Financial Crisis and Geopolitics

Many observers assign a large part of the blame for the 2008 financial crisis to the "big three" credit rating agencies, which gave their AAA seal of approval to worthless investments. Now those same agencies are helping to bring the euro zone to its knees -- and no one is trying to stop them.

The current Greek crisis has shown all too starkly the limits of the euro zone's sanction and support mechanisms. If the monetary union is to have a future, it needs new rules to keep members in line and bail them out if necessary.

Cuando una crisis financiera se combina con una crisis económica, los Estados se ven obligados a inyectar dinero a paladas en la economía para salvar a los bancos, para pagar los subsidios de desempleo y en última instancia, si es necesario, para cavar zanjas y después volver a echar tierra sobre los agujeros para evitar una depresión, que en economía es una suerte de agujero negro. Después de eso suelen venir crisis fiscales: algunos países son incapaces de pagar la factura y van a la quiebra.

With new European Union leaders practically invisible and some national leaders acting largely for domestic political reasons, the burden of shaping a rapid and credible restructuring program for Greece has fallen primarily to the International Monetary Fund - exactly where proud European Union leaders had insisted it should not be.

Spreading problems in Europe's sovereign debt markets pose potential challenges for China, which has been stepping up its investments in European government bonds and relies on Europe as its biggest export market.

La actual crisis del capitalismo global no es sólo económica. También lo es moral y jurídica. Por eso, las señales aparentes de recuperación económica son irrelevantes. No sólo por ser manipuladas y engañosas. Sino porque lo fundamental queda fuera. Y es que la crisis ha demostrado nuevamente que el ordenamiento jurídico de los estados no protege ni a los ciudadanos ni a los propios estados frente a la masiva destrucción de riqueza y bienestar que estos mercados pueden provocar y de hecho provocan.

European politicians are fuming over the US credit ratings agencies and their role in various financial crises. But some experts say it was governments who allowed rating firms to gain too much power in the first place.

As the financial crisis in the euro zone worsens and the heads of the IMF and the ECB come to Berlin to persuade Germany to help Greece now, local commentators are calling for speed and decisiveness. As they see it, political jockeying before the May 9 election in North Rhine-Westphalia is no reason for German politicians to endanger the whole euro zone.

The Greeks are mainly responsible for their current predicament. But the German government has made the country's situation worse with its lectures and reluctance to provide assistance. Chancellor Angela Merkel is mainly to blame for the fact that German taxpayers now have to suffer.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's strategy for dealing with Greece's untenable debt problem was to stall and hope the crisis did not demand action until after a critical state election in early May. On Wednesday, the clock finally ran out.

As Greece inches closer to the brink of financial collapse, fear that the debt crisis will spread is engulfing Europe.

Add this to the list of reasons German taxpayers are unhappy about having to lend Greece money to ease its debt crisis: In effect, they already have.

European Union officials Wednesday were unable to mask their frustration with the downgrade of Greek debt by Standard & Poor's to junk status.

La agencia de calificación deja la solvencia española en AA con perspectiva negativa. Las otras dos agencias, Fitch y Moody's, mantienen la máxima calificación para la deuda española.

S&P rebaja la calificación a AA con perspectiva negativa - La Bolsa se hunde, pero la prima de riesgo resiste - El Gobierno cree que la rebaja tendrá un efecto limitado

La clasificación según S&P, Moody's y Fitch.

Crecimiento del PIB en 2010 y 2011.

S&P dice que la banca, "además de a las débiles perspectivas de la economía, se enfrenta a la excesiva concentración de riesgos en construcción y al sobredimensionamiento" del sector inmobiliario.

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