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Simon Johnson is following the economic crisis that’s mounting daily in Greece — and in Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and Italy — and is deeply pessimistic:

The IMF cannot help in any meaningful way.  And the stronger EU countries are not willing to help — in part because they want to be tough, but also because they do not have effective mechanisms for providing assistance-with-strings.  Unconditional bailouts are simple — just send a check.  Structuring a rescue package that will garner support among the German electorate — whose current and future taxes will be on the line — is considerably more complicated.

The financial markets know all this and last week sharpened their swords.  As we move into this week, expect more selling pressure across a wide range of European assets. 

As this pressure mounts, we’ll see cracks appear also in the private sector.  Significant banks and large hedge funds have been selling insurance against default by European sovereigns.  As countries lose creditworthiness — and, under sufficient pressure, very few government credit ratings will hold up — these financial institutions will need to come up with cash to post increasing amounts of collateral against their derivative obligations (yes, the same credit default swaps that triggered the collapse last time).

I can’t pretend to have any kind of deep knowledge about this. But ever since the 2008 bank bailout I’ve had a persistent buzz in my head telling me that another shoe is likely to drop somewhere. I thought it might be Eastern Europe, channeled through Austria, or maybe something in Asia. The Dubai default seemed like a canary in the coal mine. Or even some kind of shock in the U.S. related to ARM resets. But now it looks like it might be Greece.

Hopefully Johnson is just being overly pessimistic. But one of the key lessons of the 2008 crash was how fast things can go south when markets lose confidence. If Greece fails, it won’t just slowly slide into default, it will get pushed there by opportunistic investors who suddenly decide to place huge bets on its failure, aided by panicked investors who see what’s happening and all try to head for the exits at once. If and when that happens, Europe or the IMF or the United States will have only a few days to act to prevent it from becoming a continent-wide rout.

On the other hand, Greece’s sale of treasury bonds last week went pretty well. So maybe things aren’t as bad as we think. That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway.

UPDATE: More here: “The EU’s refusal to offer Greece anything beyond stern words and a one-month deadline for harsher austerity — while admirable in one sense — is to misjudge how fast confidence is ebbing. Greece’s drama has already metastasised into a wider systemic crisis. The world risks a replay of the Lehman collapse if this runs unchecked, this time involving sovereign dominoes.”

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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