NEW THINGS: @08:37, 12/19/11 2

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TimesPeople recommended a user:
Dec 18, 2011
Karolyn
- Karolyn recommended an article:
  Jul 20, 2011
  
  Obama to Back Repeal of Law Restricting Marriage
  President Obama will endorse a bill to repeal the law that limits marriage to a man and a woman.
  "The new legislation, which is being sponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, is unlikely to pass Congress this year, but will nonetheless face its first committee hearing on Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee."
  
  DOMA has become a defended position for the right.
  There will not be prosecutions under this extant law.
  There will be no action in the courts without a change of personnel.
  The same is true in congress.
  Frustrating.
  Sooner is better.
  As soon as possible is best.
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Marie Burns
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  BorowitzReport
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    Donald Trump would be at home running North Korea.
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Blair
- Henry recommended a blog post:
  Mar 7, 2011
  
  Does IMF Stand for Impressive Macroeconomic Flexibility?
  So the IMF is holding a meeting on rethinking macroeconomic policy (I was invited but couldn’t make the timing work.) And the Fund’s chief economist has already made it clear that he’s open to some serious revision of the prevailing paradigm.
  There appear to be no developments in Europe.
  The house Republicans appear to want to shut the federal government down for Christmas. They will deny the president recess appointments, end Unemployment Insurance extensions and I don't know what else.
  Bullet meet Right's foot.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/dont-know-much-about-history-debt-edition/
The title says it all.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/opinion/krugman-will-china-break.html?hpw
Paul Krugman is worried about the Chinese economy too. Crash warning.

Europe is talking to itself and answering.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/12/links-121911.html
Oh, for an Alexander Hamilton to save Europe! Ronald McKinnon, Financial Times

(hat tip reader Swedish Lex)
Paris and London go toe-to-toe MacroBusiness
UK will fare better in this Anglo-French spat Wolfgang Münchau, Financial Times
Leveson orders inquiry into hacking exposé Financial Times (hat tip Buzz Potamkin)

http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/ This is how Europe looks from there.

"December 19, 2011

EU CRISIS: The simple problem is, there’s nowhere near enough money.

There is now no way the eurozone can avoid going down the toilet

You have to worry when all the EU sovereign States most in trouble have the banks most in need of recapitalisation. Thus, the three biggest needies are Spain, Italy and Germany. (Greece’s banks are already being propped up by EU money anyway)
Hang about…..Germany? Yes, moralistic, harpy Germany: and half of it is required for Commerzbank. However, this isn’t the end of the story – although to read some of the press, you’d think it was. The key thing is the quotient between the degree of buffer banks have, and what their exposure to ClubMed debt is. For example, France weighs in at a mere 7.3bn of bank recap, but its exposure to Greece and Italy is horrendous.
I recently posted about ECB bond-buying levels, adding ‘that we know about’. Today, Open Europe confirms that Mario Draghi’s central bank is already heavily intervening in markets far more than we’d been led to believe. ‘Through its government bond buying and liquidity provision to banks,’ says Open Europe, ‘we estimate that the ECB’s exposure to weaker eurozone economies has now reached €705bn, up from €444bn in early summer – an increase of over 50% in only six months, raising fresh questions about its credibility, independence and possible losses it may face in the case of future sovereign defaults’. Yes indeed….but most of that must have been initiated by Tricky Trichet. Old Hatchet Face tried to come across as Mr Parsimony – but the truth is that his fear of being asked to do more was of even his own bank falling sideways." . . .