Euro Area

[Jolt]

Well, we'll pay, but with even harsher conditions, Spain and Portugal will cede their independence and become German states, then we can tax everybody in Germany with another solidarity tax to build up these two.We can deal with the speculators and bondholders once we have conquered the world, they will cause their own downfall...

Actually you're right to an extent, but the thing that makes Spain and Portugal most likely to default (whatever exactly that means in financial terms) is people talking about them defaulting soon, which scares all the bondfondlers and sharecrows.

Deutsch Portugal und unseren GroB Deutschland über alles!


Curiously, I'm still yet to figure out the primary reason for our State interest rate going through the roof. Our government was actually controlling and lowering the deficit, the first two austerity packages to lower the deficit after it shot up when the State served as social net for a bank bailout and the crisis impact on families and companies (Shot to almost 10% deficit then went down to 6-7% in only a few months), and only then putting up austerity packages after austerity package to cope with the increasing interest spread, yet it just still kept rising. It doesn't help that my university (Who is right-leaning to begin with) goes to explanations ranging from vague "We are not competitive enough" (Which is odd, because we were not competitive before and nothing even close to this happened.) to "It's the outside crisis" (Which would actually make sense except if we check the financial data before the interest rates went through the roof, we had several budget areas under much better control than other countries like France or the UK, even when we were uncompetitive and already in this crisis) to "It's just pure financial speculation without any real reason for the increase in interest spreads, beyond making money toppling Portugal and getting to Spain, which is the big prize" (And I was surprised to hear that from the mouth of a PSD-militant professor who is very clearly liberal leaning.)

There is still something unanswered. What is the fundamental endogenous cause which changed for Portugal so all of a sudden it couldn't pay it's 3-4% interest rate commitments like it had been doing since the 2000's?
Greece is understandable as the government concealed deficits and embarked on shady deals, which showed that Greece's finances were in fact extraordinarily much worse than it had shown to be.
Ireland happened because it had to prevent its financial infrastructure from evaporating, and blew its finances to prevent it.
Portugal...?