The Independent: Which country will slither down the slippery slope next?
The Guardian concurs.
‘Are there more Icelands out there?’ asks Christensen. ‘Yes, quite a few, it’s worrying.’
Some of the wobbliest countries include the Baltics, Hungary, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Argentina, Pakistan (yikes), and more. This is made much worse by the common practice of writing credit default swaps against the debt of those countries. There are billions of dollars in such delusional “fictitious capital” contracts. No one know who owns them because the CDS market is not regulated.
So, unexpected icebergs could emerge out of the fog and sink the unsuspecting. What, we loaned $5bn to XYZ and they just filed a bk because they couldn’t pay the $10bn in CDS they wrote against emerging market debt? That’s the real problem. No one knows where the risk is.
As Pakistan’s economy melts down, food and fuel prices continue rising and the average Pakistani is becoming more desperate. Little wonder that Al Queda activity is on the rise and an independent survey calls the security situation there “not good.”
Meanwhile, into this seething cauldron on the verge of collapse, China plans to ship several new nuclear power plants… I’m not making this up.
You surely don’t expect capitaism to miss an opportunity in a time of crisis—- business is business!!!
Hawaii.
Yeah, go ahead, live someplace that can’t sustain itself, that imports everything.
Hey, Hawaii has Kona coffee, sugar, ginormous amounts of fruits and fish, and the major cash crop is that well-known “green leafy substance.”