JEFF CARTER: Death Spiral In Euroland. “Europe has hit the point of no return I am afraid. Debt ratings in some countries went to junk yesterday. Italy paid record highs in their latest auction. Tell me, how is Italy not junk?”
UPDATE: Michael Barone: “What I take from this is that one thing we should be thankful for on this Thanksgiving is that we are not in the Eurozone. Our British cousins, though they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving over there, have reason to be thankful to former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who as Chancellor of the Exchequer kept Britain out of the zero. Tony Blair seemed to want to go in, but he effectively ceded control of economic and financial policy to Brown, and Brown put out a list of conditions that had to be fulfilled before Britain would ditch the Pound and go into the Euro. Reading the conditions at the time, I came to the conclusion that they never could be fulfilled, and in any case they weren’t. Brown’s reputation is not very high now–Blair’s memoir paints him as almost pathological–but his nation owes him some thanks.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: “Awful” Italy debt sale heightens euro zone stress.
MORE: Spanish Treasury cancels new 3-year auction.
Also: Currency Wars – Russia Officially Adds 19.5 Tonnes of Gold Reserves in October Alone.
STILL MORE: The Eurozone Crisis Is Also a Governance Crisis — Isn’t It?
MORE STILL: Tyler Cowen: Is The End Near? “I don’t see anybody who has put a successful reform option on the table.”
Plus, from the comments: “To predict the failure of the Euro was easy peasy: all that was needed was a slight familiarity with economics and the human race. To predict what comes next is much, much harder.” Yes.