The Housing Bubble

Happy new year and may falling prices be ever in your favor.

Happy New Year everyone!

Happy New Year to Ben and all the long time (and short time)readers!

My average blog attendance time is about 6 months or when the crisis the blog addresses sorts itself out. I’ve been coming here since 2006 and I never thought I would be here 9 years later and the housing crash would still be getting sorted out.

stocks and homes will get you out of debt in 2015!

“But that does not count the huge amounts of U.S. Treasury securities that the federal government must redeem each year. When these debt instruments hit their maturity date, the U.S. government must pay them off. This is done by borrowing more money to pay off the previous debts. In fiscal year 2013, redemptions of U.S. Treasury securities totaled $7,546,726,000,000 and new debt totaling $8,323,949,000,000 was issued. The final numbers for fiscal year 2014 are likely to be significantly higher than that.”

“Well, in recent years government officials figured out that they could save a lot of money on interest payments by borrowing over shorter time frames. For example, it costs the government far more to borrow money for 10 years than it does for 1 year. So a strategy was hatched to borrow money for very short periods of time and to keep “rolling it over” again and again and again.”

“By contrast, an extended regime of ZIRP, coupled with the central banks’ perceived “put” under risk assets, drives the cost of “downside insurance” to negligible levels because S&P 500 put writers are emboldened and subsidized to pick up nickels (i.e. options premium) in front of a benign central bank steamroller. This ultra-cheap downside insurance, in turn, attracts ever larger inflows of speculative capital to the casino.”

“This dynamic is evident in the chart of the S&P 500 since the March 2009 bottom. The dips have gotten shallower and shallower as ZIRP and other pro-risk central bank policies have eroded the market’s natural defenses against excessive speculation. As of mid-2014, therefore, it can be fairly said that fear and short interest have been extinguished almost entirely. The Wall Street casino has thus become a one-way market that coils dangerously upward, divorced completely from the fundamentals of earnings and cash flow and real world economic conditions and prospects.”

Is the whole Sony hacker thing a positive or a negative for Truth?

On the one hand you have a situation where fear is stoked and everyone thinks there are some anonymous hackers that could target them and pry into the most intimate details of their life if they wanted to.

On the other, no one like that would really care about some small fish Joe normal citizen and the hackers would seem to care only about targeting bigger fish, those in power, and perhaps exposing their hypocrisy and lies.

How does this tie into housing? Well, we’ve been lied to for years and years and it still goes on, from both small shills and big shills, including the media.

A little global warming could come in handy right about now in SoCal.

Freeze Warning in effect until 8:00 AM PST. Source: U.S. National Weather Service

…FREEZE WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 8 AM PST THIS MORNING …
…FREEZE WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM THIS EVENING THROUGH
FRIDAY MORNING …

A FREEZE WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 8 AM PST THIS MORNING. A
FREEZE WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM THIS EVENING THROUGH FRIDAY
MORNING.

* TEMPERATURE …LOWER 20S TO LOWER 30S …COLDEST IN LOW-LYING
VALLEYS AND WIND SHELTERED AREAS.

* TIMING …THROUGH 8 AM THIS MORNING …AND AGAIN TONIGHT INTO FRIDAY
MORNING.

* IMPACTS …A FREEZE CAN KILL CROPS AND OTHER SENSITIVE OUTDOOR
PLANTS. BRING PETS INDOORS.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS …

A FREEZE WARNING MEANS SUB-FREEZING TEMPERATURES ARE IMMINENT OR
HIGHLY LIKELY. THESE CONDITIONS WILL KILL CROPS AND OTHER
SENSITIVE VEGETATION.

Region VIII checking in

Why Is The Fed Hiring An “Emergency Preparedness Specialist Familiar With DHS Directives”

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/31/2014

A few weeks ago, we reported that for some still unexplained reason, the US Treasury is ordering “survival kits” to its employees overseeing the federal banking system. To wit:

The Department of Treasury is spending $200,000 on survival kits for all of its employees who oversee the federal banking system, according to a new solicitation. As FreeBeacon reports, survival kits will be delivered to every major bank in the United States and includes a solar blanket, food bar, water-purification tablets, and dust mask (among other things). The question, obviously, is just what do they know that the rest of us don’t?

We still don’t know why. But what makes things even more surprising, and confusing, is that two days before the survival kit RFP soliciation became public on December 4, 2014, a just as curious notice was blasted by the Fed’s recruiting Twitter account:

So the Fed is hiring not just any “emergency preparedness specialist” but one familiar with DHS directives? Here are the details of the position located in Washington, DC:

Position Description

The Emergency Preparedness & Response Specialist is a professional in the field of emergency preparedness. This individual serves as the coordinator in the Management Division (MGT Div.) for emergency preparedness, encompassing the development, coordination, and implementation of: unified planning, disaster preparednes
Responsible for upkeep and maintenance of the Board s Hazardous Materials Response Team (HMRT) training, equipment, and response program, and is responsible for coordinating operational emergency response efforts for the MGT Div.

The Board has a Hazardous Materials Response Team? Comes as news to us.

And perhaps most ironically:

Employment Status: Temporary

Or, as the BLS defines it, “permanent”, net of seasonal adjustments.

The only question is why does the Fed - a uniformly safe institution, where economists engage in deep contemplation and decide how much of the US deficit they will monetize - need a person with these qualifications?

http://www.zerohedge.com/…iring-emergency-preparedness-specialist-familiar-dhs-directives - 153k -

Comment by Blue Skye
2015-01-01 03:42:41

Real interest rates have soared. DIX up from 80 to 90 in six months. That looks a lot like 20%+ for anyone owing USD.

Crushing.

That’s a great point I hadn’t considered: Has deflation plus static nominal interest rates brought on the long-heralded rate increases that nobody even noticed, save a few astute observers like Blue Skye?

Are $30 oil prices within reach now?

realtors are liars

Contra Costa County, CA Sale Prices Plunge 6% YoY; Plummet 9% MoM

http://www.car.org/marketdata/data/countysalesactivity/

Eight years of rule of Harry Reid and Senate Majority Leader and the democrats in the Senate is now officially OVER.

What did the democrats in the senate do in those eight years?

1. NOT ONE BUDGET. Eight years of continuing resolutions.

2. OBAMACARE passed on Christmas Eve without one republican vote.

3. Over 300 passed house bill that were forbidden to be brought up for debate or vote (to include reducing the budget deficit, getting government out of the housing market, ending bailouts, etc.). This was done to protect obama from actually having to make a hard decision and veto something.

4. Elimination of the filibuster to approve judicial and executive nominations.

5. A loss of the “deliberate” senate. It is now hyper-partisan.

Is it “go time” in 2015?

Lots of these predictions will lead to wars and revolutions…

—————————–

2015 Will Be The Year Of Dollar Danger For The World
The Telegraph (UK) | 1-1-2015 | Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

America’s closed economy can handle a surging dollar and a fresh cycle of rising interest rates. Large parts of the world cannot. That in a nutshell is the story of 2015.

Tightening by the US Federal Reserve will have turbo-charged effects on a global financial system addicted to zero rates and dollar liquidity.

Yields on 2-year US Treasuries have surged from 0.31pc to 0.74pc since October, and this is the driver of currency markets.

Since the New Year ritual of predictions is a time to throw darts, here we go: the dollar will hit $1.08 against the euro before 2015 is out, and 100 on the dollar index (DXY).

Sterling will buckle to $1.30 as a hung Parliament prompts global funds to ask why they are lending so freely to a country with a current account deficit reaching 6pc of GDP.

There will be a mouth-watering chance to invest in the assets of the BRICS and mini-BRICS at bargain prices, but first they must do penance for $5.7 trillion in dollar debt, and then do surgery on obsolete growth models.

The Yellen Fed will be forced to back down in the end, just as the Bernanke Fed had to retreat after planning a return to normal policy at the end of QE1 and QE2.

At best we are entering a new financial order where there is no longer an automatic “Fed Put” or a “Politburo Put” to act as a safety net for asset markets. That may be healthy in many ways, but it may also be a painful discovery for some.

The European Central Bank cannot save the day for asset markets as the Fed pulls back: it does not print dollars, and dollars are what now matter.

The eurozone will be in deflation by February, forlornly trying to ignite its damp wood by rubbing stones. Real interest rates will ratchet higher. The debt load will continue to rise at a faster pace than nominal GDP across Club Med. The region will sink deeper into a compound interest trap.

Breaking my normal rule of discussing equity prices let me say only that the S&P 500 index of Wall Street stocks will not defy monetary gravity or the feedback loops of global stress for much longer. Half the earnings of US big-cap companies come from overseas, repatriated into a stronger dollar, and therefore worth less in reporting terms.

The index has risen at double-digit rates for three years, further inflated this year by companies buying back their own shares at a pace of $130bn a quarter, often with borrowed money. The profit share of GDP is at a post-war high of 12.5pc (much like 1929), an untenable level as US wages start to rise and the balance of power swings back to labour. The S&P index measuring the price-to-sales ratio is higher today than at its pre-Lehman peak.

Expect a shake-out of 20pc comparable to the LTCM crisis in 1998 when the wheels came off in Russia and East Asia, though don’t be shocked by worse. Emerging markets are a much bigger part of the world economy today, and their combined debt ratio is a record 175pc of GDP.

“I’m really good at killing people”
- obama

—————-

Who’s Being Targeted for Assassination by Drone?
Zerohedge - 12/31/2014

Spiegel reports this week that drug dealers and low-level Taliban members were targeted for death by drone:

NATO didn’t just target the Taliban leadership, but also eliminated mid- and lower-level members of the group on a large scale. Some Afghans were only on the list because, as drug dealers, they were allegedly supporting the insurgents.

The operations were based on the lists maintained by the CIA and NATO — Obama’s lists. The White House dubbed the strategy “escalate and exit.”

According to the NSA document, in October 2008 the NATO defense ministers made the momentous decision that drug networks would now be “legitimate targets” for ISAF troops. “Narcotics traffickers were added to the Joint Prioritized Effects List (JPEL) list for the first time,” the report reads. In the opinion of American commanders like Bantz John Craddock, there was no need to prove that drug money was being funneled to the Taliban to declare farmers, couriers and dealers as legitimate targets of NATO strikes.

Strikes focused on the Kill List “killed on average 28 other people before they actually succeeded in killing their target.”

Indeed, even the process for deciding who to put on the “kill list” is flawed. People are often targeted by the metadata on their phones, a process which a former top NSA official called the drone assassination program “undisciplined slaughter.” And people are targeted for insanely loose reasons. As the New York Times reported in 2012:

Mr. Obama had approved not only “personality” strikes aimed at named, high-value terrorists, but “signature” strikes that targeted training camps and suspicious compounds in areas controlled by militants.

And then there are “double taps” … where the family members, friends or neighbors who try to rescue someone hit by a drone missile are themselves targeted for assassination.

Anyone feel like being a guinea pig in the new year? I’m testing a new version of the Joshua Tree Extension and would appreciate a little extra testing before pushing it out to everyone.

The major change is that the method of ignoring posts has become less intrusive.

You can contact me via the “support email” link on the extension’s web page:

Joshua Tree Extension

As always, if you use and appreciate the functionality of the extension, please be sure to tip your host (Mr. Ben Jones)

The Ironies of Oil
Townhall.com | December 31, 2014 | Victor Davis Hanson

Gasoline prices are on the verge of crashing down to below $2 a gallon. The price of oil may dip below $50 a barrel.

Even with renewed demand from a global economic resurgence, energy prices continue to fall. The U.S. has suddenly become the world’s largest combined producer of oil and natural gas.

That fact — along with a desire to weaken hostile Iran and Russia — has prompted the oil-rich Gulf sheikdoms to keep pumping oil even as the price falls. In their game of petro-chicken, the desperate sheiks hope that either their poorer enemies will run out of cash, or that fracking in the U.S. will become unprofitable and cease.

Everyone seems to have forgotten about “peak oil” — the catchphrase of the new millennium.

The world in general, and the United States in particular, supposedly had already burned more oil than was left under the Earth. Under President Barack Obama, gasoline prices had soared. When he entered office in January 2009, gas prices averaged around $1.60 per gallon. Four years later, by spring of 2013, gas prices had climbed beyond $3.50 a gallon.

Decreased use of expensive energy was deemed desirable. Cash-strapped commuters would be forced to drive less, thereby advancing the noble cause of curbing supposed manmade global warming. Federal subsidies flowed for high-speed rail. Wind, solar and other alternate energies could at last become competitive. Cap-and-trade legislation looked as if it might sail through Congress.

Unfortunately for the Obama administration, the new age of sky-high oil prices proved an economic disaster. The natural cycle of recovery never quite followed the end of the recession in mid-2009, as U.S. budget and trade deficits soared.

Abroad, all the wrong countries were empowered as never before.

The late Hugo Chavez used his oil windfall in Venezuela to subsidize subversion throughout Latin America. Petrodollar-rich Russian President Vladimir Putin charted a confident anti-American foreign policy.

Iran used its growing riches to step up progress toward producing a nuclear bomb while upping subsidies to terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah.

Almost everything Obama tried for six years in an effort to rev the economy — from near-zero interest rates and $1 trillion annual budget deficits to Obamacare and vast increases in entitlements — has failed. His foreign-policy stances of resets and leading from behind led to chaos and emboldened enemies.

Abroad, spendthrift oil producers such as hostile Iran, Russia and Venezuela are nearly broke. Friendly rivals such as Japan and the European Union can’t compete with the U.S. energy edge.

What Obama once ridiculed is now saving him from himself — after he had championed policies that nearly destroyed him.

The Greeks had a word for it: irony.

“Give me control of a nation’s money
and I care not who makes the laws.”

Mayer Amschel Rothschild

[Mayer Amschel Bauer] (1744 -1812),

Lord Jacob Rothschild Confronted About Bilderberg & The Federal …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLlxqGkmq0k - 367k - Cached - Similar pages
Jun 1, 2012

Housing Costs for Renters Rose by $20.6 Billion This Year

By John Gittelsohn Dec 30, 2014 12:01 AM ET

U.S. renters paid $441 billion for apartments and houses this year, a $20.6 billion increase, as fewer Americans owned their homes and landlords with tight inventories raised leasing charges, Zillow Inc. (Z) said today.

The number of rental households grew by 2 percent, or 770,000, nationally during 2014, according to the Seattle-based real estate information service. In the New York metropolitan area, the largest U.S. housing market, the number of rental residences expanded by 63,000 to 3.4 million, with tenants spending a total of $50 billion for shelter.

http://www.bloomberg.com/…/housing-costs-for-renters-rose-by-20-6-billion-this-year.html - 148k -

Because manipulators have to manipulate:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/01/has-noaa-once-again-tried-to-adjust-data-to-match-climate-models/

Debtors prisons are making a come-back as Obama’s economic “recovery” enriches the .1% while pauperizing the working poor and those already on the margins.

http://www.shtfplan.com/commodities/specter-of-debtors-prisons-looms-over-americans-who-just-cant-pay-you-cant-squeeze-blood-from-a-turnip_12302014

Gold Prices versus Federal Funds Rate

http://static.cdn-seekingalpha.com/uploads/2014/8/4/6546411-14071940469614694-Ben-Kramer-Miller.png

The Top Ten Political Fictions of 2014
American Thinker | 01/01/2015 | By Marguerite Creel

1. The border is less porous than it’s been any time since the 1970s. — President Barack Obama, Business Roundtable, December 3, 2014

According to Stephen Dinan of the Washington Times, illegal immigration on the southwestern American border actually rose 14 percent over the prior year, marking the third straight annual increase. In response, Medicare budgets, along with local medical services budgets, have been bankrupted. K-12 resources were stretched and food bank stores were depleted as states attempted to somehow address the monthly incursions of thousands of illegal aliens crossing the border.

2. The Common Core State Standards are not a curriculum or set of lesson plans. — U.S. Department of Education Website

3. The EPA proposed a common-sense plan to cut carbon pollution from power plants. — The White House Website

The EPA rules proposed on June 2, 2014, actually had ten states scrambling to address the phony climate-change crisis through emissions reduction goals of 40 percent or more by 2030. Onerously unconstitutional and unnecessary goals were designated by means of yet another arbitrary, business-oppressing equation: dividing CO2 emissions [in pounds] by the amount of electricity generated [in megawatt hours]. Blanket authority seized under the Clean Air Act works to dramatically reduce jobs and increase private and public sector costs; ultimately leading to homeowners being slapped in the face with what President Obama presciently termed “necessarily skyrocketing” electricity rates in 2015 and beyond.

4. IRS systems and processes to support enrollment in the health care marketplaces were launched on schedule and continue to work as planned. — IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, House Ways & Means Testimony, September 10, 2014

5. We are obligated to protect Muslims from global warming. — Secretary of State John Kerry, C-SPAN, posted September 3, 2014

Wasting billions of U.S. dollars by participating in the climate-change hoax was apparently not enough for cabinet members. By rhetorically doubling down in a truly global sense, extra billions will wantonly disappear into the Middle East conflagration. Actual recipients of these taxpayer dollars will forever remain unknown, serving to further enhance the current administration’s well-earned moniker of ‘least transparent’ administration ever. Be it scientific promotion at NASA or infrastructure building by the Defense Department, the ever more expensive outreach to Muslim communities is the issue de jour to subvert established and potentially advantageous missions of U.S. global agencies.

6. Since I have come into office, there’s almost no economic metric by which you couldn’t say that the U.S. economy is better and that the corporate bottom lines are better. — President Barack Obama, Economist Interview, August 2, 2014

7. As Commander-in-Chief, my highest priority is the security of the American people. — President Barack Obama, Public Statement on ISIL, September 10, 2014

The president talked a big game, but where was any impactful — or at a minimum insightful — response to the murder of American citizens in Syria, Libya, and Yemen? How did the authorization of 68,000 ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ cards for criminal illegal aliens in 2013 keep the United States safe in 2014? Was the unilateral release of five murderous anti-American Guantanamo Bay Taliban detainees for one army sergeant the action of an administration that values American security? Are there any Americans, much less a majority, convinced that the risk of a national outbreak of a deadly infectious disease was worth sending thousands of American troops to monitor Ebola in Liberia?

8. We’re Republicans. We actually think you should read the bill before you vote on it. — Speaker of the House John Boehner, AEI Presentation, September 18, 2014

9. The Diversity Visa (DV) program offers up to 50,000 visas annually to people who wish to immigrate to the United States. — Consulate General of the United States Website

10. The Justice Department’s investigation into the shooting of Michael Brown remains ongoing. — Attorney General Eric Holder, Ferguson Grand Jury Press Statement, November 24, 2014

The obama recovery is just getting going kiddies!

Keep voting democrat!

—————————

More millennials missing out on recovery, living with parents
the hill | 12/30/14 | Kevin Cirilli

A Congressional report released Tuesday found that millennials are not feeling the impacts of the economic recovery.

The Joint Economic Committee’s report added to what’s become a long list of economic data showing that millennials are delaying major life decisions such as buying a home and getting married.

In 2003, nearly 40 percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 headed a household. In 2013, the rate declined to 37.2 percent.

Meanwhile, the percentage of millennials living with their parents has increased from 11 percent before the recession to 14 percent,

Beirut’s rebuilt downtown lacking
Not so long ago, the historic downtown of Beirut was a wasteland of scorched buildings and rubble. Now it’s a wasteland of unoccupied plush apartments and posh cafes, refurbished Ottoman-era buildings and boutiques by Burberry and Versace.
“Downtown should have soul. It should be alive,” said Mona Hallak, an architect and historical-preservation activist. “But what we have is a culture-free ghost town for the rich.”
The average Lebanese worker earns less than $10,000 a year and can’t afford the new multimillion-dollar residences or the swank offerings from the boutiques of Ermenegildo Zegna or Swarovski.
“This isn’t a downtown. It’s an investment for wealthy people,” said Mohamad Hashash, a 38-year-old psychiatrist.
The area just needs more time to grow, said Abed Halbaoui, a 66-year-old engineer who bought a three-bedroom apartment in the area in 2009. “You can’t have a vibrant downtown in just a couple of years. Something like this takes a hundred years to develop,” he said.
His property has been a good financial investment. But his family refuses to move in, preferring the security of their other home in Dubai.
Back at the Grand Café, the manager was too concerned over how to pay the restaurant’s $25,000 monthly rent to ponder how the reconstruction project should have gone differently. With so few customers, he said, it was not clear whether the restaurant can remain solvent.
“It’s beautiful here,” he said. “But is this business affordable? I don’t know.”

The Tragedy of the American Military (lengthy article)
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/12/the-tragedy-of-the-american-military/383516/

Scroll down quickly for graphics and photos.

cnbc ratings are still cratering 6 years into the recovery. Why aren’t people watching anymore? Are they tired of BS? Mom an pop use to get their stock picks from the show.

Just did my year end portfolio performance review. My net worth gained by 2.9% in 2014. It makes sense since my income was lower than the previous year and I sold stocks all during the year. That was probably my slowest rate gain in six years. Moved a lot of money to cash and short term and intermediate term bonds that could take me to full retirement in 2026 without tapping my tax deferred retirement plans. But of course the yields on those are low.

The physical precious metals will do for protecting me from hyperYellenism.

“One effect of the new money flowing disproportionately into asset prices is that the Fed cannot “grow the economy” as much as it used to, since more of the new money created in the banking system flows into asset prices rather than into GDP. Since it is commonly thought that creating money is necessary for a growing economy, and since it is believed that the Fed creates real demand (instead of only monetary demand), the Fed pumps more and more money into the economy in order to “grow it.”

“A third of Britain’s listed oil and gas companies are in danger of running out of working capital and even going bankrupt amid a slump in the value of crude, according to new research.”

Are any of you guys willing to may more for a house so a broker doesn’t go under?

“The dips have gotten shallower and shallower as ZIRP and other pro-risk central bank policies have eroded the market’s natural defenses against excessive speculation.”

BTFD!

“They were tired of trying to guess the bottom of the market and missing. We don’t have a bottom yet and there’s still a ways to go.”

Feds Sent Almost As Much Military Hardware to Local Cops After Ferguson Protests As They Did Before, Despite Lip Service from Obama

by Ed Krayewski | Reason | January 1, 2015

The police response to protests in Ferguso over the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown brought the issue of militarized police into the forefront of national dialogue. The fight against police militarization became a sort of culture war thing. Eager to show that he sympathized with protesters and to distance himself from the actions and consequences of a federal government he’s indisputably at the head of, President Obama ordered a review of the Pentagon’s 1033 program, under which military surplus is sent to local law enforcement. Demilitarizing our cities and communities was always going to be an uphill battle; the police didn’t militarize of their own accord, the years-long process would be impossible without a level of support not just from politicians but voters too.

Now the Washington Times reports on just how little the president’s review and protests in Ferguson changed the facts on the ground:

A Washington Times analysis of the first three months after the riots shows the program remains popular with law enforcement agencies throughout the country, though there have been some changes in the types of equipment that are now being offered.

The 3,879 rifles the Pentagon shipped was an astronomical increase over the dozen rifles shipped during the same three-month period in 2013, with several police agencies taking delivery of hundreds of rifles soon after the Ferguson riots.

Armored vehicles, which drew particular scrutiny in the riots in Ferguson and other cities, were less popular in the aftermath. The Pentagon shipped just 11 mine-resistant vehicles, or MRAPs, from Aug. 15 through Nov. 14, compared to nearly 180 in the same time period a year earlier.

Will China bulls sh!t brics if it turns out their economy is actually contracting?

Economics
December 29, 2014
The Return of the Eurozone Crisis Might Be the Top Economic Story of 2015
By Danny Vinik

On Monday, Greek lawmakers failed to elect a president in a third and final parliamentary vote that dissolves the current government and sets up snap elections in late January. The outcome, while not unexpected, has reignited worries that domestic political issues in Europe could set off a larger crisis and pose a major risk to the global economy.

The greatest fear is that the weak European economy, which is teetering on the edge of another recession, will cause a backlash among domestic voters and lead extreme parties to major political victories. Last May, such parties across Europe gained seats in European parliamentary elections. In France, the anti-euro National Front party won the national vote for the first time. The U.K. Independence Party topped polls in the United Kingdom as well. And in Greece, the far-left Syriza party came in first with 27 percent of the vote.

Those votes weren’t that meaningful since the center-right and center-left blocs still retained enough members to form a governing coalition. But if the extreme political parties took control of government in individual Eurozone countries, it could pose a major risk to the entire European project—and that’s exactly what could happen in Greece with Syriza next year.

“The thing I worry most about isn’t so much Greece but whether what’s happening in Greece affects the politics in the rest of Europe,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s. “If what’s happening in Greece is a catalyst for broader political change around Europe, I think that’s the real issue.”
…