Comments on: Which of the "Rich Four" Countries Will Default First?

By: dan tae

dan tae — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 01:22:13 +0000

p i …
i..g…s read y to default de. '10

By: Edward Rocca

Edward Rocca — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:10:25 +0000

Thanks Mario and others for your comments.Let's Quit looking in the rear view mirrors! They have done it to us already. lets concentrate on a survival plan. Are there no visionaries on staff? Save us the continous history lessons.We don't need to know so much about how we were! We need to know where we are going.

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:45:27 +0000

Governments resort to turning on actual printing presses ONLY when nothing else works and is available to them. Note in this analysis of Zimbabwe that only after they lost the ability to borrow money did they start actual printing of money: Hyperinflation Worries Laid to Rest

By: Robin

Robin — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:50:02 +0000

Martin, I appreciate your insights but have you left out the changes that happen with an increase in taxes on those higher incomes? That will certainly happen in the US anyway, money doesn't grow on trees.

By: GregP

GregP — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 23:35:05 +0000

Mario has a point. This article fails to fully account for the massive differences in the nature of the debt between Japan and the other debtors, especially the U.S. But it does identify the coming default. The only point I'd make is that we don't have ten years. We probably don't have five. Crushing tax burdens coming. Soaring annual deficits. Massive impending debt rollover with a relentless shift by China et al to short-term debt. The next wave of ARM and ALT-A defaults. State defaults with hundreds of thousands if not millions of layoffs (state workers). This storm is only just getting underway. The gov't will choose inflationary default. But we won't see higher wages, etc. for some years. In the next 2 to 3 years, as the dollar is further debauched, and as Asia slowly recovers, prices on all things imported will move up and up, squeezing the middle class further. How long will we extend unemployment? Another 52 weeks? Then another? It's hard to see a way out of this other than massive inflation, Great Depression II, social unrest and disorder, etc.

By: Rick

Rick — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:42:22 +0000

In his two terms, George Bush gave America 2 never ending wars – Iraq and Afganistan, not taxing the wealthy, cheap money, lax regulation, Alan Greenspan, big government, arrogance and ignorance. Should we be surprised that America is gone broke ???

By: A. Pearsall

A. Pearsall — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:35:02 +0000

I'm afraid that it takes a Martin Hutchinson kind of ideological right-winger to describe an incredibly corrupt, lawbreaking, amoral, media-tycoon-turned-politician like the incredible Silvio Berlusconi, that weird combination of Rupert Murdoch, a discount-store Mussolini, and a bedroom-farce clown, as "something of a rogue" but basically a wonderful statesman.

I'm also afraid that Martin Hutchinson is in the outfit I signed up with solely because of my respect for Keith Fitz-Gerald, a brilliant, pragmatic analyst and non-ideologue. I will never understand why Hutchinson, a blinkered propagandist who should be writing op-ed pieces for The Weekly Standard, is in the company. I'm missing something.

By: Italy lover

Italy lover — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:44:33 +0000

Clearly you do not recognise why Italy do not have a problem .
1. Their banks did not expose themselves to reckless lending.
2. They have the largest gold reserves in Europe which is why they always rode out the crisises before the euro and why they consistantly refuse to sell their reserves when instructed to by Brussels. They are not as daft as people think regardless which party is in power

By: Forex

Forex — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:19:15 +0000

So is there really a substantial chance of a big rich-country default, and what would it look like if it happened

u really dont see it like this….

By: Wilken Fernández

Wilken Fernández — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:31:05 +0000

What about the war? What about if the government allocate the war's money in usefull meanings? Like new sources of energy, the national industry, cheaper transportation, cheaper technology, cheaper medicines, etc.