How Far is the ECB Prepared to Go to Save the Euro?
July 29, 2012 by Marshall Auerback
ECB President Mario Draghi with Ramon Tremosa. Image via European Council
Re-reading Mr Draghi’s market-moving remarks last Thursday, one gains a sense that the European Central Bank chief recognizes that the ECB has a banking run on its hand. Most market participants have understandably focused on Mr. Draghi’s pledge that the ECB was “ready to do whatever it takes” to preserve the single currency. “Believe me, it will be enough,” he told a conference in London. We prefer to focus on other aspects of the speech.
It is particularly salient that Mr. Draghi highlights the fatal flaw of the euro zone noted by Professor Peter Garber some 14 years ago: As long as there was no perceived probability of euro exit by any euro nation, the established transfer system coupling private markets with European system of Central Bank support (Target 2, ELA, ECB repos) would function like any other monetary system in a single nation state.
After Libya, the Focus turns to Syria
July 29, 2012 by Deepak Tripathi
Syrian rebels with a captured Army tank. Image via Freedom House
In 1995, I had a rare opportunity to spend some time in Syria, where the Damascus Trade Fair was taking place. A normally secretive Arab country had opened its doors to a select group of Western journalists, businessmen and officials. The event was aimed at showing glimpses of a rich mix of civilizations going as far back as between 9000 and 11000 B.C., described as a Hidden Pearl of the Orient. Syria today has Muslims, Shia and Sunni; Assyrian-Syriac Christians, ethnic Kurds and Turkmen in the north; Druze in the south.
People of all ethnic and religious groups live in Aleppo, the country’s most populated city. For centuries, Aleppo was the largest urban center in Greater Syria and the third largest in the Ottoman empire, after Constantinople and Cairo.
Editor’s Pick
Comments