Another Analysis of The Euro Zone Recovery Plan

link here to article

The problems in the Euro Zone are much more important to the global economic problem than our problems in the US which are mainly political problems associated with the 2012 election cycle. This article goes into detail about the approaches taken to resolve the sovereign debt problems in Europe. It is complicated, and not easy to grasp in its entirety, but it is clearly a long way from resolving the major issues with Greece, let alone the issues that might arise with contagion to other countries which are struggling with weak economies and debt that is increasingly difficult to service.

The bulk of the sovereign debt is held by European banks. If all of the bad debt were written down by the banks, there would be another major banking crisis in Europe that would burden national governments. They would have to provide another rescue package on top of what they did to deal with the real estate bubble. On the other hand, this plan transfers risk to European entities and to the IMF. That risk is ultimately born by the stronger national governments of Europe.

A major concern with any rescue plan is that the economies of the peripheral countries will have to recover from recession in order to service the debt that has been restructured. It is not clear how that might happen.