Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Credit crunch and euro woes


The Economist

Crunch time

Current credit conditions bode ill for the euro area
THE euro crisis drags on and on. Spanish yields on ten-year debt hit 6.6% on May 30th, just ten basis points lower than last November's nadir, as the costs of sorting out Spain's banks sink in. With ten-year US Treasuries now at a 60-year low, investors are heading across the Atlantic for the perceived safety of the world's second-largest debt market. According to The Economist's credit-crunch index, credit is now tighter in the euro area than it was at the height of the financial crisis (see top-left chart). This is having a detrimental effect on the real economy, as demonstrated in the following three charts. When the index was last at a similar level during 2008-09, economic output tanked, unemployment shot up and stockmarkets plummeted. Unless policymakers find a lasting and credible solution soon, it seems likely that the same will happen again.
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