Stocks soared yesterday around the world after the Fed coordinated action to make sure troubled European banks could access dollars, and the financial crisis has eased — perhaps until Europe’s toxic mixture of political impasse and slow reaction time takes the world back to the edge of the abyss.
At Via Meadia we are still wondering whether 2011 could really be the second coming of 1931. That was the year that put the Great in the Great Depression, and the disaster was centered in Europe. The continent had its very own full-scale financial crisis: reparation payments and war debts collapsed, and the rattled world sank into a new wave of protectionism.
Read Full Article »