A Global Album Of Sovereign Insolvency

by Tyler Durden
01/09/2011 17:17 -0500

When it comes to providing analytical perspectives and empirical insights into the realm of sovereign deterioration, few come close to the work of Reinhart and Rogoff. Citi’s Willem Buiter is one such man. In his latest summary piece describing in excruciating detail just how bad things are at the sovereign level (and judging by tonight's opening print in the EURUSD more are starting to realize this), Buiter provides a terrific country by country guide of what is now an insolvent world, starting with the merely extremely risky, going through the backstop-baiters, and finishing with the time bombs that have already gone off and everybody pretends not to care. For those who do care, this is a definitive guide to what each individual European (and not only) country can look forward to in an age of global moral hazard. The only open question: with China's interest now to preserve the Euro's viability, how will Beijing act in the next few months as the eurozone finally starts unraveling.

But before getting into the gritty details, here is the latest updates series of sovereign charts.

“Gross debt-to-GDP ratios are rising fast across the industrialized world.â€