Sense on Cents

While many eyes, including mine, were fixated yesterday on the Senate hearings grilling the Goldman Sachs’ executives, the fact is much more serious issues are playing out across the pond. Greece is literally on the precipice of default. Is Portugal far behind? Will Ireland be next? Will the financial train wreck in Europe be contained? Is that a pipe dream in a world interconnected via a massive credit derivatives market?

Who has a great pulse on the Euro-zone? Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the IMF, co-author with James Kwak (my BlogTalkRadio guest on April 11th) of 13 Bankers, and blogger at Baseline Scenario. Johnson sheds timely insights on moves within the European bond markets and potential for another wave of global financial crisis in writing, Wake the President:

Most days we can coast along, confident that tomorrow will be much like yesterday. On a very few days we need to look hard at the news headlines, click through to read the whole story, and then completely change a large chunk of how we thought the world worked. Today is such a day. (more…)