Europe's Greek Stress Test
Wall Street Journal, with Anil Kashyap. Local pdf. Why is Europe so scared to let Greece reschedule just a bit? Answer: because their banks holding Greek debt. Greece isn't being bailed out -- they'd rather defaut than work a year and a half just to pay off old debts. Bondholders are being bailed out, and those are mostly banks. So much for the wonders of bank regulation. Europe needs to fix its banks pronto, because the sovereigns will default. The default doesn't have to imply a financial crisis.