.

 It takes a lot for a credit rating ...

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Quantitative easing will encourage large foreign holders to sell U.S. debt and to not make purchases in the future, except for TIPS (treasury inflation protected securities). Even TIPS will ultimately be shunned because they reflect the understated official U.S. government inflation rate.

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