Comments on: Is Greece, Bear Stearns

By: Leigh Drogen

Leigh Drogen — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:01:38 +0000

Not familiar, but thanks for the link, will check it out. It all feels very much the same, take a look at sovereign debt CDS prices over the past couple of weeks, Bespoke did a nice piece on it today. It just feels like there is a lot more here and the problem, like the real estate collapse, may be beyond the ability of governments to halt. If we get another round of this I'll begin to get real bearish, for now, I'm watching breadth and other market internals as we make an assault on the highs.

By: Leigh Drogen

Leigh Drogen — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 04:01:38 +0000

By: benzeen

benzeen — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 19:36:14 +0000

Thoughtful post Leigh... would love to hear your continued thoughts regarding these topics because greece/dubai does bear an strong resemblance to Bear Stearns and sovereign debt issues might threaten any bullish thesis. Not sure if you are familiar with Steve Keen, the australian Minsky disciple uber-deflationist economist but his views strike me as scary and far more logical then less fringe economists. Here is a great google talk laying out his views-
http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2010/01/20/t...

By: FM3

FM3 — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:14:16 +0000

For debt laden economies, it's hard to envision a scenario where things don't end badly. Commercial real estate will heal because owners and lien holders are relatively rational actors who will act decisively. Bankers less so but the Fed/US Gov have mainlined profits into the system. Governments, State, Fed and Sovereigns, are not rational and will delay and resist the inevitable aliignment of revenues and costs until default is the only option.