pstarr wrote:. We know that Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Ireland were hit the hardest by the Greatest Recession.
We also know it had nothing to do with oil.
WHAT IS THE EUROPEAN DEBT CRISIS?
In its most basic form, it’s just this: Some countries in Europe have way too much debt, and now they risk not being able to pay it all back. Simple!
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?
Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain — gathered under the unfortunate acronym PIIGS — are some of the most highly leveraged eurozone countries, and most people think that if a disaster happens, it will start with one of them. Italy’s debt is 121 percent the size of its economy. For Ireland, that figure is 109 percent. In Greece, it’s 165 percent.
The PIIGS took different paths to this scenario. Ireland, for example, underwent a massive real estate bubble, and its banks sustained giant losses. The Irish government wound up rescuing its banks, and now the country is burdened under a huge debt load.
Spain, which now has a 22 percent unemployment rate, also experienced a huge housing bubble. The country didn’t indulge in excessive borrowing — rather, it ended up with high deficits because it couldn’t collect enough tax revenue to cover its expenses.
Greece, on the other hand, not only borrowed beyond its means, but exacerbated the problem with lots of overspending, little economic production to make up the difference, and some creative bookkeeping to prevent eurozone authorities from realizing the true extent of the situation.
The deficits weren’t piling up everywhere. Countries with strong economies like Germany and France were keeping their output high and their debt at a manageable level. But when 17 nations use the same currency, trouble spreads quickly.
The European Debt Crisis: A Beginner’s GuideDuring the European debt crisis, several countries in the Eurozone were faced with high structural deficits, a slowing economy and expensive bailouts that led to rising interest rates, which exacerbated these governments' tenuous positions. In response, the European Union (EU), European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) embarked on a series of bailouts in exchange for reforms that were eventually successful in decreasing interest rates.
The problem originated as many of the periphery countries had asset bubbles in the time leading to the Great Recession, with capital flowing from stronger economies to weaker economies. This economic growth led policymakers to increase public spending. When these asset bubbles popped, it resulted in massive bank losses that precipitated bailouts. The bailouts exacerbated deficits that were already large due to decreased tax revenues and high spending levels.
What caused the European / Eurozone debt crisis?But if journalism is the first-draft of history, then it’s about time for a second draft. In a new working paper by Wharton economists Fernando Ferreira and Joseph Gyourko, the authors argue that the idea that subprime lending triggered the crisis is misguided. The paper looks at foreclosure data from 1997 through 2012 and finds that while foreclosure activity started first in the subprime market, the foreclosure activity in the prime market quickly outnumbered the number of subprime foreclosures.
I answered this one that last time you brought it up. This paper says nothing about oil prices. It argues underwater prime borrowers were a larger factor than underwater subprime borrowers. aka: jingle mail, strategic default, walkaways:
A strategic default is the decision by a borrower to stop making payments (i.e., to default) on a debt, despite having the financial ability to make the payments.
This is particularly associated with residential and commercial mortgages, in which case it usually occurs after a substantial drop in the house's price such that the debt owed is (considerably) greater than the value of the property — the property has negative equity or is underwater — and is expected to remain so for the foreseeable future, such as following the bursting of a real estate bubble. Such borrowers are called walkaways. The process of strategically defaulting on a home mortgage has been colloquially called "jingle mail" — metaphorically, one mails the keys to the bank.
Strategic default
The oil barrel is half-full.