Tempest In A Tzatziki Pot
Note: I was going to title today's post "Permission Denied", but then I decided to join the ranks of the Dumb Title Brigade (see further below). If you are not familiar with Greek cuisine, see here for the wiki on tzatziki (jeez, will this guy quit wi...
CDS Counterparty Politics
Long-time readers of Sudden Debt (it was started on Dec. 2, 2006 with this post) know of my insistence that credit default swaps (CDS) pushed the current financial crisis over the edge of the precipice. This relative newcomer to the roster of financia...
Debt On ICE(land)
I have a bunch of friends, both inside and outside the finance business, who vehemently claim that countries cannot and do not go bankrupt. Their position obviously flies in the face of history (Ottoman Empire, Czarist Russia, Argentina... and a whole...
Happy Holidays
May I offer my sincerest wishes for Christmas and the Holiday Season. I will take a break from posting for a week or so - unless there are serious developments, of course.All The Best.A Christmas Tree For Troubled Times
The Euro’s Trojan Horse
'Tis the season of giving, so it should come as no surprise that at this time Sudden Debt invokes Troy's Laocoon in Virgil's Aeneid: "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes" (beware of Greeks bearing gifts).Why? Because as crafty inventors of the Trojan Horse ...
Throwing Good Oil After Bad Debts
Abu Dhabi decided to bail out Dubai (once again) by providing $10 billion in order to prevent a bond coming due today from defaulting. As the post's title says, that's precisely like throwing (more of) Abu Dhabi's perfectly good oil after Dubai's stin...
Revenge Of The Bond Nerds
Well, what do you know? The participants of the Roman orgies that took place during the Debt Dump and Bail Saturnalia (feel free to add punctuation marks as you see fit) are finally being presented with the bill. It's still in the process of being ad...
Dollar Survey
Today, a Sudden Debt "special" survey.Where do you think the dollar foreign exchange rate will go over the next 6-12 months? Please heed the obvious proviso: this is NOT a scientific survey, its results are NOT predictive and thus NOT to be considere...
Insolvency Vs. Illiquidity
Is Dubai going through a temporary liquidity crisis, or is it facing a serious insolvency problem? Does it need a couple of billion to tide it over a rough spot, or is the income produced by the assets it built by the dozen insufficient to cover their...
The Value Of Money (Plus Bye-Bye, Dubai)
First, this item about Dubai:Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) Dubai World, the government-owned holding company struggling with $59 billion of liabilities, is seeking to delay repayment on all of its debt, even after Abu Dhabi banks provided $5 billion for Duba...
2012: Dollar At The End Of The World
I am a devoted and frequently bemused student of aberrant market behaviour as expressed in the popular media, i.e. "lifestyle" TV programs, films, radio, magazines, etc. I'm always on the lookout for such market signals emanating from unlikely, non-pr...
Calling Archimedes
Within 6 hours deserts receive more energy from the sunthan humankind consumes within a year.________________________________Prompted from the previous post about Dubai, today's post is about a quiet revolution planned for the deserts of North Africa. ...
