To cut a long story short concerning the battle of the moribund Western economies, consider:
- If subprime growth [U-S-A!] combined with unlimited deficit spending is preferable to fiscal retrenchment resulting in (a hopefully short-lived and transitional) recession [E-U!], then why is the currency of the latter preferred to the former?
- As per point (1), does the market prefer policies that involve tackling fiscal problems head-on despite the immediate costs over delaying any meaningful effort to address deficits?
- Considering that the bond yields of the aforementioned PIIGS range from 5.01% to 20.90%, then what would the market-determined yield of US treasuries be without such heavy Fed buying distorting the market?