“The Kazakh government is ready to step in,” Kazakhstan’s Prime Minister Karim Masimov said this morning in a telephone interview with Bloomberg “The Kazakh banking system with the support of the government and central bank will fulfill all obligations to international investors…..We have our own specific plan to survive without any external support….I don’t think [...]

Keynes, however, once semi-seriously proposed, as an anti-deflationary measure, that the government fill bottles with currency and bury them in mine shafts to be dug up by the public.
Ben Bernanke, Deflation: Making Sure “It” Doesn’t Happen Here
Many of the macro-economic fundamentals of Spain today are very different from those of ten or fifteen [...]

Après Moi Le Deluge
The condition of Spain’s economy is now deteriorating markedly and rapidly by the month. The recent bout of extreme financial turmoil is only likely to make things even worse in this regard. Output is down, domestic demand is down, exports are struggling, and unemployment is up. The tumultuous events of late August [...]

Well taking my cue from the worthy and well thumbed play-book of the Brothers Coen, I thought I’d follow up on my long and indigestibly serious analysis of the plight of the Hungarian economy, with something in rather lighter vein. The Miss Iceland Look-alike show is not the only talent contest we are going [...]

Hungary’s agony has continued during the week with both currency and stock markets falling sharply while bankers continue to report acute credit shortages. At the same time contagion has started to extend its ugly reach right across eastern Europe, with Ukraine, the Baltics and Serbia (at a minimum) all in ongoing negotiations with the IMF, [...]

“Many central and eastern European countries simply don’t have either the financial strength or the technical expertise to bail out banks,” said Lars Christensen, a senior emerging-markets analyst at Danske Bank A/S in Copenhagen. “It’s like an Iceland look-a-like contest and there are a number of candidates looking very fragile at the moment.”

As rumours abound [...]

Serbia has also decided to ask the International Monetary Fund for additional support, according to a stament from senior government officials last Monday cited in Reuters.
“We are certainly not in a group of emergency cases, such as Hungary,” a senior official who asked not to be named told Reuters. “But we need the agreement for [...]

Ukraine has joined the growing list of Eastern European countries who have now entered some form of “consultation” process with the IMF and today formally requested “systemic support” and “active cooperation” from the fund. The government will meet with IMF representatives in the “coming days,” according to a statement from First Deputy [...]

Well, the Icelandic authorities seem to have bitten the bullet, and after some coming and going agreed to accept assistance from the IMF. An IMF mission is on the island preparing a plan which will then be put to the Icelandic government (protocols here are important). Under negotiation are the terms of any possible loan. [...]

Well, Europe’s leaders have finally bitten the bullet. Faced with what IMF head Dominique Strauss Kahn warned could turn into a global financial meltdown, our leaders have risen to the challenge, at least to a certain extent. The details of what has been agreed continue to remain vague, but obviously I think it is a [...]