If all the countries are borrowing money; Greece, UK, US, Italy, etc... then who is lending money? The IMF?
Bingo, give the man a cigar... The German populace went through many reforms, and cuts. There is NO support among the German populace for money to be sent to the Greek so that they can retire at 61... Though if you dig deeper the reason Sarkozy is so interested in helping Greece is because Greece is one of the biggest importer of French meat...
the banks(ters) ? take the money for free from the central bank, give it to the states at 4% ... the effect is money creation
The Greek sovereign debt crisis and the U.S. dollar rally have drawn attention to currencies in the past month. We expect currencies to dominate other investment themes throughout 2010. Massive government spending and extreme monetary policy choices halted the 2008 crisis, but they also dramatically altered government balance sheets and monetary outlooks. We believe the market will adjust to these new realities through trial and error. We surveyed hedge fund managers and currency traders in the BarclayHedge database about their expectations for the currency market. Specifically, we asked about their favorite currency in the short term, their opinion of the Greek debt crisis, and their view on long-term U.S. interest rates. Our findings: Hedge fund managers are bullish on the U.S. dollar - the greenback is the favorite currency of 57% of the ⢠managers we surveyed. The Brazilian real and the Australian dollar are distant seconds, but popular with global macro managers. This confirms other sentiment surveys and is consistent with aggressive buying of U.S. dollar index futures by speculative traders. Nearly 60% of managers do expect the Greek debt crisis to spread to other European countries, but do ⢠not think it endangers the unity of the Eurozone. A sizeable 14.8% of managers expect the crisis will lead to a break-up of the euro. No manager in the Eurozone expects this scenario, but it is popular with British and American managers. Views on long-term U.S. interest rates are split between those who expect stability (49.2%) and those ⢠who expect a sharp rise by year-end (44.3%). Only 6.6% of managers expect long-term rates to drop. Surprisingly, managers who are bullish on the U.S. dollar are bearish on interest rates. We believe inflation expectations explain this paradox. Managers who expect the global economy to double dip are likely to be bearish on rates and bullish on the U.S. dollar because of its safe-haven status. Managers worried about inflation likely believe long-term rates will pop, and probably want to stay out of the U.S. dollar because U.S. fiscal and monetary policies have been the loosest among developed countries. Too funny, clueless British and American managers...