From the HUFF NEWS:
…From France to Belgium to Germany, major banks that never built up adequate stocks of capital following the synchronized shocks of 2008 appear increasingly vulnerable to running out of money. Their resulting tightness with the cash they have has been depriving economies of growth. Widespread assumptions that Greece will default on its debts has ratcheted up borrowing costs for other fiscally troubled nations, not least Italy, adding to the slowdown. Lean growth is depriving national governments of the largess needed to prop up ailing lenders, especially the ones that got themselves into budget troubles in the first place by previously bailing out banks.
Across the continent, as in the United States, political leaders who are intent on pandering to know-nothings or who are under the influence of deficient economic beliefs have embraced austerity as the cure for the advancing diseases, much like prescribing a starvation diet for a patient wasting away from malnutrition.
As if all of this were not enough, another disaster is now unfolding, one that only amplifies the others: Markets are justifiably losing confidence that Europe has the structure or the political will to address the storm threatening to tear it apart…
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