something's going on
Feb. 16th, 2009 10:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdGood evening.
I should've posted about this already, when I found out about it, but I've been very distracted this weekend. Basically, Eastern Europe looks like it's about to fall over. When it does, much of the Western banking system in Europe dies, particularly in Austria. If this happens, this contagion will spread as large areas of western Europe are already on the brink - c.f. Simon Johnson at RGE Monitor noting that the G7 needs to act, now, on Ireland, to prevent another Iceland. (See also here.)
Karl posted at 6:17pm Pacific time that he was seeing a currency dislocation in progress. (E.g., here, courtesy Antonej28 on Ticker Forum.) The dollar is jumping across a variety of currencies. I noticed but was confused earlier this weekend by strange behaviour in the Yen, as well, despite Japan's economy shrinking at an annualised rate of 12.7% in the last quarter. Reportedly, it's now spreading into Poland, but I'm not seeing that on my weak, sad, and lame data sources for the Zloty. Alphaville has something up now, too.
Interestingly, people also want gold. Lots of it. Now.
A lot of people speculate that whatever is going on is Woori Finance Holdings, but frankly that's just a guess. (See also here - it's a guess, but it's a reasonable guess.) It could be one of a "flood" of corporations facing failure in the very short term, or several of them.
But something's going on. I just don't know what.
I should've posted about this already, when I found out about it, but I've been very distracted this weekend. Basically, Eastern Europe looks like it's about to fall over. When it does, much of the Western banking system in Europe dies, particularly in Austria. If this happens, this contagion will spread as large areas of western Europe are already on the brink - c.f. Simon Johnson at RGE Monitor noting that the G7 needs to act, now, on Ireland, to prevent another Iceland. (See also here.)
Karl posted at 6:17pm Pacific time that he was seeing a currency dislocation in progress. (E.g., here, courtesy Antonej28 on Ticker Forum.) The dollar is jumping across a variety of currencies. I noticed but was confused earlier this weekend by strange behaviour in the Yen, as well, despite Japan's economy shrinking at an annualised rate of 12.7% in the last quarter. Reportedly, it's now spreading into Poland, but I'm not seeing that on my weak, sad, and lame data sources for the Zloty. Alphaville has something up now, too.
Interestingly, people also want gold. Lots of it. Now.
A lot of people speculate that whatever is going on is Woori Finance Holdings, but frankly that's just a guess. (See also here - it's a guess, but it's a reasonable guess.) It could be one of a "flood" of corporations facing failure in the very short term, or several of them.
But something's going on. I just don't know what.
