O momento da Zona Euro

Espanha (o gráficos acimas foram retirados destas notas - são sobre Espanha, mas contam uma história semelhante à portuguesa):

• Know Your Deficits - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com: "Greece is a different story. But the Spanish tragedy is not essentially fiscal."
• Spain’s Problem, Illustrated - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com

Referências ao momento português:

• Euro Debt Crisis Is Political Test for Bloc - NYTimes.com: "But even tiding over countries in trouble will not solve the main flaw in the euro: the sharp divergence of national economies that share a common currency without significant fiscal coordination, let alone a single treasury." "In addition, Portugal has something of a political crisis, with Parliament voting down an austerity plan on Friday that was promoted by the minority Socialist government." 
• Debt crisis unsettles European economy | Lux Libertas - Light and Liberty: "Investors also drove up to fresh highs the cost of insuring against a default in Greece, Spain and Portugal. In some instances, analysts say, those fears may not be wholly misplaced. Portugal, in recent days, has been swallowed up in the debt market panic that began in Greece late last year. Portuguese officials have pledged to slash spending. Nevertheless, opposition lawmakers on Friday pushed through a controversial bill funneling tens of millions of euros to the Azores and Madeira islands in a move the country’s finance minister openly warned could have “grave consequences for Portugal’s public accounts.”" 

Governança da Zona Euro:

• A sobrevivência da zona euro | Wolfgang Munchau | Económico: "A razão pela qual me tornei mais céptico sobre as perspectivas a longo prazo para a zona euro não se prende com o sistema económico inerente à união monetária, mas sim com a aparente falta de vontade política de fazer o que é necessário."  

Irlanda:

• The Irish Economy » Blog Archive » Escaping the lion: "All this is understandable. As Ken Rogoff puts it, There is an old joke about two men who are trapped by a lion in the jungle after a plane crash. When the first of them starts putting on his sneakers, the other asks why. The first answers: “I am getting ready to make a run for it.” But you cannot outrun a lion, says the other man, to which the first replies: “I don’t have to outrun the lion. I just have to outrun you.” However, one of the big lessons of history is that lions rarely make do with just one snack: when defaults come, they come in waves. The 1930s is a good case in point. Europe needs solidarity, not finger pointing." 

Grécia: 

•  Greece Gets The Green Light, But Will It All Work? | afoe | A Fistful of Euros | European Opinion 

Zona Euro:

• euro zone rumours: There is no conspiracy to kill the euro | The Economist
• L’euro prendra-t-il la place du dollar ? | Telos: "Quelle sera la principale monnaie mondiale dans dix ans ? Cela pourrait bien être l'euro" No contexto disto tudo, é bastante curioso.
• Europe Risks Another Global Depression « The Baseline Scenario: "The IMF cannot help in any meaningful way. And the stronger EU countries are not willing to help – in part because they want to be tough, but also because they do not have effective mechanisms for providing assistance-with-strings. Unconditional bailouts are simple – just send a check. Structuring a rescue package that will garner support among the German electorate – whose current and future taxes will be on the line – is considerably more complicated. The financial markets know all this and last week sharpened their swords. As we move into this week, expect more selling pressure across a wide range of European assets. As this pressure mounts, we’ll see cracks appear also in the private sector. Significant banks and large hedge funds have been selling insurance against default by European sovereigns [...]". 
• Sovereign debt: Where's the deficit news? | The Economist: "Look, I think that the immediate priority should be economic weakness rather than deficits (although these needn't be mutually exclusive—you can always pass budget fixes now that take effect several years down the road). But it's just not true to say there is no news driving the interest. There is actually quite a bit of news on the risk of sovereign debt crises, driven by developing conditions in Europe. Here is just one of the stories describing the deficit worries sweeping Europe. [...]"

• European deficits: Free exchange smackdown watch | The Economist: "Greece, Italy, and Portugal are a different story. All are habitual deficit runners, and all suffered from large (and in Portugal's case, increasing) debt loads. What's more, monetary union has almost certainly helped these countries by reducing their debt costs. Were they not a part of the euro area, debt crises would likely have come earlier. To use Mr Krugman's example, were Florida a sovereign state, it could devalue to improve its ability to export to the American market. On the other hand, it would lose the implicit backing of the federal government, and its debt costs would soar. If its debt were valued in dollars, devaluation would make it very difficult to repay. Were it instead valued in something like floridians, then interest rates would rapidly climb, choking off much of the benefit of devaluation.As Mr Krugman says, the way around this is tighter integration, such that the federal government provides support during down times, and has some means of reducing the incentive to run deficits during good times. 

A Zona Euro e o Mundo:

• Is Tim Geithner Paying Attention To the Global Economy? « The Baseline Scenario: "But the problems now spreading from Greece to Spain, Portugal, Ireland and even Italy portend serious trouble ahead for the US in the second half of this year – particularly because our banks remain in such weak shape. Greece is a member of the eurozone, the elite club of European nations that share the euro and are supposed to maintain strong enough economic policies. Greece does not control its own currency – this is in the hands of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. In good times over the past decade, this helped keep Greek interest rates low and growth relatively strong. But under the economic pressures of the past year, the Greek government budget has slipped into ever greater deficit and investors have increasingly become uncomfortable about the possibility of future default. This impending doom was postponed for a while by the ability of banks – mostly Greek – to use these bonds as collateral for loans from the European Central Bank (so-called “repos”). But from the end of this year, the ECB will no longer accept bonds rated below A by major ratings agencies – and Greek government debt no longer falls into this category. The market can do this kind of math in about 20 seconds: If the ECB won’t, indirectly, lend to the Greek government, then interest rates will go up in the future; in anticipation of this, interest rates should go up now. That is trouble enough for an economy like Greece – or any of the weaker eurozone countries that have been known, for some time and not in an endearing way as the “PIIGS”. But paying higher interest rates on government debt also implies a worsening of the budget; this is exactly the sort of debt dynamics that used to get countries like Brazil into big trouble. The right approach would be to promise credible budget tightening down the road and to obtain sufficient resources – from within the eurozone (the IMF is irrelevant in the case of such a currency union) – to tide the country over in the interim. [...]"