Why Europe’s debt crisis isn’t over : Could Spain be the next Florida?

Political leaders in Europe have spent the last few days telling everyone who will listen that the credit crisis here is over.

Portugal, they say, will be the last country to need a bail out. And Spain, the next weak link in the chain, will be OK.

“Spain isn’t a problem,” French finance minister Christine Lagarde told my colleagues at The Wall Street Journal. Read “EU Finance Ministers Expect Spain Won’t Follow Portugal.”

“Now I do not see any risk of contagion,” said Spain’s Finance Minister Elena Salgado. “I think we are totally out of this.”

And Olli Rehn, the European commissioner of economic and monetary affairs, said he was “certain” Spain’s tough budget measures would ensure it avoided a bailout. It “will not need external financial assistance.”

Are they right?

They had better be.

Europe cannot afford a Spanish bailout.

www.marketwatch.com...

Well it looks like the fate of the Euro hangs on Spain. Should they end up needing a bailout, according to this article (and i have read elsewhere as well but lost it and cannot reference) the Euro is screwed. Spain is a massive economy compared to Ireland, Creece and Portugal, so them requiring a bailout cannot be afforded by the Euro countries. I think this is the country we need to keep an eye on.

Anyone here from Spain who can comment on the condition of the Spanish economy????

reply to post by surrealist

Should they end up needing a bailout, according to this article (and i have read elsewhere as well but lost it and cannot reference) the Euro is screwed.

Why? From my understanding, this is only a new way to make money out of a crisis. People are assuming that somebody, at some point, is losing money to bailout this countries. It's completely false.

A lot, seriously a lot of people are gaining colossal values from all this gibberish. Portugal's economy is down in the gutter, but with some tweaking and a change in government, Portugal could be able to surpass this crisis.

The problem is that rating companies trashed our economy. We still didn't had all the numbers from the budget and deficit, and rating companies were already stating that our economy was one degree above "junk".

How can countries bounce back if the rating companies that control the world economy decide who is who, and who is good enough or too bad?

It's ridiculous and people should awake and demand this ass*oles to be put in jail.

Iceland is a great example of how people should tell the bank community to shove it.

And as for the "the downfall of the Euro". It's the downfall of SOME european countries, that USED TO BE powerful. Other countries are actually getting better.

...and most importantly, don't feel petty from the "saviors" of economy, because IMF is going to give 80 billion dollars to Portugal, and that will solve the whole issue.

But at the same time, IMF will profit from that act more than 600 billion dollars.

There are no saints in the World.