We had so many false starts of panic, followed by periods of calm with our own financial crisis, remember? It was all bad, then we were fine, then Bear and Lehman were dead, then they were OK, then they both died and left the building permanently. AIG was fine ($50) then not so fine ($30) then better, then $20, then $10, then whatever, then a reverse split. Fannie and Freddie went through the same exercise until they ultimately traded down to a drill bit. There were so many others, but I don’t have the time.
Well Ireland finally blew a gasket, they are still in denial though, muttering words like, “we didn’t need the money”, as they march on over to the pub, but it was thrust upon them like a kid getting a shot at the doctor’s office. They took their medicine, but walked away really pissed at the IMF.
Months back the Eurozone was just was just swell after their brilliant geniuses had a little meeting and did a stress test that was comical, we all knew it, but again, the market went up, so we looked the other way.
I thought it was all good? I thought that meeting solved Spain’s 20% unemployment rate, the cradle to gravers rioting in the streets and their own housing crash? I guess not.
It kinda sorta gets worse too. Philippe Gijsels, head of global markets research at BNP Paribas Fortis, said,
“You still have Portugal; you still have the line in the sand with Spain, and also you have the emerging markets that scare me, because with all the money that’s put into the system by Bernanke, you see massive inflation in these countries,”
Printing money, especially by the US, will cause “massive inflation” in emerging market countries and they will probably raise capital requirements and interest rates and try to stem their currencies’ appreciation, he said.
So, just as as Ireland was bullet proof, I’m sure Portugal and Spain are too. Let’s not forget Italy and France. It’s all good …I’m sure. Really.