Former Thatcher adviser John O'Sullivan sees possible euro-collapse as the "commentariat" in Europe:
Every day brings news of fresh disasters, but the main current anxieties are (1) that Austrian banks that have loaned too much to Eastern Europe will collapse when Hungary and others default; (2) that Swedish investments in the Baltic states will similarly head south; and (3) that Ireland, Greece and Italy, all poised on the edge of bankruptcy, will between them cause a collapse of the euro.
Endangered are Europe's "four freedoms"--of trade, labor mobility, investment and services--plus, the euro itself as a common currency.
Anne Applebaum adds disturbing detail of mega-claims:
While the Hungarians have, it is true, requested, and been denied, an extraordinary $240 billion loan, a single British bank -- the Royal Bank of Scotland -- has requested, and will receive, a far more extraordinary, $425 billion bailout from the British government. For that matter, the bad debts accumulated by British financial institutions alone far exceed, by many tens of billions, the governmental debt of Poland and the Czech Republic, two countries that have had no domestic banking failures to speak of.
So, a single Scottish bank was a $425B bailout? That is nearly thrice AIG's $150B tab to date. It is hard not to feel a tad of schadenfreude (German for "malicious glee") at the smug European elites who were sneering at us last fall, thinking they would escape the gathering financial storm. But we must hope that eventually they do not drag us down too.
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