Lots of Good News From Europe??July 15 (UK Guardian)
Even assuming that these ideas are greeted as workable, Europe may not be ready for such radical suggestions. A collective solution will be costly: some estimates put the price tag at €2tn. Policymakers may balk at the cost. They may prefer to stick to the current mantra of austerity, austerity and still more austerity. But they are dicing with disaster if they do so. Privately, some senior bankers are saying that Europe has a matter of days to get its act together before an implosion of the single currency triggers a second phase to the global financial crisis.
Be clear: were that to happen it would make the recession of 2008-09 seem mild by comparison....
July 15 (AP)
Eight of 90 European banks have flunked stress tests that project how they would fare in another recession, and 16 more barely passed, Europe’s banking regulator said Friday.
The test, run by national banking regulators, simulated what would happen to bank finances during a recession where growth falls more than 4 percentage points below EU forecasts. For the 17-country eurozone, that would be a drop of 0.5% this year and 0.2% next year.