This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The result of this discussion was to keep the two articles separate.spitzl (talk) 16:50, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
I think that PIGS (economics) should be merged into European sovereign debt crisis, since PIIGS is a subtopic of the European sovereign debt crisis. It is just a shorthand to refer to the countries affected by the European sovereign debt crisis. 70.24.248.23 (talk) 08:50, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
But the term PIGS has been used long before the current crisis. 81.142.107.230 (talk) 09:37, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
How do you figure that? The term was coined in 2008, the debt crisis started in 2008. 70.24.248.23 (talk) 13:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
I think it would be better to keep them separate as they serve different purposes. Perhaps they could be cross-referenced by including PIGS under See also. - Ipigott (talk) 14:43, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
OPPOSE. Term "PIIGS" is used in the print since 2007.[1] This crisis started in (december) 2009. --Samofi (talk) 15:59, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
The "PIGS" term is related to the sovereign debt crisis, but they're not one and the same. A merger with European social model#Mediterranean model to create a new article about the Mediterranean model would be more appropriate, and an interesting read if backed by an adequate number of sources.--eh bien mon prince (talk) 18:52, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Keep separate. No reason to merge these two articles with quite different topics.--spitzl (talk) 00:35, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
Oppose merger. Article has multiple PIGS reference dating at least as far back as 1997 - long before the Euro, and clearly long, long before the European sovereign debt crisis (even before the debt itself was created for that matter...). 99.64.0.215 (talk) 03:41, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
Oppose, even if it were directly and only linked to the crises (which it is not) it is likely a spin-out would be in place. I can't see any reason to merge. 213.132.171.210 (talk) 10:06, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Oppose per Gfcvoice and IP99.* VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 17:10, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Oppose to merge two biased euro-bashing article will not make a neutral encyclopedic one. --Pgreenfinch (talk) 11:34, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm not really sure about the procedure in case of merging requests. I do notice though that pretty much everyone seems to be against merging the two articles. If that's the case, when do we remove the tag? Are we waiting for an admin to make a decision? --spitzl (talk) 16:16, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
By now, the intro has grown a little bit long. It contains simplified and biased 'cause and effect' analyses which shouldn't be part of an intro.--Sustainlogic (talk) 13:16, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
I thought the same thing so I made some changes. Hope they make sense.--spitzl (talk) 20:21, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
It is on everybody's mouth that this so called European sovereign debt crisis that popped out of no-where and no matter how many money is putted in the crisis keeps going, it is a fabrication by the US and the UK allied with their 100% non neutral rating agencies, banks like Goldman Sachs, and news sources for an attack on the euro given the fact that the pound and the dollar, just like the Zimbabwe dollar, are kept on float by printing machines, it is said by bankers, politicians, even people from governments, and several clues where given since early 2010 to this fact even by the Queen of England, and it is plain obvious. there is very little on this in the article and some people even tried to removed even what the former prime minister of Spain said. more attention to these facts are needed on the article. --Pedro (talk) 13:25, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
You are quite right, this Euro-bashing article heavily promotes US and UK positions, apparently to hide their own monetary and fiscal lax policies. --Pgreenfinch (talk) 11:20, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
Of course the most important reason for all this is the dollar position as a world reserve currency. The European Union Market authority is currently investigating the rating agencies, trying to find evidences on this. We need someone willing to write on the article and patient enough to add sources, because there is a lot of ground to write on this. -Pedro (talk) 12:53, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
Some of you guys seem to be conspiracy theorists. To deny that the EU is in a fiscal crisis is just disingenuous. And the 'reasons' for bias in the article that Pedro brought up are so conspiracy-driven as to be laughable. ("The US and UK are just tryin' to make us look bad! Rabble, rabble, rabble!") 24.231.216.185 (talk) 23:45, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
Oh, so as not to use the conspiracy theory phrase, just a financial speculation opportunity and something that make forget the much worse fiscal situation of the US and the UK. A pity that rating agencies do not rate central banks, that would give an idea of what the Fed's asset portfolio is worth. Oops, I forgot that the Fed is deemed independent of the political power and would never create money to fund its end of month's incapacity to pay its bills;-))— Preceding unsigned comment added by Pgreenfinch (talk • contribs) 14:54, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
Euro breakup section
The section on "Euro breakup" could use some work/updates. In my opinion, some notice should probably be made of the fact that the EU leaders, Commission, etc. have resolutely stated that the Euro will not break up. Although the article covers the economics of the situation very well, I think the political dynamic at play here could use some mention. This part of the article is also funny to read by the way, "In early October 2011, policy expert Philippa Malmgren believed[195] that "the Germans will announce they are re-introducing the Deutschmark" in the coming weeks. As of early December 2011, this has not happened." ... is the intention to continually change December 2011 until the Deutschmark reappears? I think we can just remove this - she was obviously wrong. Every day I read about another economist or expert predicting the Euro's collapse - the newest favoured date is Q1 2012. I also remember being told in April when I took a trip to Italy that the Euro was going to collapse for sure while I was there. These predictions are becoming something of a farce akin to trying to predict doomsday. IMO probably best to leave them out of the article altogether unless someone with some actual authority or control over the situation says something on the matter. Rant over! (Connolly15 (talk) 23:03, 7 December 2011 (UTC))
I agree that the section has some severe problems. It is flirting with contravening both WP:crystal and WP:NPOV. To meet NPOV, we really need RS surveys of economists, rather than editors gathering views that they find, if we're going to report predictions of Euro break-up or general economist views on the Euro in relation to the problem of sovereign debt. As Connolly15 points out, much of what is written is highly speculative; it's also unassessed by other experts. We need to be very careful about whose views we include to remain encyclopedic.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 03:49, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
I agree with both of you. Please go ahead and fix these problems. Dr.K.λogosπraxis 04:09, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
EUobserver.com
As a courtesy note: I've raised EUObserver.com at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#EUObserver.com. I wanted to get a general opinion on it. It's associated with, possibly funded by, Eurosceptic political parties. I can find nothing much written on its quality and perspective other than some believe it is "independent" and others that it has Eurosceptic leanings. It's used in this article, which is why I went and asked.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 06:42, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
Merkozy - Sarkel?
If Merkozy is a redirect to this article now, shouldn't we also add a disambig link at Sarkel? =) JIP | Talk 20:13, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
European sovereign debt crisis of affect to Spain
European sovereign debt crisis of affect to Spain? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.109.116.134 (talk) 18:04, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
Spain is already covered in the article. (Connolly15 (talk) 23:00, 20 December 2011 (UTC))
article too long
On 8 January the article was tagged for eventually being too long? I agree to some extent but I'd like to discuss first, what we could do to improve the situation. IMHO we could cut the following sections and outsource most information, while retaining only short summaries in this article:
Causes -> Causes of the European sovereign debt crisis (reduce original text by 2/3)
Greece -> Greek government debt crisis (reduce by 1/2) Done
Possible spread to other countries -> ? (most of this section is speculation) Done
European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) -> European Financial Stability Facility (reduce by 1/3) Done
European fiscal union and revision of the Lisbon Treaty -> European Fiscal Union (reduce by 1/3) Done
Eurobonds -> Eurobonds (reduce by 1/3) Done
Speculation of the breakup of the Eurozone -> ? (reduce by 1/2; most if this section is indeed speculation) Done
I guess, altogether it should be possible to reduce the length of the article by at least 1/3. Any other suggestions or comments? --spitzl (talk) 13:42, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
I was bold and cut down the article considerably. Some sections were worth archiving (see "archived material" below). Maybe we can use them in some other way.--spitzl (talk) 11:48, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
In April 2010, following a marked increase in Irish two-year bond yields, Ireland's NTMA state debt agency said that it had "no major refinancing obligations" in 2010. Its requirement for €20 billion in 2010 was matched by a €23 billion cash balance, and it remarked: "We're very comfortably circumstanced".[3] On 18 May the NTMA tested the market and sold a €1.5 billion issue that was three times oversubscribed.[4]
Possible spread to other countries
Belgium
In 2010, Belgium's public debt was 100% of its GDP—the third highest in the eurozone after Greece and Italy[5] and there were doubts about the financial stability of the banks,[6] following the country's major financial crisis in 2008–2009.
After inconclusive elections in June 2010, by November 2011[7] the country still had only a caretaker government as parties from the two main language groups in the country (Flemish and Walloon) were unable to reach agreement on how to form a majority government.[5] In November 2010 financial analysts forecast that Belgium would be the next country to be hit by the financial crisis as Belgium's borrowing costs rose.[6]
However the government deficit of 5% was relatively modest and Belgian government 10-year bond yields in November 2010 of 3.7% were still below those of Ireland (9.2%), Portugal (7%) and Spain (5.2%).[6] Furthermore, thanks to Belgium's high personal savings rate, the Belgian Government financed the deficit from mainly domestic savings, making it less prone to fluctuations of international credit markets.[8] Nevertheless on 25 November 2011, Belgium's long-term sovereign credit rating was downgraded from AA+ to AA by Standard and Poor[9] and 10-year bond yields reached 5.66%.[7] Shortly after, Belgian negotiating parties reached an agreement to form a new government.
The deal includes spending cuts and tax rises worth about €11 billion, which should bring the budget deficit down to 2.8% of GDP by 2012, and to balance the books in 2015.[10] Following the announcement Belgium 10-year bond yields fell sharply to 4.6%.[11]
France
France's public debt in 2010 was approximately U.S. $2.1 trillion and 83% GDP, with a 2010 budget deficit of 7% GDP.[12]
By 16 November 2011, France's bond yield spreads vs. Germany had widened 450% since July, 2011.[13] France's C.D.S. contract value rose 300% in the same period.[14] On 1 December 2011, France's bond yield had retreated and the country successfully auctioned €4.3 billion worth of 10 year bonds at an average yield of 3.18%, well below the perceived critical level of 7%.[15] By early February 2012, yields on French 10 year bonds had fallen to 2.84%.[16]
United Kingdom
According to the Financial Policy Committee "Any associated disruption to bank funding markets could spill over to UK banks."[17]Bank of England governor Mervyn King declared that the UK is very much at risk from a domino-fall of defaults and called on banks to build up more capital when financial conditions allowed.
This is because the UK has the highestgross foreign debt of any European country (€7.3 trillion; €117,580 per person) due in large part to its highly leveraged financial industry, which is closely connected with both the United States and the eurozone.[18]
Growth
In Q4 2011, the Eurozone economy contracted by 0.3%. It was the first contraction since Q2 2009, although it was better than had been predicted. Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal entered a technical recession as they recorded six months of negative growth.[19][20]
Speculation about the breakup of the eurozone
The former president of the German Industries, Hans-Olaf Henkel suggested that "southern countries" could retain their competitiveness through a greater tolerance for inflation and corresponding regular devaluations, once they are freed of the "straitjacket of Germanic stability phobia".[21]
Some think-tanks such as the World Pensions Council have argued that a profound revision of the Lisbon Treaty would be unavoidable if Germany were to succeed in imposing its economic views, as stringent orthodoxy across the budgetary, fiscal and regulatory fronts would necessarily go beyond the treaty in its current form, thus further reducing the individual prerogatives of national governments.[22]
On 26 December 2011, Jim Rogers in an interview with the BBC responded to the assertion that the euro was responsible for the crisis saying, "No, absolutely not. It's not the euro. The world needs the euro or something like it to compete with the US dollar... The eurozone as a whole is not a big debtor nation. The eurozone has some debtor problems, some debtor nations, debtor states, but it's not a big, big problem. The euro is good for the world. It needs to work."[23]
Incorrect scale on chart of long-term interest rates
The vertical scale on the chart of long-term interest rates (the first chart) is incorrect. The horiz lines are evenly spaced but the scale alternates between jumping 2 percentage points and 3 points, eg, 0, 2, 5, 7, 10. It appears that the graduations should be 2.5 points each, eg, 0, 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10. With the incorrect scale, it looks like Italy, for example, peaked below 7% in Nov 2011, when it actually peaked at 7.06%. When the caption refers to the significance of the 7% level specifically, it is important to have the 7 or 7.5 level marked correctly. The chart is otherwise very illuminating, so it's worth getting right. Nurg (talk) 20:51, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Thanx for the note. How do you like the new scale? --spitzl (talk) 13:12, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
It is slightly better in that the 7% graduation is now correct. But overall it is still incorrect. For example, it looks like France has been over 4%, which is not correct. Can you not just space the horizontal lines an even 2 percentage points apart? Nurg (talk) 00:55, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
Sure I could but then we lose the 7% marker line. The current 4% mark is in fact (a rounded up) 3.5%! I could change the scale to 3.5, 7.0, 10.5, 14.5, 17.5, 21.0 but these numbers would display as 3,5 etc. (comma instead of dot) because I use a German copy of Numbers. In German language, commas are used instead of dots to indicate decimal points. The other option would be to use a scale that only marks 7%, 14% and 21%. --spitzl (talk) 16:28, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
It is fine to lose the 7% line. The important thing is accuracy - rather than having 3.5 labelled as 4, or having 7.5 labelled as 7. Lines an even 2 percentage points apart would be fine. People could judge by eye whether something was more or less than halfway between 6 and 8. I appreciate your efforts with this. Nurg (talk) 20:46, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm afraid I was promising too much. Using an even spacing of two percentage points I could only slice the scale into 10 parts. This means the maximum value would be 20, not 21, which is needed for Greece. I now switched to 3 percentage points intervals and increased the maximum value to 24 ((3, 6, 9,...24). It's not 100% perfect but it solves the problem. Above all, given the current situation in Greece, we may have to increase the scale anyway next month. --spitzl (talk) 21:14, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
We should add a proper first sentence that describes "European sovereign debt crisis". To start the discussion I propose the following. Fell free to add your own versions. --spitzl (talk) 18:32, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
The European sovereign debt crisis is an ongoing financial crisis starting in late 2009, which made it difficult or impossible for some countries of the Euro area to re-finance their government debts without aid of third parties.
European sovereign debt crisis describes the ongoing problems of some members states of the Euro area to re-finance their government debts without aid of third parties.
Dilemma, you mean? I think people know what a "debt crisis" is (and if not, a page should be created to explain what the expression "debt crisis" means, perhaps in Wiktionary), so I would emphasize the cause and effect, and focus on the specificity of this debt crisis in Europe. Some combination, not all, of the the following expressions might be used :
Backlash from the 2007 financial crisis (Cause)
Plunged into recession (Effect)
Abysmal deficits and debt in peripheral countries
Expectations of default by the market as reflected in CDS spreads, leaving the paradigm of sovereign = safe
Credit rationing by the markets as reflected in skyrocketing sovereign rates
Bailouts by the ECB, IMF, and EU, which is known as the troika" (Emergency solutions)
Contagion to the big economies as evidenced by sovereign rating downgrades in 2011".
Rethinking of the EU architecture (integration rather than breaking up) and a new macroeconomic direction (austerity, rather than the Keynesian view).
To some degree, this is visible in the structure of the article. For example,
The European sovereign debt crisis initially began as a backlash of the 2007 financial crisis, plunging the weaker smaller economies (a.k.a peripheral countries) into recession, abysmal deficits and debt, resulting in credit rationing by the markets and bailouts by ECB, IMF, and EU, which is known as the troika.
It could be followed up like this, although I'm fine with what already exists:
In a second stage, the larger economies, exposed to the problems of the periphery through their contributions to the bailouts, were engulfed in the debt crisis which became visible through the credit downgrade of some, a complete change in paradigm from that which presumes that sovereign is a safe asset (as codified, for instance, in the Basel capital adequacy requirements). The strategy pursued by the EU authorities has been one of austerity and opening a path towards greater integration (the EFSF marking a first step thereof), but there are dissenting schools of thought on both of these co-dependent matters. Some prefer a breakup that would restore competitiveness via devaluations and more leeway to steer the economy using classic macro-economic tools. Others favor integration too, but to leverage the credibility that comes with it (it is a condition for a monetary union to work, as is in effect in the U.S), to pursue a Keynesian policy at the EU level.
I have now added a lemma description to the article. Lets see how people like it.--spitzl (talk) 18:36, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Possible spread to other countries
I am not really happy with this section, which includes an arbitrary list of countries. Looking at long-term interest rates it should only include Cyprus, Italy and Slovenia (in that order), which are the only Euro countries above the 6% threshold. Spain could also be covered as it was under pressure until end of November 2011 when its newly elected government announced further austerity measures. It has since left the dangerous zone with its bonds trading at merely 5%. Belgium, France and the UK never reached dangerous levels, despite media reports that they could come under pressure as well. The other two European countries with high interest rates are Hungary (9.6%) and Romania (above 7%) but both are not in the Euro area. --spitzl (talk) 18:19, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure I quite follow this argument. France lost its AAA rating, I believe on 13 January. Ireland and Portugal have been, in part, financed through the European_Financial_Stability_Facility. Are you suggesting that Ireland and France does not deserve a sub-section? This said, I agree with another of your statement, in general, "Not every bit of a news about potential threats is worth mentioning in an encyclopedia." in response to a comment on the French economy, except if it serves to illustrate, say, a critical pattern. Lip gloss for2 (talk) 11:39, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
I am only referring to the section "Possible spread to other countries". Greece, Ireland and Portugal all have their own sections. Rightly so, as these are the countries that experience the largest impact of the crisis. Looking at France and the UK, I am not so sure. I do see an exchange of blows between the French and British media as well as some comments of politicians, but lets stick to the facts. Neither France nor the UK ever got to the point, where investors have serious doubts about their ability to repay their debts. (The case of Belgium is a matter of discussion since it got very close to the 6% mark in November 2011) Sure one may argue that even France, the UK and many other countries could be seriously affected in the future. My answer to this would be, well, then lets add them, when this is the case. Up until now it is only speculation, which we should avoid in an encyclopedia. Basically I'm trying to introduce some kind of standard that helps us judge, whether a country gets its own section or not. I'd suggest the 6% threshold of long-term interest rates but I am open for other suggestions. P.S. Austria also lost its AAA rating but the country still finds it rather easy to re-finance its debt. --spitzl (talk) 14:02, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
OK, I see, sorry. I also agree we need a benchmark for inclusion and avoiding writing overlapping stories (or worse, conflicting stories about the same topic) in various sections (in fact, we both agreed on the latter in the page for Greece and have yet to act on it).
Yeah, there's no need for this section "possible spread" between section Evolution of the crisis and a subset of the individual countries. If Spain is deemed worthy of inclusion, put it as a section right under Evolution of the crisis, and likewise for France, Italy etc. That's not to say we shouldn't identify a specific stage where contagion to large economies occur in the lead paragraph of section Evolution of the crisis.
Regarding the benchmark, I argued in favor of using EU official decisions as landmarks in the page for Greece. These decisions are distantly spaced in time, and they percolate through member countries (they have to execute, in principle) and the markets (they like it or dislike it). A credit downgrade is official but it comes from a private entity whose decisions are publicly disseminated, so it's on the fence. But I would much rather rely on that than arbitrary thresholds on CDS spreads or interest rates. As pertaining to France, the downgrade is unprecedented (unlike, say, Japan since the 1990s).
Regarding clarity, I feel too much is said about Spain, given that there is a main article: a few lines to motivate the redirection to the main article should be enough. This said, for some of the reasons laid above, I don't like section Government_bond_yields_rise in the main article. And I don't like the secondary section either, in some parts, e.g: "As one of the largest eurozone economies the condition of Spain's economy is of particular concern to international observers, and faced pressure from the United States, the IMF, other European countries and the European Commission to cut its deficit more aggressively". There's nothing specific about Spain in this paragraph. All Euro countries are under scrutiny, and all carry out austerity measures. It's the dominant direction in western economies, but, more specifically, the EU exerts a more important role in trying to enforce it in member countries than in the past. Again, it is at that level that things are important. There are "very specific things to say about Spain".. Lip gloss for2 (talk) 15:52, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
I pretty much agree with everything, well, almost. Three remarks: 1) Yep, we should cut the section about Spain. 2) Choosing long-term interest rates as a benchmark wasn't my idea but rather that of many media commentators. See e.g. this comment in the guardian, which suggests that if a country's long-term interest rate "hit 6%, that would indicate that financial markets have serious doubts about its credit-worthiness" and a level of "7% is the cut-off point, forcing each country to seek a bailout." I would change my mind though if you provided me with a better alternative. 3) I don't think we should get rid of the distinction between seriously affected countries (Greece, Ireland, Portugal) on the one hand, and not so seriously affected countries (Italy, Spain,...) on the other. In fact, I believe that there are three categories: a) countries that had to be bailed out b) countries that were not bailed out but benefited from ECB interventions (Italy, Spain); and c) all other countries that implemented austerity measures to stay on the safe side. That list might become pretty large though, so we I'd say we get rid of them altogether. --spitzl (talk) 20:20, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for following up. About 2). That guardian page only mentions "Greece, Portugal and Ireland all found that 7% is the cut-off point, forcing each country to seek a bailout.". That's hardly a science, and, by the way, the page is about Italy's downgrade, a type of event that I consider meaningful based on my definition of what the benchmark should be, because, in this case, it's unprecedented in recent history. About "I would change my mind though if you provided me with a better alternative": I've already provided a rationale for using official decisions (joint statements by the troika + downgrades) as a benchmark for inclusion, so feel free to debate on substance. About 3), I did not suggest "get rid of the distinction between seriously affected countries", did I? I'm against over-categorization, as it leads to deeply nested hierarchies that are maintenance nightmares. The best structure I can think of for section Evolution of the crisis is a timeline for ALL events that are deemed worthy of inclusion, based on an agreed benchmark. This benchmark would have to be more stringent than that we would use for a particular country such as Spain. Once we have this, it's easier to look for patterns, shifts etc, and, as necessary, we can add more structure with new sections, within/separately, to delineate/describe them. Also, we don't have to worry how other pages (e.g. Spain, France etc.) address the problem. What do you think? If you agree, we can first focus our attention on the benchmark. We can make a mock page somewhere to see how it goes and submit it for approval. Come to think of it, there's going to be a lot of overlap with Solutions and LT solutions, but we don't have to worry about it, yet. PS: The NY Times' index for Greece has a lead article that is useful.[24]. Lip gloss for2 (talk) 00:26, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Are there joint troika statements for all countries? I thought they only judge countries that asked for a bailout, namely Greece, Ireland and Portugal. If that is true than we'd still need a benchmark for inclusion of all other countries. (It is only this second group, for which I suggested the 6% yield of long-term interest rates.) Furthermore, if we want to use credit ratings as a benchmark for inclusion as well, then we must first decide which ones we want to rely on. Austria e.g. has two top ratings by Fitch and Moody's but it was cut one level by S&P. How are we going to deal with that? There is a list of countries by credit ratings and even a list with direct comparison but no list of countries by some kind of weighted average of all major credit ratings. And which benchmark do you suggest for the timeline? Would that be some kind of summary of the (unfortunately outdated) article 2000s European sovereign debt crisis timeline? --spitzl (talk) 09:25, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
A timeline is something like this. It's an easy thing to do that eliminates the need for intellectualizing the structure, except for the benchmark. Rather than argue over the benchmark, I would suggest to put in the timeline everything that seems intuitively worthy of inclusion in a mock page and take it from there. As for the credit downgrade, I already said, twice, that "unprecedented" would be a criterion. It doesn't matter if it's Fitch, S&P or Moody's. Lip gloss for2 (talk) 13:48, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
I have the feeling we don't really get anywhere in our discussion. I already explained my rationale above but I'm afraid I'm still missing yours. Maybe you could just name the countries that would fulfill your criteria "joint statements by the troika" + "unprecedented downgrades". That would make it clearer for everyone what you mean. And about the timeline: I think it's not necessary (and actually discouraged by Wikipedia) to include information that is already covered elsewhere. Instead we could simply move the link to the 2000s European sovereign debt crisis timeline from the bottom of the page to the beginning of the section Evolution_of_the_crisis. That should do the trick. --spitzl (talk) 00:57, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
What part of replacing the content of Evolution_of_the_crisis with a timeline you are "afraid [you are] missing"? On the face of it, this
"I think it's not necessary (and actually discouraged by Wikipedia) to include information that is already covered elsewhere"
runs contrary to Wikipedia:Verifiability. I'd suggest you revise that statement or provide a Wiki-link to substantiate it and explain exactly how it relates to my suggestion. Lip gloss for2 (talk) 22:00, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Are you talking about the entire section "Evolution of the crisis"? I am only referring to the sub section "Possible spread to other countries" (which is the topic of this thread). If so, then this might be the root of misunderstanding. Sure you can transform the text preceding the sub section into a timeline as long as you avoid unnecessary splits, given that there already is 2000s European sovereign debt crisis timeline. With "elsewhere" I meant this timeline article. Needless to say I am strongly pro verifiability. Now, talking about the sub section "Possible spread to other countries": I'm not sure a timeline suits this specific section, as it mostly covers arguments and country facts that possibly explain future events. Here we need to focus more on explanation, rather than merely listing past events. IMHO this sub section is fine the way it is. My question was only about an objective rationale that we could apply to objectively decide, which countries we should include or not include (in this specific section). My suggestion was long-term interest rates. Your suggestion was a mix of "joint statements by the troika" and "unprecedented downgrades". To better understand your proposal it would be great if you could list the countries that meet your criteria.--spitzl (talk) 10:12, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
The page rating (see bottom of main page) rewards our article full five points in all categories. How about a Good article nomination? --spitzl (talk) 18:57, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm no expert, but wouldn't it quick fail as: "5.The article specifically concerns a rapidly unfolding current event with a definite endpoint." (WP:RGA) I guess it doesn't really have a definite endpoint... ? Connolly15 (talk) 16:43, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Go ahead and try. At worst you'll get some good advice on how to improve the article. The main problem for me at the moment is the rather mediocre level of English. Just take the beginning: "The European sovereign debt crisis is an ongoing financial crisis that made it difficult or impossible for some countries of the Euro area to re-finance their government debts without aid of third parties." should be "The European sovereign debt crisis is an ongoing financial crisis that has made it difficult or impossible for some countries in the Euro area (or zone?) to re-finance their government debts without assistance from third parties." When I have an hour or so to spare, I'll try to go through the whole thing. - Ipigott (talk) 17:50, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Sounds good. In that case I'll wait a bit and then start the nomination process.--spitzl (talk) 23:29, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanx. I have now asked for the article to be reviewed. That may take a while.--spitzl (talk) 11:34, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
I've been though the whole thing, correcting the most obvious errors but there are still conflicts between American and British English, particularly some of the dates using the American month/day/year while most use the British day/month/year, both U.S. and US occur as do U.K. and UK, program occurs side by side with programme, etc. I've tried to change Euro to euro throughout but attention should also be given to the way amounts are expressed, with the euro sign before the figure or just euro after it. In my opinion, some of the sections also require careful revision, particular the one on "Evolution of the Crisis" where many of the passages from 2010 and 2011 now need to be rewritten. I also think the article should be cut back by about one third, especially as some of the passages are either covered in other articles or are no longer of interest. Some paras contain no refs and a few of the refs are dead links. Have fun! - Ipigott (talk) 13:03, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
France and other European countries
I do not see any reasons to remove France from the list of countries wherein the crisis may be spreaded up. The comment on the section related to France are persuasive and no valid argumentation have been provided in order to remove it from the section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.92.153.12 (talk) 15:29, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
Reverting your change for now as you haven't reintroduced the text properly (i.e. the citations don't work because you haven't copied the code over). I didn't delete it originally, but looking at the article at the moment it's strange to have just Italy, Spain and France listed. Connolly15 (talk) 16:23, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
The article was too long. That is the reason why I removed France together with Belgium and the UK, all countries that were never really at risk, judged by their long-term interest rates. The sections are archived on this talk page, see above. I leave it up to the discussion here whether we should or should not remove France from the article for good. In any case, if we decide to re-introduce France than we need to re-introduce the other countries too. --spitzl (talk) 21:29, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
So according to Monsieur Spitzl, the article was very long and therefore something had to be removed. He chose, in the name of CONCISENESS, to remove the section related to France because it is "obvious" that an article related to Crisis and to France is a non-sense. After all, France is immune to CRisis as Standard and Poor had confirmed... Generally speaking, I think the CHAUVISNIM should be banned from Wikipedia, at least from the English version of Wikipedia. Should the article be deemed to be too long it would be possible either to express some concepts in a more concise way or reorganizing some section. It is not possible to REMOVE a whole section based only on personal , in this case SpitzlY, feeling. The article related to France was full of citations and well discussed. Mr Spritzle removed it without providing any concret argument. This is really unacceptable.
To be fair, by your logic we should include a section on every country in the Eurozone and potential spread. The "threat" to France was in the media for about 2 weeks and has since sputtered out. If you could provide some concrete reasons why France should be included over any of the other Eurozone countries it would be helpful. The reasons why Spain and Italy are included seem self-evident given the press coverage. Personally attacking other editors who are doing an exemplary job at maintaining and updating this article is not productive. Connolly15 (talk) 11:54, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
I think that the removal of subject-matter without providing any argument cannot be labeled as "exemplary" working. Again the press coverage, in a context as the economical context, is not a valid basis to remove or add an article. Why the press coverage is so "self-evident" for Italy and Spain and not for France? Do you want some sources? Simply have a look to 8 (EIGHT!!!) sources concerning France that Monsiuer Sprotzl arbitrary removed. Should the section concerning France be not restored I will ask the Moderator to label the whole article as NOT NEUTRAL
So would you propose adding back in the UK and Belgium as well? What about other Eurozone countries not mentioned? Connolly15 (talk) 11:08, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. France, Uk and Belgium as well other not mentioned Eurozone countries should be added. Obviously it will be possible to do that only when someone will write the sections related to these countries. At this time we have sections, well discussed and supported by sources, related to France, Uk and Belgium. Therefore there is not reason to arbitrary remove the sections related to these 3 countries and mentioning only Spain and Italy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.92.153.12 (talk) 11:49, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
To clarify I don't think it is neecessary to have subsections on France, the UK, Belgium and every other Eurozone country and it is quite right to limit it to Spain and Italy for the time being. Would others care to say whether they support or not this idea so that we can get a consensus on how to proceed? Connolly15 (talk) 13:34, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
Looking at the interest rates France is the 11th most affected country. Also French CDS are trading substantially lower than the CDS of crisis countries. If we want to include more countries then we should start with Cyprus (#3), Slovenia (#5) and Malta (#9) before picking a country further down the list. What makes France so special to be included, except that some people seem to have a strong feeling about it? --spitzl (talk) 16:34, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
I do not see any reaspn to limit the analysis to Italy and Spain.. As Monsiuer Spitzl stated in the above there are a lots of countries (obviuolsy no France...) which should be included in the list. Again NO REASONS have been provided to justify such a removal. The article therefore should be deemed as not NEUTRAL. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.92.153.12 (talk) 13:32, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
ESDC?
The abbreviation is shown in the lead, but never used. Any reason to keep it? -- Jo3sampl (talk) 00:42, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanx for pointing it out. I removed the abbreviation. --spitzl (talk) 09:52, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
User 203.36.46.82 has added the abbreviation again. Any ideas how to proceed? Is there any wikipedia policy on that issue? --spitzl (talk) 11:29, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
I don't see any widespread use of the abbreviation on Google Scholar. If anyone can provide solid evidence that this is actually a term, then please do so. I'm removing it for now in addition to moving the article to Eurozone debt crisis, which is better supported at the moment by scholarly literature (in my view). If anyone has solid evidence to the contrary, please feel free to present it. See here: [2] --Xaliqen (talk) 01:51, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
Scratch that, the title already exists as a redirect. I may start a request to move thread & begin the official move process. If someone else wants to do it, then go ahead. --Xaliqen (talk) 01:56, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
The New York Times is using European Debt Crisis but note the link is to "european_sovereign_debt_crisis". "European Sovereign Debt Crisis" gets 35 million google hits; "Eurozone Debt Crisis" gets 19 million; "European Debt Crisis" gets 10 million. I think we probably have the right title now. It is quite descriptive. User:Fred BauderTalk 03:46, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
Fair enough, but I think there's a good argument for using 'Eurozone' instead of 'European.' After all, the article is, at least tacitly, Eurozone specific rather than European. And, of course, taking into consideration both "eurozone" and the slight variant "euro zone," the phrase is moderately ubiquitous in popular and academic media. --Xaliqen (talk) 06:08, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
"European", like "American" is in popular use, but includes too much. User:Fred BauderTalk 11:29, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
Also, there is a general European recession existing, or developing, which affects all Europe, not just the Eurozone. This may require expansion and renaming of this article or a new article which covers the entire situation. Also, this matter is just part of the 2008–2012 global recession. User:Fred BauderTalk 13:51, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
Agreed, if or when appropriate, I support a move to either 'Eurozone debt crisis' (or similar) or, if expanding the scope of this article, some of the info should probably be merged with 2009–2012 European recession. --Xaliqen (talk) 18:42, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
GAN nomination
A few cleanup tags present when this was nominated. Ideally these should be dealt with before nominating an article. I would suggest fixing these as soon as possible. AIRcorn(talk) 10:22, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure which cleanup tags you are referring to. Are there any? --spitzl (talk) 00:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
Bottom of the Portugal section. In 2012, all public servants had already seen an average wage cut of 20% relative to their 2010 baseline, with cuts reaching 25% for those earning more than 1,500 euro[quantify]. This led to a flood of specialized technicians and top officials leaving the public service, many looking for better positions in the private sector or in other European countries.[citation needed]. The lead should also be expanded per WP:Lead. If you are not already familiar with WP:GACR you might want to have a look at it, it will help you get a successful nomination.AIRcorn(talk) 01:12, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
Thanx for clarification. I have found and added the source. I'm not really convinced though that it is trustworthy. If people don't mind and unless anyone can find a better source, we should probably remove the two sentences. --spitzl (talk) 18:26, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
Source 236: Altered/ manipulated figure
Source 236, corresponding to the figure"Eurozone economic health and adjustment progress 2011. Source: Euro Plus Monitor[236]" has been altered, introducing a statement and an associated circle which is not present in the original one. Apart from the fact that such a statement labelleing some countries as "countries in crisis" is clearly a POV this is contrary to the Wikipedia rules according to which a source should be cited as such without any further (and arguable) manipulation
Given the above, suach a figure should be restored in its originality or removed from t.he section
I put the graph back into the article. This time without the circle to avoid POV. --spitzl (talk) 22:29, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Guardian source used on top image
It says "Italian yields have already been inching upwards for the past few weeks. If they hit 6%, that would indicate that financial markets have serious doubts about its credit-worthiness.
Greece, Portugal and Ireland all found that 7% is the cut-off point, forcing each country to seek a bailout."
Obviously subject to change due to many factors, but good enough to use for the information that long term interest rates of 6% or more a sign of problems. User:Fred BauderTalk 18:16, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
The intro describes the euro as "stable," with Wolfgang Schauble as the source.
Questionable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.160.5.251 (talk) 13:46, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
Yes, outdated, although basically true through early 2011, and early 2012, although at a lower level. There was a sharp drop throughout May, 2012 which corresponds with the Greek election outcome and subsequent uncertainty. Is there a good source we could use? Other than just looking at exchange rate graphs? User:Fred BauderTalk 14:15, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
Spain
Spain seems to be one current focus of the crisis. This Guardian article seems comprehensive although I have not tried to summarize it within the article. User:Fred BauderTalk 12:49, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
POV
The so-called "bailouts" of the weaker countries with less influence in the ECB is not the requirement for being in crisis and not. The article also tries to present that problems in the affected countries are the sole cause for the crisis, or as if those issues only exist in that country. The article already has information of external propaganda against the Euro, it does not have neutral information about Germany fueling the crisis and the benefits it is getting. The article even compares with the Marshall Plan... --Pedro (talk) 14:29, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Hi Pedro, in this article countries are currently considered in crisis if the current situation "has made it difficult or impossible ... to re-finance their government debt without the assistance of third parties." This is the reason why also Cyprus is mentioned even though it did not get a bailout from the ECB. I agree that trade imbalances within a currency block are a major factor - not only trade deficits but also trade surpluses. This is mentioned in the article. The article also mentions how much Germany has gained from the crisis (around €9bn by the end of 2011). Please be a bit more specific. Which part do you consider POV? Besides, you can always add more external causes, given they are well-sourced. --spitzl (talk) 22:06, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Stating that only the bailout countries are the only ones in crisis is just non-sense... And it is not even just in Southern Europe, people are trying to isolate some politically weaker countries, while hiding the same problems in major countries. As for the ECB intervention: when the Spanish and Italian interest rates were nearing 6%, the ECB intervened in the market and these immediately dropped. the ECB didnt made the same for the smaller countries. Also the behaviour of the ECB during the early stages of the crisis should be in the article, it looked a lot like the Bundesbank and not the European Central Bank. As for participating in the article: not my cup of tea, I'm just reading the article and read the news everyday. --Pedro (talk) 22:25, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
The ECB did intervene also for smaller countries like Portugal [3] and Greece. The latter is evident by the fact that the ECB had to swap its former Greek bonds for new bonds to avoid losses due to the restructuring deal. Yes, big economies exercise more power at the ECB level, but it is IMHO wrong to say, smaller countries are left out in the cold. Who claimed the bailout countries are the only ones in crisis? The article lists a whole range of other countries too. --spitzl (talk) 22:44, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Btw, which major countries do you mean? --spitzl (talk) 22:50, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
well, the ECB acted too late and in an insignificant scale. While when the Spanish and Italian bonds were nearing alarming levels, it did a massive intervention, and actually added a lot of water to the fire that cooled things up a lot. The article explicitly claims that there is a possible spread to Spain, Italy and other countries.
Major countries: Spain, Italy, France... although France is a bit different. ---Pedro (talk) 23:12, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Our article reflects analysis which is being published in the media. I don't think there is much serious academic analysis outside internal papers of central banks or intelligence agencies. The Federal Reserve studies are often published, but I don't know that there is one dealing with this. My understanding is that there is a common currency but that it is not backed by the full faith and credit of the European countries in the way the US backs the dollar, and perhaps the British back the pound. The upshot is that the "guarantee" of the value of the Euro falls on Germany and a few other countries but only on a voluntary basis motivated by avoiding general collapse of the European economy. They don't seem to be volunteering; but, of course will in the end after a difficult bargaining process probably conducted in a atmosphere of crisis. I think in terms of economic value; in the case of Germany a great deal of hard work by skilled workers and engineers produces a lot of valuable products which they trade. The other European countries seem mostly just nice places to go on vacation, although certainly they do have viable economies, just not strong enough economies for the current global economic environment. Some European countries have low wages which make them attractive locations for industrial development; they don't seem to be the ones in crisis; that seems to dog the lower tier of developed Eurozone states. Even if you don't contribute, feel free to point us to any good analysis you see published. User:Fred BauderTalk 01:26, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
Latvia is often mentioned as some sort of model (by IMF sources and others, including proud Latvians I suppose), but is it really? Even though Latvia was almost part of the euro through the Exchange Rate Mechansim, it has a much smaller economy than say, Greece (not to mention Italy or Spain) and a much more open one to international trade. In Greece it seems that even though the shrinking of salaries and income has led to a drop in imports and rise in exports, the benefits are far outweighed by the collapse of domestic demand which is making the debt crisis worse and worse. For larger economies, domestic demand is more important than the trade balance for driving growth... Latvia's debt-to-GDP ratio was also much smaller to begin with. See this critique of the interpretations of Latvia's recovery published by CEPR
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/latvias-internal-devaluation-a-success-story
Although the article has many problems, as is natural for articles covering currently unraveling events, I want to draw particular attention to one: throwing around the term bailout and drawing comparisons to the Marshall Plan only works to misinform the Wikipedia reader, just as many readers around the world are misinformed in this way by the media. The article must not obfuscate the difference between a grant and a loan. When governments (like the US and Irish governments) bail out their banks, they loan out money used to restructure a bank's assets and sometimes take over the bank's operation for a transitional period. The Marshall Plan consisted of US aid grants to finance development projects or (primarily) to finance imports of American goods by European countries. What have been described as 'bailouts' of eurozone countries (like Greece and Ireland) by other European countries are loans, not grants, to refinance the public debt of the countries in trouble. As such, loans bear interest and are expected to be repaid in full. Granted, these rescue loans are offered at much better interests rates than the market would offer, but they are still meant to be profitable for the lender. Thus saying that Greece got more billions in 'aid' than the entire Mashall Plan is absolute nonsense. If this aid, equal to 177% of Greek GDP, were free, Greece could use it to repay off all its debt, and the crisis would be over. Similarly, although Greece benefited from a debt write-down (which has not been done for any other eurozone country so far), it should be noted that approximately half of the write-down involved debt held by Greek investors (Greek banks or public pension funds). So again, this does not in any way constitute foreign aid, just domestic and foreign loss, which would have been even greater if the country had gone completely bankrupt. There is a reason why foreign aid and debt forgiveness are different technical terms and not synonyms. Editors of this article, please enforce rigorous standards in the use of terminology.
Yes, the comparison to the Marshall Plan conflated grants and loans and was anachronistic in this context. I hope the reference in the Greece section was the only use of that. Please continue to criticize. I think the term bailout can be used. The TARP bailout in the United States was also loans, not grants. User:Fred BauderTalk 06:07, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
Yes, write downs, particularly of money owned domestically are losses, not aid. User:Fred BauderTalk 06:14, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for removing the misleading reference to the Marshall Plan. Yes, I meant that a bailout is a loan, not a grant. Conflating the two seems to a be a favorite activity of right-wing politicians in Germany lately. See the following references from German media.
I agree, the comparison with the Marshall plan was misleading, but why also removing the first part? IMHO "Altogether Greece received aid worth €380bn or €33.600 per capita. This equals 177% of Greece's GDP" should go back into the article. Isn't this an interesting non-POV fact?[1] --spitzl (talk) 22:01, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
I didn't do the arithmetic, but I think part of that sum is forgiven Greek debt, a loss which partly fell on Greek investors and had a deflationary effect. 177% would have paid off the entire debt and Greece still owes about 130% of its GNP. Basically that sentence doesn't pass the smell test, besides trying to make some kind of point. User:Fred BauderTalk 22:10, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
The so-called "bailouts" of the weaker countries with less influence in the ECB is not the requirement for being in crisis and not. The article also tries to present that problems in the affected countries are the sole cause for the crisis, or as if those issues only exist in that country. The article already has information of external propaganda against the Euro, it does not have neutral information about Germany fueling the crisis and the benefits it is getting. The article even compares with the Marshall Plan... --Pedro (talk) 14:29, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
How does Germany, and perhaps other strong countries benefit? I can see they have access to European markets and get lots of interest on loans. Is this some sort of petty imperialist empire? If Germany takes advantage how does that work? User:Fred BauderTalk 00:37, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
I'm just answering Bauder's question, not opining on the merits of the dispute. The Euro in effect allows Germany to avoid a large increase in the value of its own currency. If the Eurozone fragmented and went back to their own currencies, German exports would become much more expensive with the adoption of the new DM. Today, the currency is not able to revalue upward because all of the currencies are the same. Hence Germany has a very large trade surplus (see the chart on trade deficits in the cause section with the horizontal bars) yet its currency does not appreciate relative to the other countries.Farcaster (talk) 02:05, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
Informative. I guess, if possible, the solution is for Germans to both invest in countries like Portugal and to vacation, buy stuff there and from there, and even to retire and build second homes there. Germans have to become Europeans. User:Fred BauderTalk 12:02, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
I'm not a fan. Given a choice between playing Santa Claus and The Grinch German nationalists might imagine there is actually a choice. User:Fred BauderTalk 16:44, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
@PedroPVZ: On June 7 you added a POV tag. Could you please specify which part of the article you consider POV? This would help us a lot to solve the problem.--spitzl (talk) 17:08, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Don't know what "PVZ" refers to (add to PVZ dab page?) but agree that some specifics would be helpful. I found the POV tag inappropriate based on my not-comprehensive but fairly regular involvement with the article over a year-plus of editing. Swliv (talk) 00:19, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
most issues for the tag have been address. Although the article still has problems, but that depends mostly on adding more information to the article, if someone is willing to do it!! I'll remove the tag.--Pedro (talk) 12:00, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Hey, thanks! Didn't really expect that. (Stubborn editor, I've recently encountered.) But I think it's the right call.
It's a pretty sprawling article. Will it ever be inclusive and comprehensive? Not while the crisis runs at the very least, is my feeling. But it's proven a good repository of lots of good pieces from many editors. And it's become part of a larger whole, too, which has impressed me. For me, it's been a good "homebase" as I've tried to bolster or add related articles on key though often maybe second-tier individuals and institutions involved in trying to address the crisis. I look in, or on, from some distance away, too; but I've felt this "overview" article to have some good meat to it, as we say; and not too much fat, to extend the metaphor.
In short, I'll try to keep doing my part, maybe even a little more with your ... cooperation (demonstrated) and encouragement (nicely expressed). Cheers. Swliv (talk) 15:48, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Moving country-specific info to subordinate country-specific crisis articles
I think this article is getting ready for a shift of the detail about each country into the subordinate crisis articles, which have already been created in most cases. For example, the Greece section is way too long here. I'm thinking say 1-2 paragraphs maximum for each major country affected and one paragraph for the others. What do you guys think?Farcaster (talk) 17:51, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
The article is structured to do that although I wouldn't set a specific number of paragraphs, just a fair summary. There are problems of keeping a whole bunch of articles updated with just a few people. I've noticed this pattern with difficult material of this nature; not many are on it. I try to avoid day by day updates and I've noticed that news stories are more often about something that might happen or some remedy that might work than about something that has happened. Greece was an excellent example, and remains so. User:Fred BauderTalk 00:19, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Convergence
Excellent edit by Jason from NYC. The addition of this material makes a lot of this, and other global economic thinking, much clearer. In fact, you can see it happening in some cases, e.g. China, South Korea, etc. User:Fred BauderTalk 02:19, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Fascinating! It's amazing what we have here. I didn't know about that article. Thanks for the link and thanks for the feedback on my edit.Jason from nyc (talk) 03:27, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
I added an interwiki link.--spitzl (talk) 16:39, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Interest rates vs. yields
I'm a bit confused by the caption under the first graph, which seems to equate interest rates and secondary-market yields on debt. Is it not the case that yields (determined by price movements in the secondary market) are predictive of interest rates on future debt, but that these two things are not one and the same? In other words, the interest rate I pay on my debt is a fixed percentage of the principal (unless it's variable-rate, but probably best not to introduce this complication here). The yield represents returns investors in my debt would get if they bought the debt today. If yields go up, investors are unlikely to buy new debt at lower interest rates -- higher yields mean you can buy the country's existing debt more cheaply. And that means countries have to pay higher interest rates to attract investors and borrow more money. Debt in the public markets has both an interest rate and a yield, and these can be (and usually are) different.
Thus if these in fact are all secondary-market yields, would it not be better to say something like: "Yields on the long-term debt of all eurozone countries except Estonia. A yield of 6% or more indicates that financial markets have serious doubts about credit-worthiness."? Or am I off-base?
Actually, the source, ECB, says, "Table 1 shows the latest available harmonised long-term interest rates for assessing convergence among the EU Member States. The rates are secondary market yields of government bonds with a remaining maturity close to ten years." They simply equate the two measures.
Interesting. If the ECB equates them, then it's fine, obviously. It confuses me, though.--Batard0 (talk) 03:56, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
I also notice in the final sentence of the lead, we're saying "Interest rates on Spain’s debt rose significantly and its ability to access capital markets was affected, leading to a bailout of its banks and other measures." I think this should be yields on Spain's debt going up, which affected its ability to borrow. Look at the source: it discusses Spanish yields, not Spanish interest rates. Using the words "interest rates" to me implies that Spain has a lot of variable-interest-rate debt, and those rates are increasing. I don't think that's the case.--Batard0 (talk) 13:30, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
Spain continues on a weekly basis to sell short and long term bonds at record breaking yields. User:Fred BauderTalk 18:49, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
I think you're probably right; if we knew anything about finance our time would be spend managing our portfolios, not editing Wikipedia. I'll see if I can't clean up the language. User:Fred BauderTalk 18:39, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
I may still clean it up some; this language needs to be right, not blithely equated. User:Fred BauderTalk 18:49, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
Hold off on making any changes. The yield curve is just the interest rates for par bonds. Governments issue bonds at par with a coupon that is equal to its yield. The yield curve for bonds is the interest rate (or coupon) that the government must use to issue at par. (A more expanded discussion might go into other yield curves like zero-coupon yield curve, forward yield curve, etc. However, in our article, yield curve is just the normal yield curve for par bonds currently issued.) It doesn't matter if the information is from the secondary market in a case where a government hasn't issued a bond for an extended period of time. The yield is still the coupon of a par bond that the market would demand if the government issued debt. The terms yield curve and interest rate curve are thus the same for government bonds. Jason from nyc (talk) 01:05, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
Yes, you're right that the yield is the theoretical interest rate (coupon) the market would demand if the government issued debt. But I don't understand how you draw from that that an interest rate is the same as a yield. Even if the two are effectively the same, to me that doesn't mean they are linguistic equivalents. I don't want to oversimplify because that can be harmful, but for the sake of argument say you're John Smith and you borrowed $100 from the bank at a 10% annual interest rate for 10 years. In year seven, you lose your job. The bank is thinking, "if this guy comes in and wants to refinance his debt into a new 10-year loan, we're going to charge him 20% interest, because he doesn't have a job and we're not sure if he'll be able to pay us." Thus John Smith is paying 10% interest, but his yield is effectively 20%. These are different things. I think it does matter if the information is from the secondary market so long as you're describing that information as an interest rate and not a yield. Nobody is paying the yield as the interest on their current debt, no matter how long it has been since they last issued. If you guys agree I'm wrong then I probably am wrong, but I think these things ought to be made a bit clearer.--Batard0 (talk) 03:56, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
We can start using yield of 10% rather than referring to an interest rate of 10%. Would you say, Bonds paying 10% sold on June 25 at a discount had a yield of 12% or do these bonds not have a nominal face value in any event but only a fixed amount they will pay? The use by the ECB in "Table 1 shows the latest available harmonised long-term interest rates for assessing convergence among the EU Member States. The rates are secondary market yields of government bonds with a remaining maturity close to ten years." is an interesting compromise that combines both popular usages while pointing out the existence of the secondary market. User:Fred BauderTalk 11:00, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
'this is all lies'
Hello,
My input is really rather short, but I just read this article and noticed that someone has written "this is all lies!!!" somewhere halfway through the article. That seems the be an opinion that needs to go (or at least the triple exclamation marks).
Strange, I did read it later than that. Possibly some kind of delay. Either way, good that it's gone. Cheers! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.174.204.142 (talk) 13:43, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
EU treaty violations
I suggest to change the title since it is unclear and lead to some misunterprtation. A reader could be induce to think the section includes a list of Eu traty violations made by the members. This is not the case.Actually the section is about the interpratation of some Eu rules. I suggest changing the title in "EU treaty controversies" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.92.153.12 (talk) 13:30, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
There have been various treaty violations. But politicians of all EU states decided not to sanction those.--Sustainlogic (talk) 16:06, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
Commentary section errors
European_sovereign_debt_crisis#Commentary_2 is quite wrong in places in the first two paragraphs. The critical economists tend not to advocate Grexit. In short, their position is: The present Euro design is unworkable & exacerbates & ultimately causes the problems. Europe has to return to a normal economic system, like the UK, Canada, Japan, USA etc have, with a Central Bank & a Treasury, central authorities that can support its administrative subdivisions / members, do stabilizing fiscal spending. But since the Euro already exists, it can do this somehow using & modifying the existing institutions like the ECB & the European Parliament etc. Or it can break up, in various ways and do this. But the first option, keeping the Euro is generally preferred to the second, the breakup that they see being forced by the existing arrangements.See e.g. FIDDLING IN EUROLAND AS THE GLOBAL MELTDOWN NEARS.John Z (talk) 09:49, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
Edits to Lead - October 2012
Let's cut the lead down. I suggest a few sentences answering each question, in four or five paragraphs:
What is this article about? A European sovereign and private debt crisis
What caused it? Varies by country. Global financial crisis, bailout decisions, government mis-management, Eurozone structural issues and trade imbalances.
What was the impact? Damaging recession, political turmoil, much higher public debt
What solutions have been implemented or contemplated? Bailouts. Austerity, which didn't work very well.
Where does it stand today/forward looking? Several mechanisms established to tackle the issue, plus a Greek and Spanish bailout.
I suggest starting with my major edit and adding back what you think is critical.Farcaster (talk) 22:50, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
I have done some more cuts. I think it's quite ok now. If I remember correctly, articles should have a lead section that corresponds with its overall size. So we shouldn't cut it too short.--spitzl (talk) 17:14, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
Austerity in lead
Is it reasonable to say "To restore confidence in Europe, the focus across all EU member states has been gradually to implement austerity measures." in the introduction when the IMF has recently determined that austerity does more harm than good? Isn't the implicit premise of that statement contradicting the reliable sources? Paum89 (talk) 14:39, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
I see your point. What we have done in the lead is to follow the argument as it was laid out by European leaders, regardless of whether that makes sense or not. The austerity argument is followed by critique of Keynesian economists. Maybe "In the hope to restore confidence..." would be more to the point. Any suggestions? --spitzl (talk) 21:46, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
If we can find a reliable source, we could perhaps say something like "with the stated aim of . . .", since Wikipedia should (at least in this area) not endorse as fact what politician state (even when it is stated as a hope). I am also not happy about "gradually to implement": where austerity measures have been implemented, was it really gradual (as opposed to belated)? So I would prefer a quote here as well, rather than endorsing it. And I haven't seen much recent implementation of austerity measures in Germany (Germany's main problem seems to be what to do with all the money), so I'm not sure about the "all". --Boson (talk) 22:23, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
I am not sure whether [4] would work for that, but I will look around some more. Paum89 (talk) 22:42, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
The lead most not include material that is not in the body of the article. Pyrotec (talk) 15:52, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Intro II - still much too long
The intro is still very long; it includes a lot of hypotheses and opinions that are debatable; it is hard to get the intro overview or message.
Why not reduce the intro to summarize only the important facts?
What are hard facts and core issues of the debt crisis:
Starting end of 2009 it is has been difficult or impossible for some euro countries to pay back their existing due state debt and interests without the assistance of third parties. In parallel, the borrowing costs for these states to finance new budget deficits and to refinance existing debt have risen tremendously.
All effected states had exceeded the contractual agreed on max 3% rule for annual budget deficits and the max 60% rule of government debt level, often for many years; EU politicians have not really reacted to those treaty violations or excessive financially leverage; EU politicians have tended to hide and downplay the level of state leverage and possible consequences; only the final reaction of financials markets in the end of 2009 (rating agencies, investors) and their reluctance to further finance EU states with excessive debt escalated the awareness and made a public crisis out of the situation; since then problem solving attempts started and have been lasting 3 years by now.
There have been various aid and rescue packages to fight the symptoms and causes of the debt crisis. There have been different implementation degrees of measures and different success rates.
Experts from different countries and political directions have different views on the main reasons and cure measures for the excessive budget deficits and/or government debt levels and the resulting problems. Agreement seems to be that the troubled countries have significantly lost national competitiveness (but the reasons for these losses of competitiveness are manifold, different by country, and not agreed on by the experts)(in the intro one should maybe only list – but not explain - the different reasons as there are so many; that are anyway explained in the article)
This should be enough for an intro.
--Sustainlogic (talk) 16:57, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
Anyone with different view on the intro? Otherwise I would start to shorten the intro.--Sustainlogic (talk) 17:47, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
The article does not have a section titled Intro or Intro II, so I assume that you are talking about the Lead (the first paragraphs before the Contents box)? So the first point is to clarify what you are talking about. However, I will assume that you mean the Lead. I awarded the article GA-status back in 20 July 2012 and the lead has not changed all that much, but changes have been made to the article. You can shorted the lead if you wish, but there considerations that you should bear in mind and there could be consequences if you get it wrong. Anyone can edit the article and help improve it, but if the article changes significantly from what it was when it was awarded GA-status back in July 2012, the article can be re-reviewed and GA-status removed if the article is no longer compliant. I'm not trying to stop you improving the lead, but lead has to reflect what is in the article. More precisely, the lead basically has to comply with WP:Lead, so there is no real problem with you summarising facts provide that you summarise what is in the article, keep the same balance in the lead as in the article, do not put material in the lead that does not appear in the article and do not exclude material from the lead that appears in the article. Pyrotec (talk) 21:45, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for the link. My favorites in this link are: "The lead section (also known as ... intro) ... serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important aspects...The lead should normally contain no more than four paragraphs...written in a clear, accessible style with a neutral point of view"
The lead has already improved a lot. The 2nd sentence includes too much NPOV, see words in capital letters ("From late 2009, FEARS of a sovereign debt crisis developed among INVESTORS as a result of the rising PRIVATE and government debt levels AROUND THE WORLD together with a wave of DOWNGRADING of government debt in some European states."); and the total lead just needs to be shortened. --Sustainlogic (talk) 20:07, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Well how about this as a "first cut" attempt: it's the existing Lead with a bit of pruning (but no wikilinks).
The European sovereign debt crisis is an ongoing financial crisis. Some countries in the euro area were unable repay or re-finance their government debt without the assistance of third parties.[3] From late 2009, a sovereign debt crisis developed due to rising private and government debt levels and a downgrading of government debt in some European states. The causes varied by country. In some countries, private debts from a property bubble were transferred to sovereign debt from banking system bailouts and government responses to slowing economies. In Greece, unsustainable public sector wage and pension commitments drove the increases. The structure of the Eurozone as a monetary union (a single currency) without fiscal union (different tax and public pension rules) contributed to the crisis and harmed the ability of European leaders to respond.[4][5] European banks own a significant amount of sovereign debt, such that concerns regarding the solvency of banking systems or sovereigns are negatively reinforcing.[6] Concerns in early 2010 lead to Europe's finance ministers approving a €750 billion rescue package in May 2010 aimed at ensuring financial stability across Europe thought the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF).[9] Further measures in October 2011 and February 2012 were agreed to prevent the collapse of member economies: including banks accepting a 53.5% write-off of Greek debt owed to private creditors,[10] increasing the EFSF to €1 trillion, and requiring European banks to achieve 9% capitalisation.[11]
To restore confidence in Europe, EU leaders agreed to create a European Fiscal Compact with each participating country compartmented tobalanced budgets.[12][13] Greater integration of EU banking management was proposed, with euro-wide deposit insurance, bank oversight and joint means for recapitalizating or resolution failing banks.[14] The European Central Bank also took measures to maintain money flows between European banks by lowering interest rates and providing weaker banks with one trillion Euros of cheap loans. Sovereign debt has risen substantially in only a few eurozone countries, but was consider problem for the whole area,[15] leading to speculation over a possible breakup of the Eurozone. As of mid-November 2011, the Euro was even trading slightly higher against the bloc's major trading partners than at the beginning of the crisis,[16][17] before losing some grounds.[18][19] Three countries Greece, Ireland and Portugal, collectively accounted for 6% of the eurozone's gross domestic product (GDP).[20] In June 2012, Spain became a matter of concern,[21] when rising interest rates began to affect its ability to access capital markets, leading to a bailout of its banks and other measures.[22]
To address the deeper roots of economic imbalances most EU countries agreed on adopting the Euro Plus Pact, consisting of political reforms to improve fiscal strength and competitiveness. This forced weaker countries to draw up ever more austerity measures to reduce national deficits and debt levels. Such non-Keynesian policies have been criticized by various economists, which called for a new growth strategy based on additional public investments, financed by growth-friendly taxes on property, land, wealth, and financial institutions, and a new EU financial transaction tax. EU leaders have agreed to moderately increase the funds of the European Investment Bank to kick-start infrastructure projects and increase loans to the private sector. Furthermore, weaker EU economies were asked to restore competitiveness through internal devaluation, i.e. lowering their relative production costs.[23] It is hoped that these measures will decrease current account imbalances among Euro-zone member states and gradually lead to an end of the crisis. The crisis has had a major impact on EU politics, leading to power shifts in several European countries, most notably in Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and France.
Thanks. How about the following opening paragraph in the lead/intro:
"The European sovereign debt crisis is an ongoing financial crisis in several southern European countries and Ireland, starting late 2009. These countries were unable to repay or re-finance due government debt without the assistance of third parties. The crisis countries are a part of those EU countries that have adopted the Euro as currency."
The advantage of this opening paragraph would be that no singular causes of the crisis are "pre-selected" (Wikipedia-POV) in the article start (as is currently done "...as a result of the rising private and government debt levels around the world together with a wave of downgrading of government debt in some European states. ...".)
A second advantage would be that no undue implicit pre-selection (POV) of the crisis subject or crisis development is named in the article beginning ("...fears of a sovereign debt crisis developed among INVESTORS"); it is clear that investors (of all around the world) in those state debt were not very happy about this financial crisis of their debtor. But this debt crisis is taking place in specific over-indebted countries; the crisis it is not taking place all around the world at all the investors or investing countries. (That does not exclude that also some investors outside the crisis countries have gotten into trouble; but until now no outside states have been into serious trouble, even the opposite: until now outside states have been so strong that they are supporting the troubled states.)
Only in the second paragraph a summary of all crisis causes should be started because there are many differing views on the causes.--Sustainlogic (talk) 09:13, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
I support the new opening paragraph that avoids POV. If I may add my five cents. I would not write "several southern European countries" but simply name those that got in trouble re-financing their debt. It is better to be specific than vague.--spitzl (talk) 19:13, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
If I may, I would suggest something like this:
"The European sovereign debt crisis is an ongoing financial crisis in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland, which started in late 2009. These countries have faced difficulty repaying or re-financing maturing government debt without the assistance of third parties. The crisis has led to fears of contagion and major political repercussions throught Europe as well as changes in the governance of the eurozone."
I think it is pretty NPOV, as it doesn't single out the euro in the way the previous one does. It mentions specifically who is involved, and lays out some context for why it is so important. Peregrine981 (talk) 10:06, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
Looks good to me. --spitzl (talk) 17:04, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
The intro section just got bigger again. I'm afraid we'll have to cut it considerably, while still providing the readers with the whole picture. That might be tricky. --spitzl (talk) 23:01, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
I have just cut the lead section. If you see possibilities to cut it even further, go for it. --spitzl (talk) 17:51, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
In terms of an article start, a comprehensive NPOV version including the above mentioned proposals could be:
"The European sovereign debt crisis started in late 2009 and is ongoing as the EU countries Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland have not been able to repay or re-finance their due government debt and obligations without massive assistance of third parties. All crisis countries are part of the Eurozone.
The crisis has led to global fears of contagion to other European countries and to fears of a global economic downturn. It has led to major political repercussions in the crisis states as well as to discussions and change proposals about the rules and governance in the Eurozone..."
Italy is taken from the list as it never faced an immanent state insolvency because the largest part of Italys debt are long-term and not due. The fears of economic repercussions were global (also China and USA are fearing massive problems if the crisis of those EU countries are not solved). "Government obligations" are added to government debt because Spain had the problem that it is guaranteeing for their banks (obligation) but would be insolvent without third party funds because of those guarantees. It is similar for Ireland. --Sustainlogic (talk) 11:12, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
Optimal length of lead section
Hi User:Farcaster, sorry for reverting your well-intended change of the lead section. As noted in the edit I'm afraid that cut was a bit too big. Now I admit, I don't know the optimal length of the lead section. My feeling would be, it is somewhere between your proposal and the current version.--spitzl (talk) 22:49, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanx to everyone!
Let me take the chance to thank everyone for your great contributions to our article and also for the cooperative atmosphere in general. I think we have done a wonderful job (and I hope we'll continue) shedding a little more light on all issues related to our topic, so that people may better understand the European sovereign debt crisis. The article has been read by almost 260.000 people in the last three months alone and it received excellent ratings. Big thumbs up! --spitzl (talk) 11:26, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
Controversies section: Speculators paragraph
I took the liberty of removing a piece of the "Speculators" paragraph because A) it was based on mere journalistic accounts and B) it did not present diverse opinions (not even at the journalistic level).
Furthemore, while the impact of financial speculation on the euro crisis is brought up often in political discussions, tales of mere monetary speculations on the currency markets (as in the removed paragraph) appear naif and are contradicted by the empirical evidence: just consider the shape of the EUR/USD exchange rate over the past 10 years (http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=EUR&to=USD&view=10Y), and that, according to most analysts, the euro was overvalued in the pre-Lehman Bros crisis (to some, it still is today).
[Surprisingly, in fact,] the euro as a currency is not suffering much from the Eurozone crisis, which concerns the financial stability of some Euro economies and not the exchange rate between the euro and other currencies.
--Majorbolz (talk) 10:48, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
Italy: As in other countries, the social effects have been severe, with child labour even re-emerging in poorer areas
Since the captioned statement is not concerned eclusively to Italy but also to the "other countries", it should be either moved to a generic Section or proposed in any of the sections concerning such "other countries". I am just questioning why the emopahisis on child-labour has been provided with respcet to Italy as it concerns also the "other countries". I propose to remove it otherwise one can think that this statement is biased. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.92.153.12 (talk) 11:57, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
Split out Sections 2-6 due to length?
Split - Split out Sections 2-6 due to length? Thoughts?--Jax 0677 (talk) 23:07, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Agree. Causes and evolution by country for sure.Farcaster (talk) 23:20, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
I am not sure if I completely understood your proposal. I agree, the article is too long. My suggestion would be to reduce the length of the country sections 2.1-2.5 by outsourcing material to the mentioned sub-articles and leaving only a summary. In that case Cyprus would also need its own sub-article. Furthermore, I suggest to outsource the entire section 2.6 ("Possible spread to other countries"). --spitzl (talk) 12:47, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Makes sense. I was thinking one sub-article at first for the evolution section but since each country already has a sub-article just adding one for Cypress would make sense.Farcaster (talk) 19:15, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Alright, I'll go ahead then. Feel free to get involved or revert if you don't like it. --spitzl (talk) 21:54, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Spitzl here. Also if other sections are split out then remember to leave a summary here as per the causes section. Op47 (talk) 22:46, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Fine with splitting, but you have to leave a better summary than what is here at the moment. in its current form it will likely lose its Good article rating. AIRcorn(talk) 07:26, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Reply - Aircorn, I am open to suggestions. --Jax 0677 (talk) 14:55, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
I would expand it from the split out articles. There should be at least one good paragraph I would think, probably two or three. On way to do it is to get most of the information from the lead, which should summarise the article anyway. It does need to be referenced here as well as at the other article. That way if the other article changes for whatever reason the information here will still be verifiable. AIRcorn(talk) 21:06, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
It is ok to split out sections but you should think of a summary BEFORE you do that and maybe also discuss first. Please also keep in mind that every Wikipedia article needs a proper lemma. Don't create numerous articles with exactly the same lead (in this case: "The European sovereign-debt crisis (often referred to as the Eurozone crisis) is an ongoing...") IMHO if a topic has no good lemma, there is a good chance it doesn't deserve a stand-alone article. --spitzl (talk) 01:49, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Dear User:Jax_0677, you split out a large part of the content to questionable sub-articles, which all have the same lead. Doing so, you claim that your revision "was discussed prior to occurrence". Do you mean this discussion? All I read here is a call from User:Aircorn to leave a better summary and the warning that the article will otherwise "likely lose its Good article rating". I suggest to restore the original longer version until someone provides a good summary.--spitzl (talk) 03:09, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Reply - I have left summaries for each sub-article, but "good" is a relative term. I have left the main points in the main article, with the remainder in the sub-article. --Jax 0677 (talk) 03:19, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
I don't think it's fair to Jax to expect him to rewrite the summary paragraph for each section. We can all work on that over time. Folks can find more detail with a click.Farcaster (talk) 07:00, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
I disagree. It is up to the person making the edit to ensure that the article is kept to standard. AIRcorn(talk) 09:04, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Aircorn. Fact is, as long as there are no good summaries, it is not a good article. Do we really want that? What if nobody works on the summaries for months? Sure we can work together to fix this but we should do that before releasing the new version to the public. --spitzl (talk) 09:56, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
I hate to push but the article is still broken and we need to do something about it. I guess I'll wait until the end of the week. If nobody fixes it by then, I'll revert it to the last stable version. We have enough time then to think about proper summaries (and a proper lemma and structure for the split out articles). Or should we ask for a third opinion? --spitzl (talk) 12:03, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
If this article is intended to reduce the size of the lead article, perhaps there should be a brief re-write of the remaining section rather than having identical information on both pages. Perhaps no sub-headings and a short paragraph for each theory? Vision Insider (talk) 04:00, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Cyprus 10yr government bond yields
Today I have just added an important note to the text box of the article's yield graph, that explain the Cypriot data in the graph does not represent free trade data, and mentioned another source that depicts the free trade market yields for a similar Cypriot long-term government bond with maturity in 2020. The following additional text is a copy of the proposal I posted to Spitzl on 18 May, featuring more detailed info and a suggestion how we could extract the free trade market yields and insert as data for Cyprus in the graph (next time it is updated). If any of you posses better sources or have comments to my proposal, then you are welcome to chime in (either here at this talkpage our at Spitzl's user page).
Copied post from Spitzl's user page:
In regards of displaying the monthly average values for 10yr government bonds, I have a request/suggestion that you place a note for Cyprus marked by a *, to explain that the constant 7% yield is a technical cut-off maximum regime, which mean that it doesn't reflect actual market yields for the Cyprus 10yr governmental bonds. The problem is, that the Cyprus bond market is very thin. So when Cyprus in respectively June 2011 and August 2011 issued its latest long-term government bonds: (CYGB 6% 9jun2021) and (CYGB 6.5% 25aug2021), this was done by attaching a so-called maximum cut-off yield at respectively 6.275% and 7.0% for the two bonds. So this is why ECB/Eurostat since August 2011 has mapped the monthly Cypriot 10yr government bond yield to be constant at 7.0%.
List of all long-term Cypriot bonds (issued since 2005, with maturity in 2020 or later):
CYGB 6.1% 20apr2020: Issued in April 2005 with a maximum cut-off yield at 6.2%.
CYGB 5.35% 9jun2020: Issued in June 2005 with a maximum cut-off yield at 5.09%.
CYGB 6% 9jun2021: Issued in June 2011 with a maximum cut-off yield at 6.275%.
CYGB 6.5% 25aug2021: Issued in Aug 2011 with a maximum cut-off yield at 7.0%.
Ever since your graph plot started in December 2009 and until current time, all Cypriot bonds with a maximum cut-off yield (which ECB/Eurostat has reported data for throughout this period), does not reflect the actual market yields for long-term government bonds. Thus it is highly recommended we instead only take a look at the latest Cypriot 10yr government bond without any cut-off yield, which is the one above issued 27 January 2010 with maturity on 3 February 2020. This bond is traded daily at both Berlin and Frankfurt, where you for both market-places can calculate the monthly average market yields for the bond (and in our graph plot data as the average rate between those two markets), provided that you are a subscriber to the "Cbonds database". If you do not subscribe to "Cbonds database", you can still for free check the recorded yields for the last market day by clicking this link. When this bond with maturity in February 2020 was traded on 17 May 2013, the Yield To Maturity (YTM) was recorded to be respectively 11.09% and 11.51% at Berlin and Frankfurt, which is sufficiently above the "technical 7% cut-off limit" for the bond with maturity in August 2021.
If you read Graph 19 in the new Economic Adjustment Programme for Cyprus, you can also see how the yield of the Cyprus 2020 bond developed from 1 January 2010 to 1 March 2013, which reveal its YTM peaked at around 16.5% in June 2012 (at the point of time where credit rating agencies downgraded the Cypriot government bonds to junk status). It is unfortunate that the Eurostat/ECB data does not reflect real market yields for Cyprus. In your graph, we should now (in my point of view) instead depict for Cyprus: The monthly average data for the government bond with maturity in February 2020, as calculated by the "Cbonds database" source. This would be far better if we want to report some comparable true government bond yields. Please note this special situation only applies for Cyprus, due to having a very thin government bond market and a maximum cut-off yield regime. All other ECB/Eurostat 10yr government bond yield statistic data for the eurozone member states, are reflecting some correct market values (except for Estonia where they show no data due to the complete absence of long-term government bonds; but this has already been sufficiently noted with text beneath the graph). If you don't have money to subscribe to the "Cbonds database" calculation tool, I hope you will be able to chase finding this data from a free source on the world wide web. I whish you a good hunt. Please let me know what you find. :-) Best regards,Danish Expert (talk) 06:05, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Today I looked further into our data access opportunities. Unfortunately any paid subscription to the Cbonds database monthly yield calculator does not entail access to publication of the data extracts (see chapter 6 of the user agreement). So the paid subscription indeed gives an easy access to the data we chase, but we cant publish the extracted data towards third parties at Wikipedia. Realizing this, I have today searched for alternative free data sources. After a brief visit to all German financial market places, none of them unfortunately had YTM statistical data uploaded for the 2020 Cyprus bond, but fortunately they had free access to daily historic price data for the bond. Knowing the daily historic price data, the daily YTM can then afterwards be calculated by manually typing the price data for each historic day at the websites "yield calculator". Hence we have free access to build-up our own excel-sheet with daily YTMs for the 2020 Cyprus bond, from where we can finally extract the average monthly values for our chart. Doing this work would entail roughly 1000 calculations to cover the period January 2010 until May 2013. We shall keep in mind, that as far as I understand Wikipedia's policy (WP:CALC), this calculation would entail too many steps to be allowed for direct inclusion in any Wikipedia article, but if we only upload this data as a personally created chart to Wikimedia Commons (while describing at the charts file-page how the final monthly average values were extracted from the source), then it will be fully allowed. If you have time to do it, then it would be great. To save time for the working process, we of course only need to know the YTM bond values from one German market place (i.e. either Frankfurt or Xetra). So you can skip the part I wrote earlier above, about calculating the YTM as average for both Berlin+Frankfurt. :-) Danish Expert (talk) 11:04, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
Another time saving proposal for you to consider, is that you for the plot of data instead just roughly reads all the printed "Cyprus 2020 bond yields throughout 1 January 2010 to 1 March 2013", based on Graph 19 in the Economic Adjustment Programme for Cyprus. This data compilation method, would certainly be the quickest way to compile the Cyprus 2020 bond data, and in my point of view still entail sufficient accuracy for the illustrated purpose. Danish Expert (talk) 11:04, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
After a third search for a source with free 2020 Cyprus bond data, I today managed to dig up the annual Cyprus Public Debt Management reports. These reports all contain a graph of daily yields for the bond throughout the year, from which it is easy to extract monthly average values:
All 3 reports above cite Bloomberg as data source, and mention the bond yield data has been recorded from secondary market trade at the London Stock Exchange. We can use those 3 sources to extract (read) the monthly average yields for all months during Jan 2010 until Feb 2013:
Bond Yield (%)
Jan 2010
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan 2011
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan 2012
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan 2013
Feb
CYPGB 4.625%, Feb2020
4.6
4.4
4.3
4.3
4.2
4.1
4.0
4.0
4.2
4.3
5.3
5.9
6.1
6.0
5.9
6.1
6.2
7.5
9.1
11.8
11.0
9.8
11.1
11.9
12.4
13.6
13.2
12.7
13.4
15.3 (max.16.5)
14.8
15.3
13.2
12.6
12.0
11.7
11.7
9.5
We of course still need to use a 4th source to map the ongoing yield data month by month in March 2013 and beyond. If any of you can find and report a link to such a source it would really be great! After a brief visit to the Bloomberg website and London Stock Exchange, I was unfortunately not able to find visible yield data posted, but perhaps the data will be available if you are a registered user of their sites? ... Otherwise we have to rely on the much more time-consuming option to convert the posted daily price data from one of the German market places, and then calculate the corresponding YTM by their "yield calculator" (as I provided links for in my reply above) ... Or perhaps rely on the "lazy option" only to update Cyprus yields one time per year (next time in March 2014, when the 2013 Cyprus Public Debt Management report gets published). I will leave the choice about how to proceed with this data matter for Spitzl, but please chime in if you have a link to a data source featuring a complete collection of daily YTMs for the 2020 Cyprus bond through all trading days (so far) in 2013. Best regards,Danish Expert (talk) 05:16, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Household debt
I have removed the following paragraph because it is doubtful that this is really a root cause of the crisis:
Unprecedented household debt levels were another cause. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported in April 2012 that in advanced economies, during the five years preceding 2007, the ratio of household debt to income rose by an average of 39 percentage points, to 138 percent. In Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Norway, debt peaked at more than 200 percent of household income. A surge in household debt to historic highs also occurred in emerging economies such as Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, and Lithuania. When house prices declined, many households saw their wealth shrink relative to their debt. By the end of 2011, real house prices had fallen from their peak by about 41% in Ireland, 29% in Iceland, 23% in Spain and the United States, and 21% in Denmark. Household defaults, underwater mortgages (where the loan balance exceeds the house value), foreclosures, and fire sales were endemic to a number of economies as of 2012. Household deleveraging by paying off debts or defaulting on them has begun in some countries, which slows economic growth.[1][2]
Only two of the five mentioned countries (Ireland and Netherlands) are even in the eurozone, and only one of these two (Ireland) suffered from a housing bubble, where "uprecedented household debt" became a serious problem. I suggest we include this in the Irish section instead. --spitzl (talk) 22:35, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Also the Netherlands are facing a huge housing bubble (but have not the same problems as Ireland).--Patavium (talk) 12:37, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
remove example Germany
I removed the following example from the introduction:
Germany, for example, received €15.5 billion from the securitization of pension-related payments from Deutsche Telekom, Deutsche Post, and Deutsche Postbank in 2005‒06, but guaranteed payments so investors bore only the risk of the German government's credit and the transactions were ultimately recorded in Europe's fiscal statistics as government borrowing, not asset sales.[3]
I think this is too much detail for the introduction. Moreover, the alleged German window dressing has been quite irrelevant for the Eurozone crisis (until now). If someone really wants to cite examples of cooked books he should name the much more relevant cases of Southern European countries.--Patavium (talk) 00:56, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
Title
I think that the title of the article should be changed. Eurozone crisis would be more appropriate than "European sovereign debt crisis". The sovereign debt crisis is just one aspect of the crisis. Actually there is a banking crisis, a credit crisis, an economic crisis and last but not least a political crisis. All those aspects are described in the article, so I think that the present title is too restrictive.
I think that Euro crisis would be a good substitute too, because it would indicate the cause of a crisis triggered by a common currency that made it impossible for European countries to implement the correct policy mix in order to prevent the crisis and now makes it hard if not impossible to fix it.--Patavium (talk) 11:08, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
According to Google trends [5]Euro crisis is the most common definition, followed by Eurozone crisis.
"European sovereign-debt crisis" is practically unknown and goes against at least two principles of Wikipedia:Article titles:
it does not indicate what the article is about (for reasons see above);
it goes against naturalness. The title should usually convey what the subject is actually called in English.
Therefore I intend to move the article to Euro crisis.--Patavium (talk) 23:07, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
There has been a similar (and very long) discussion about the proper title in the German wikipedia. Now I agree with you that the media mostly uses the term Euro crisis. In my opinion this is a bit misleading though because the Euro itself is not in crisis, at least when you judge it by its international value. Anyways, I would be fine with Eurozone crisis if the community agrees. --spitzl (talk) 21:09, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
I would prefer Eurozone crisis too. But it seems to be less common in English. As to the value of the Euro, I do not agree with you at all. If you make a comparison with the dollar, the euro is a strong currency, but only apparently. Compare it with other currencies and the result will be quite different.
Anyway, Eurozone crisis is a good title and a better description of what the article is about. Moreover, it respects the naming conventions here.--Patavium (talk) 22:29, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
Sure other currencies are valued higher these days. Nevertheless, following your argument we'd rather need an article called "dollar crisis" or "yen crisis", no? Either way, as I already mentioned above, I'd be fine with Eurozone crisis. It would be good though to get some other opinions on that before we make such change. --spitzl (talk) 18:07, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
It's not necessary for the title Euro crisis to predominantly or solely refer to the strongness or ratio of e.g. €/$, because there are e.g. internal, within the eurozone, REER (Real Effective Exchange Rate) issues; but this can anyway be easily solved by using instead eurozone crisis. I'm for the name change cause the present one is imo in many cases misleading as it focuses on the public debt instead of the more imprortant external debt (public, private or both); cf. Currency_crisis#Eurozone_crisis_as_a_balance-of-payments_crisis, Net_international_investment_position (sort by NIIP in % GDP... ;-) ). Thanatos|talk 23:01, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
I will make a move request here.[6]--Patavium (talk) 00:42, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
Patavium should stop adding vandalism to the introduction. He erased the name 'debt crisis' out of the current article introduction. The 'debt crisis' is taking place in some European countries since end of 2009. No doubt. I will revert this behavior that has happened without general consent.
Also in other Wikipedia language versions like the German, Patavium aggressively fights for hiding the debt crisis. As to his opinion the 'Euro' is the most important cause for the debt crisis an therefore he likes to rename the debt crisis to 'Euro crisis' or 'Eurozone crisis' (which is POV). The Northern countries of he Eurozone don't have a crisis. He tried it many times but never came through. He is not willing to accept that the introduction of the 'Euro' is only one of the causes for the debt crisis. Also the 'Latin American debt crisis' had many causes but it still was a valid debt crisis, important enough to have an article in Wikipedia.
Sorry. Euro crisis and Euro zone crisis are the common definitions in English.
The Northern countries of he Eurozone don't have a crisis. For sure! Ireland is deep South and the Netherlands are performing splendidly.
Latin America does not have a common currency. Argentina had its currency pegged to the US-dollar and it went bankrupt.
I documented all of my edits, you reverted them. I would say that was vandalism.
I actually think that you enrolled Wikipedia in order to keep a POV title that does not reflect English usage, economic reality and common sense.--Patavium (talk) 22:50, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, but may be you are wrong in all relevant aspects.
'Euro crisis' and 'Euro zone' crisis are not the common definitions in English, see section 'Requested Move' below.
Because 4 of the 5 EU states with a debt crisis are Southern EU countries, it is common to speak about the Southern EU countries when talking about the European debt crisis. You are right that Ireland is not the most Southern country, thanks for that geographical help, but seems not relevant. You are wrong about the Netherlands, they do not have a debt crisis.
Yes, it is vandalism if you delete 'debt crisis' trough out the article if the name of the article is "European sovereign debt crisis"
The rest of you comments seem not help to decide on a potential name change.--Whereisthebeef (talk) 19:59, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
I do not understand your point. Here is the discussion you are referring to. The Netherlands is not having a sovereign debt crisis, they have a private debt crisis.--Patavium (talk) 22:05, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
Slowly you seem to get what this article is about. It is about sovereign-debt crisis of certain European states, it is not about private debt crisis.--Whereisthebeef (talk) 23:55, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
I am speechless. Your data is false, maybe you should make a better use of google books. How about a real fact-based name approach?
Actually "European sovereign debt crisis" has only 44 hits, not 5,690 [7]
"Eurozone crisis" OR "Euro zone crisis" 119 hits [10].
So nothing has changed. Euro crisis is the most common, but it was agreed upon to use Eurozone crisis, as it is the second most common but gives a better description.--Patavium (talk) 21:53, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
You are 'speechless' ? --Whereisthebeef (talk) 23:55, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
Requested Move
The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the proposal was moved to Eurozone crisis. --BDD (talk) 18:47, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
Support: Eurozone crisis or even Euro crisis apart from being (or at least seeming) more common, would be much more accurate since the crisis is neither paneuropean nor solely a sovereign-debt one.Thanatos|talk 06:43, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
Support:Eurozone crisis, currently a redirect, is the best term but make sure to also point the redirects Euro crisis to the new location. ww2censor (talk) 12:04, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Support:Eurozone crisis. See above.--Patavium (talk) 15:52, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
I would also support Euro crisis.--Patavium (talk) 23:12, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Clear No: Patavium has already changed the name throughout the article (as vandalism, see previous section). Funny behavior, must be his German roots (see Wikipedia discussion on German debt crisis article.). As the main article lists, the debt crisis is taking place in some European countries. It is not taking place in all of the Eurozone or all of Europe.--Whereisthebeef (talk) 22:06, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
There was no vandalism. All edits had respectable sources. Just have a look at the history of edits.--Patavium (talk) 22:55, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
It was vandalism. See section above.--Whereisthebeef (talk) 20:02, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
You tried to manipulate Google Books data. Did you refer to that vandalism of yours?--Patavium (talk) 21:57, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
Support: Euro crisis seems to be the most commonly used term. Peregrine981 (talk) 22:09, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
post-script On further analysis, it seems to be a tossup between euro crisis and Eurozone/Euro zone crisis. I'd support either. Peregrine981 (talk) 09:08, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
I think that at present there is a slight advantage for Eurozone crisis, if you consider that it was the first choice in three cases.--Patavium (talk) 10:40, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
Summing up: Could we please move the article to Eurozone crisis? The debate started with this discussion [11] on 16 June 2013.
4 support Eurozone crisis
1 supports Eurocrisis (+2 as second option)
1 is against the move.--Patavium (talk) 19:23, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
A research on Google Books is here [12]. It does not change anything.--Patavium (talk) 21:57, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
How about not moving it? Especially not to Eurozone crisis. It is the least common name !
How about a fact-based name approach. Normally there is a counting what is the most published title using Google Books before thinking of an article's name change. Here is the service in descending order:
"Eurozone crisis" OR "Euro zone crisis" yields about 3,430 results in Google Books
If there are written a couple of 10,000 books about this important crisis this should weigh more than a majority or minority of 1 or 2 users with their very personal views. Especially if personal views contradict the facts.--Whereisthebeef (talk) 19:46, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
Patavium, STOP deleting or changing my text from this section. You want to be initiator, voter, and moderator in this section, and additionally you delete what you don't like. Stop that. (Whereisthebeef (talk) 23:40, 12 July 2013 (UTC))
I did not delete anything. I only moved [13] your wrong data to their natural place. But it is no problem, I just repeat what I said above (with today's figures). You made a wrong use of Google Books.
Actually "European sovereign debt crisis" has only 44 hits, not 5,690 [14]
"Eurozone crisis" OR "Euro zone crisis" 120 hits [17].
So nothing has changed. Euro crisis is the most common, but it was agreed upon to use Eurozone crisis, as it is the second most common but gives a better description. The title should be moved.--Patavium (talk) 17:42, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
Animated graphs
Does anyone know how to embed animated graphs? It would be great to visualize the change in current accounts using e.g. an animated bubble chart or animated bar chart. It could also be useful to show the change in government deficit and debt over time, just to give a few examples. Any ideas anyone? --spitzl (talk) 02:56, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
I have no experience with creation of animation files. But I guess the procedure will depend on which program you intend to use for creation of the animation file. For further instructions, I will refer you to forward the question to Kolja21, who created File:EC-EU-enlargement animation.gif. Best regards, Danish Expert (talk) 14:39, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Check out this workaround. If it is fine in terms of copyright, we could add more animated graphs based on that approach. --spitzl (talk) 10:37, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
Does anyone know why the autoarchive bot "MiszaBot I" is not working properly? There are numerous old sections that should have already been archived months ago.--spitzl (talk) 12:09, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Maybe because no archives existed, the bot would not create Archive_1? I created it so check back in another 3 months. Paum89 (talk) 14:46, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Auto-archive still not working? --spitzl (talk) 10:47, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
It was setup to archive to an old page name prior to a rename. Let's see if my tweaks to the MiszaBot configuration get it going again. TDL (talk) 17:37, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
Current account imbalances (1997–2014) 3d chart
A 2d line chart would be clearer for actually comparing values from the different nations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.166.4.118 (talk) 23:17, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
Negative deposit rate
Can someone please explain what a negative deposit rate is? Is it when a person is charged money, instead of receiving it, for depositing money in their bank account? The main article should make it clear for the rest of us. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.185.242.208 (talk) 12:50, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
Removal of content
Why is content being removed from the page when it was referenced? This info is useful. I don't wanna edit war. User:Thewinkleinstitute, let's discuss your edits here as I do not wish to edit war. 電子888說-TALK 07:27, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
debt percentage
There is a chart showing "debt percentage." What does that mean? Is it (national) debt as percentage of (national) GDP or compared to a base year or what? (There is no Wikipedia entry for "debt percentage," and the phrase has not complete meaning as a nontechnical phrase.Kdammers (talk) 10:19, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
I just fixed this. --spitzl (talk) 10:54, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
Please clarify.
"Austerity is bound to fail if it relies largely on tax increases[291] instead of cuts in government expenditures coupled with encouraging "private investment and risk-taking, labour mobility and flexibility, an end to price controls, tax rates that encouraged capital formation ..." as Germany has done in the decade before the crisis." - I'm sorry, I don't understand this sentence. Should there be the word "and" before "tax rates"?211.225.34.160 (talk) 00:43, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Thanx for pointing out. I moved the paragraph here for discussion. --spitzl (talk) 11:03, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
Austerity is bound to fail if it relies largely on tax increases[4] instead of cuts in government expenditures coupled with encouraging "private investment and risk-taking, labour mobility and flexibility, an end to price controls, tax rates that encouraged capital formation ..." as Germany has done in the decade before the crisis.[5] Italy, for example, has essentially no cuts in spending (i.e. government austerity) when taken into account the shifting of spending from national to local levels. Instead, Italy has relied on tax increases which is an imposed austerity on the private sector, thereby reducing economic activity.[6]
Done
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