Of course this man doesn’t care a whit for the truth, so he is either an economic ignoramous (quite probable for a French lawyer and politician) or just plain lying when he makes statements like the following:
“If we created the euro, we cannot let a country fall that is in the eurozone,” said Sarkozy yesterday [...]

From Bloomberg:
Striking Greek workers shut down transport and tried to storm parliament as lawmakers passed 4.8 billion euros ($6.5 billion) in budget cuts, including wage reductions, needed to trim the region’s biggest budget deficit.
Police with riot shields fired tear gas at demonstrators outside parliament in Athens today as lawmakers approved the measures, which Finance Minister George [...]

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This from CNBC.
Greece should consider selling some of its islands as one option to reduce debt, two members of the German parliament in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right coalition said.
Josef Schlarmann, a senior member of Merkel’s Christian Democrats, and Frank Schaeffler, a finance policy expert in the Free Democrats, were quoted on Thursday as saying that [...]

City and state government workers were huge beneficiaries of the boom years, since not only did their houses appreciate by double digit rates, so did their salaries. Since taxes are based on home values, the bubble meant that government got just as bloated as the real estate market. Now that homes are worth less, it [...]

A question of Keynes vs. Kondratieff
Until recently, the sovereign debt of nearly all governments would rally during panic episodes as stocks and commodities fell. This makes sense, as strong sovereign debt is cash for big boys, and investors are forced to reach further and further out for yield as short-rates are driven to zero or [...]

Thanks to Pej for finding this:

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Chanos relays a great quote from Milton Friedman: He was brought to watch the Chinese built a canal, and when he asked why they were using shovels and not bulldozers, he was told that machinery was being eschewed in order to create more jobs. Friedman replied with something like, “Oh, [...]

This is a good one from Feb 9th, from Frisby’s Bulls and Bears. Hat tip to Pej.
Click here to listen.

According to Bloomberg, the big bears are circling China.
Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, says China is overdoing it. “It does not make sense for China to build more empty buildings and add to capacities in industries where you already have overcapacity,” Faber told Bloomberg Television on Feb. 11. “I think [...]

I glanced at the markets at 4:30 just in time to see every “risk” market spike down hard together. That kind of instant, coordinated movement only happens on announcements, usually something out of Washington. Turns out the Fed spooked traders with news of a 0.25% hike in the discount rate, the rate at which distressed [...]

I’ve always liked John Stossel, a reporter who started out doing exposés on businesses as a consumer reporter in New York (and was famously hit by a pro-wrestler during an interview in the ’80s), but gradually realized that the biggest scams of course use the force of government.
He worked for ABC for ages, but was recently [...]