Belgium slashes Dexia guarantee

Belgium and France have decided to halve the guarantees that they provided for Dexia’s bad bank. The bad bank was created to group all Dexia’s problematic loans when the group was dismantled last October.

Journalist Andy Carling in Belgium tells me on Facebook, “This is what’s likely to bring down Belgium…”

[...]

EU solution to debt crisis will lead to chaos or worse

From Neurope, ‘The European Political Newspaper’, on the proposed solution

1. The EU in general and the Eurozone member states in particular will be conceding their fiscal and borrowing sovereignty to a central authority. This could be achieved either through changes to the European Treaties or under a new intergovernmental structure such as the Schengen [...]

Utah most vulnerable to European slowdown

It exports gold and silver to the UK and has the highest percent of GDP to Europe of any state.

However, the biggest problem and impact will be from financial contagion as yet more houses of cards come tumbling down, something which will affect all states.

[...]

Europe debt crisis spreads to Italy

Too Big To Bail: European rescue fund can’t handle an Italian crisis

Europe scrambles to deal with Italy contagion fallout, calls emergency meeting as former ECB official says “Very worried about Italy”

Portugal and Spain are right behind Italy too, poised to take center stage in the Great Eurozone Debt Debacle.

[...]

UK planning for end of euro, Greece bankruptcy

Treasury ministers have admitted that the Government is drawing up contingency plans for a Greek bankruptcy after being warned by a former foreign secretary that the euro “cannot last”.

Events are moving much faster than previously imagined.

“Turn around, go back down, back the way you came, Can’t you see that flash [...]

Greece crisis could be worse than Lehman failure

[A Greece default] would have potentially catastrophic consequences for holders not only of 340bn euros (£300bn) of Greek sovereign debt, but also for holders of hundreds of billions of euros of Greek commercial debt and tens of billions of euros of derivative contracts linked to Greek debts.

The contagion would then spread to Spain and [...]

Greek bonds now effectively worthless

This morning Greek CDS is trading at a spread of 1,900 bps: a level that seals the fate of Greece, whose bonds are being sold into a bidless market.

Translation. To buy $10 million of credit default swap psuedo insurance on Greek bonds, the buyer must pay the seller $1.9 million a year in [...]

Greece about to call bankster’s bluff

Greek PM may step down, opposition party demands renegotiation of Greek bailout terms.

I can hear European bankster howls of pain from here. C’mon Greece, do what Iceland did. Tell the banksters “no”, then arrest them.

Moody’s puts France’s main banks on downgrade review

Why, it’s beginning to feel a lot like a Lehman Brothers event, isn’t it? You remember Lehman, that bank everyone said could not possibly collapse because banks that big just don’t do that. But collapse it did, triggering mass chaos in the financial markets.

Greece will default soon. Many banks in Europe are up to [...]

Bankster vs bankster in Europe. Debt crisis going nuclear

European leaders in open revolt against ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet

Financial street gangs (oh, sorry, I of course meant the ECB and leaders of nations) are attacking each other in Europe on whether to continue bailouts to the debtor nations and who should take a haircut on the bonds. Maybe if we’re lucky, they’ll [...]