Greece is the canary. Europe is the coal mine. One voice calling it yellow and black.
Harsh but true words on Greece, the Euro
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Category Archives: currency risk
Fitch downgrades outlook for South Africa
Aside
Fitch downgrades outlook for South Africa to “negative”. Ferial Haffajee highlights a difference in reasons given by Treasury (blame the international economy) and Fitch (unemployment).
Competing European interests
The BBC has a great overview of competing European interests, demonstrating exactly how far they are from a deal. In my mind, this is half of the reason markets are going to punish European bonds soon. The other half is that the proposed deal is rubbish. It doesn’t fix the causes but tries to ban the symptoms.
I’m wrong, but only for now
It turned out the markets didn’t have an awful day. Italian bond yields are actually markedly down. So I was wrong about markets being ugly as a result of the ill-conceived plans for the Euro Zone.
Call me stubborn perhaps, but I firmly believe the agreement is an awful one. It doesn’t address the primary problems of the Euro Zone, doesn’t restore competitiveness to Southern countries, doesn’t address the problem of a lack of a true, unlimited lender of last resort and most importantly, probably won’t get ratified by the populations of the individual countries.
I may have read the markets incorrectly for today, but I am as convinced as ever that the problems have not been solved. Watch this space, there is more trouble ahead. (Felix Salmon, amongst others, feels similarly.)
Prediction: Italian bond yields will be above 8% at some point before the end of 2012 or at least one country will have left the Euro.
Renminbi or Yuan
“Renminbi” is the official name of the currency introduced by the Communist People’s Republic of China at the time of its foundation in 1949. It means “the people’s currency”.
“Yuan” is the name of a unit of the renminbi currency. Something may cost one yuan or 10 yuan. It would not be correct to say that it cost 10 renminbi.
A little confusing, but at least now you know.
I could be rich – Bitcoin edition
In June, after explaining why Bitcoins were an overrated fad at best and a truly awful idea for a currency at worst, I conclued “Now I just need to find a way to short Bitcoins.“Check out the price dropping from aroudn $30 to below $5.
Bitcoin price plummets since June
The GMU won’t be in place by 2015
Although the original and long-planned date for the Gulf Monetary Union’s single currency was 2010, I’m putting my neck out once again and predicting that a currency union of all the current GCC countries won’t happen by end 2015.
There are too many political problems, too much fallout from the Euro and, frankly, too many good reasons not to do it. In some ways, Saudi Arabia may exert enough pressure in the region to make it work, but for the same reason I suspect some may be wary of Saudi gaining any more leverage.
History of words and future of money
Recent article on the history of words for currencies in Europe, the Middle East and the Subcontinent. The article takes the historical words and supposes maybe some of the words will need to be resurrected in the near future.