Monday, May 28, 2012

Euro Crisis - Greek Children Abandoned

I heard a podcast yesterday wherein a member of the EU Parliament mentioned that some Greek parents are now leaving children at the doorsteps of Greek Orthodox churches, with notes around the children's necks, saying that they could no longer afford to feed them on account of the severe economic depression that is now happening there.  Is it any wonder that the Greeks are now rioting and demanding an end to austerity?

From the looks of things, the Greeks are on their way out of the Eurozone, unless Germany agrees to the issuance of Eurobonds.  But that would be very unfair to the German populace.

So it looks like we have a crisis on our hands.  I really wonder to what extent the ECB and the US Federal Reserve can postpone the problem by more quantitative easing.  Besides this, the stock market appears to be egging the central banks to move in the direction of more QE. But if we look at things from the Austrian School perspective, given how little impact the previous 2 rounds had on the real economy, and the fact that QE is subject to the law of diminishing returns, I wonder how much of a boost to the stock market another round of QE will achieve, unless it is in the multiples of trillions.  But imagine what that would do to oil and commodity prices?

In any case, given that the Singapore government was not particularly prepared during the initial part of this crisis in 2008, we need to brace ourselves for a rough ride in case they read things wrongly again, and/or are too preoccupied with domestic issues.

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