The key problem is the debt restructuring in the euro zone. As long as the debt burden is not reduced, there is no chance of the weaker EU countries regaining competitiveness.
I don't want euro bonds that serve to mutualize the entire debt of the countries in the euro zone. That can only work in the longer-term. I want euro bonds to be used to finance targeted investments in future-oriented growth projects. It isn't the same thing. Let's call them 'project bonds' instead of euro bonds.
I hope that the United States would cooperate with the partners to reduce its debt. The debt is a problem. The debt is with you, but unfortunately, the debt is not only with you but with us and with the rest of the world because we all, one way or another, are dependent on the dollar.
No amount of debt restructuring, even debt forgiveness, will help the Greeks achieve real prosperity. What they need is not short-term relief but, rather, a long-term cure.
Italy may well be the main problem. It has benefited most from the euro by having been able to get the euro interest rate instead of what otherwise would have been its own. That would be much higher because Italy has been accumulating so much debt. In the past, Italy has inflated away its debt. The virtue of the euro is that Italy can't do it alone. A tight ECB policy wouldn't permit that to happen again.
I have younger friends who are in this pinch where they feel they've been counted out before they've had a chance to prove themselves. They've inherited a lot of debt - not just student debt but environmental debt, political debt. They really feel squeezed.
An example of good debt is the debt on the apartment houses I own. That debt is good only as long as there are tenants to pay my mortgages. If tenants stop paying their rent, my good debt turns into bad debt.
In my min,d there is arguably a greater risk of a default on the debt of a U.S. state than there is on the debt of a euro-area member. I consider it unthinkable that a euro-area country would default.
I do not like debt and do not like to invest in companies that have too much debt, particularly long-term debt. With long-term debt, increases in interest rates can drastically affect company profits and make future cash flows less predictable.
The moment a large investor doesn't believe a government will pay back its debt when it says it will, a crisis of confidence could develop. Investors have scant patience for the years of good governance - politically fraught fiscal restructuring, austerity and debt rescheduling - it takes to defuse a sovereign-debt crisis.
There was a real fear that a euro-zone bank might fail, that we'd have a sovereign debt problem in one of the larger European economies. That's dissipated, thanks largely to the action of the European Central Bank.
Debt ceiling is something that, you know, any time the president asks for the authority to increase the debt ceiling, the debt burden on our children and grandchildren, I think that requires a pretty serious discussion, robust debate.
Shipping first time code is like going into debt. A little debt speeds development so long as it is paid back promptly with a rewrite. The danger occurs when the debt is not repaid. Every minute spent on not-quite-right code counts as interest on that debt. Entire engineering organizations can be brought to a standstill under the debt load of an unconsolidated implementation, object-oriented or otherwise.
All the central banks are doing is substituting one form of debt with another form of debt. They're issuing short term debt and using it to buy long term debt. In finance, we tend to think that's a neutral activity, even though those stimulus programs are huge.
A country outside the euro zone cannot have a veto over countries in the euro zone.
Greece is a medium-sized country in Europe. Our debt accounts for only 2.5 percent of the total of all members of the euro zone.
When you default on a secured debt, the creditor takes the asset that backs up that debt. When you convert credit card debt to mortgage debt, you are securing that credit card debt with your home. That's a risky proposition.