So, Greek debt drama, Spain and Portugal, blah blah blah. I'm sick of it. Lots of people talk about how it will spell doom and gloom everywhere - both abroad and back here in the states. I can't help but think - man, if the Euro is so cheap against the dollar, right now would be a great time to go to Europe if you were an American. After all, the US job market is finally starting to pick up, and companies are hiring again.
My prediction? America keeps recovering economically, and over the coming tourist season more people will visit Europe because its so much cheaper now. Back during the Iceland debt drama (remember that, anyone?), one of my graduate student buddies and his friends took at trip to Iceland for a price that even a graduate student could afford. Tourism revenue will increase, and Europe will get back on its feet again like it always has for the past four millenia.
Oh, and another thing I want to point out: what's happening in Greece does not imply that the debt structure of bigger nations is unsustainable. Countries like Britain, Germany, and the US are not going to come close to defaulting the way Greece has. At the very least, it certainly won't be in the same way: the Greek drama was caused by their use of financial instruments to take more risk than borrowing regulations would have ever allowed otherwise. After re-reading Traders, Guns & Money, I noticed that such uses of derivatives to avoid borrowing limits is an often employed financial strategy by doomed banks and governments alike. Now, I'm not saying that the bigger nations won't ever shoot themselves in the foot by evading regulations - instead, I'm simply pointing out that such big nations create the regulations themselves. They have little incentive to try to cheat those regulations in order to chase higher profits, and even if they were to do so, they're powerful enough to simply refuse to make good on whatever debts they end up with - they could easily claim that they were mislead by the banks that sold the assets; the bank would take the fall, not the government. Quite frankly, the big nation's debt structures are sustainable because they say they are. Who can really challenge that? Who wants to?
The Yankees continue to pastraminate the Red Sox this weekend - my prediction (as Black Mamba can attest to) was a full sweep of the Botox Bosox this weekend, which would warm the hearts of New Yorkers everywhere. Considering that New Yorkers and Wall Street traders include a surprising amount of overlap, my prediction then is that this will lead to a market rally on Monday. Let's see if my crazy predictions can come true? At the very least, I did just hear an ad on Pandora for no hassle vacations to Europe through Contiki, a travel service that caters to 18-30 year olds who want to see the world without having to plan shit themselves. Sounds appealing. Even better, I just want to point out the display ad that Pandora has up for me right now. Notice the portion highlighted in red - at least one of my predictions appears to already be coming true. I hope that bodes well for the others ;)
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