This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.

Visualizing Contagion

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Contagion may be last year's word (this year's we are fairly confident will be 'stagflation' but we must give the mainstream media 3-6 months to figure this out), but it is never too late to visualize just how tenuous and perilous the supernational credit linkages between the various countries, especially in Europe are. Below we present a very useful interactive chart by the WaPo demonstrating the exposure linkages not only through banking and loans, but, just as importantly, and often forgotten, through trade.

From WaPo's Neil Irwin:

Greece sneezed, and now most of Europe has a cold. The European debt crisis has already spread like a virus from Greece to Ireland, and other countries are now at risk: Portugal, Spain, and Italy are probable candidates for financial problems. Economists call this the “contagion effect.” How does this spread? Some of it has to do with confidence. When investors see one country encounter financial problems, they may doubt the health of other countries that seem to share economic or even political characteristics.

Contagion also has much to do with actual economic links among countries. Researchers have identified financial ties in particular as responsible for the “fast and furious” spread of crisis from one country to another. Trading activity between countries, however, can propagate economic sickness more slowly.

And full chart - click through for interactive goodness.

 

- advertisements -

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.
Mon, 01/17/2011 - 15:54 | 882354 Don Birnam
Don Birnam's picture

This looks a graphic representation of a retrovirus.

Apt image.

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 16:01 | 882376 mikla
mikla's picture

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 16:11 | 882397 Don Birnam
Don Birnam's picture

Quite so, mikla.

+1

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 16:35 | 882463 LawsofPhysics
LawsofPhysics's picture

Nicely done, +1

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 18:37 | 882725 gwar5
gwar5's picture

I don't think retroviruses have lipid envelopes, but the EU has Greece, so it works just fine. 

Other Definitions:

Protease = lap dancer.

Gag protein = SEC

Reverse transcriptase = TARP

Integrase = Goldman Sachs

Receptor binding proteins = politicians

Mayonnaise = what we'll all be eating when they get through killing the host

 

 

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 20:20 | 882930 Hephasteus
Hephasteus's picture

Mikla brings home the bacon. Sorry mikla and don bring home bacon.

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 15:58 | 882367 snowball777
snowball777's picture

Oh what a tangled web we weave...

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 16:18 | 882422 Sudden Debt
Sudden Debt's picture

There are about a hundred countries missing in that web.

 

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 16:27 | 882452 bunkermeatheadp...
bunkermeatheadprogeny's picture

And its missing the most important one - China.

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 17:28 | 882576 Sudden Debt
Sudden Debt's picture

If you would have said Belgium we could have been friends....

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 20:35 | 882962 Freewheelin Franklin
Freewheelin Franklin's picture

But, but, Belgium doesn't have a government.

Tue, 01/18/2011 - 00:04 | 883367 snowball777
snowball777's picture

Too soon, man. Too soon.

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 16:38 | 882468 hugovanderbubble
hugovanderbubble's picture

Buy the Dipz¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡:)

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 16:06 | 882390 Eternal Student
Eternal Student's picture

As I mentioned in a post yesterday, now imagine what happens from this chart when one country defaults. And it makes one wonder what the side effects are in the derivatives market.

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 16:21 | 882432 Don Birnam
Don Birnam's picture

Think the financial equivalent of "The Andromeda Strain."

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 16:27 | 882453 mikla
mikla's picture

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 19:14 | 882816 EvlTheCat
EvlTheCat's picture

Worst remake ever!

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 19:49 | 882870 Eternal Student
Eternal Student's picture

Never saw the remake. But that's a pretty cool picture.

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 16:17 | 882415 Ferg .
Ferg .'s picture

Excellent stuff .

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 17:54 | 882639 scratch_and_sniff
scratch_and_sniff's picture

So everyone's in a bit of debt, shocking.

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 20:26 | 882942 Hephasteus
Hephasteus's picture

Fractional reserve mechanics. Look at the creation of our first central bank. Congress gave them some amount of money. They copied it 10 times between the bank owners and started lending it out at interest. It's all fraud and counterfeit and stupidity.

It won't globalize because the fraud breaks down without a self/other boundry to feed into it. So I guess endgame is turning all these counterfeited debts into 10 copies of you owe me and will always owe me cause there is no "other" to save you. There is only zuul. All the IMF has is a mathematical puzzle trick and a willingness to be a huge fucking dick.

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 20:43 | 882976 Freewheelin Franklin
Freewheelin Franklin's picture

Hell, look at the creation of our first fiat currency.

 

Chapter 1 (pg 51)

 

Apart from medieval China, which invented both paper
and printing centuries before the West, the world had never
seen government paper money until the colonial government
of Massachusetts emitted a fiat paper issue in 1690...

http://mises.org/books/historyofmoney.pdf

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 23:25 | 883288 Hephasteus
Hephasteus's picture

That's not the first bank charter. That's congressional issued scrip and it worked. And this caused england to bring out it's interest alignment tools. They new that if this took root and grew in america it would suck ALL the talent to it.  So they started repeatedly sticking them on the interest alignment machine to steer them towards thier empire.

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 18:21 | 882705 gwar5
gwar5's picture

I think the contagion is deep and pervasive already. The stepwise manner each sovereign crises is being revealed and controlled is deliberate and stage crafted by the EU can make it appear more manageable than it really is.

They couldn't have dispatched Ireland's sovereignty so easily if Spain, Portugal and Greece had to be dealt with at the same time.

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 18:22 | 882710 RingToneDeaf
RingToneDeaf's picture

A bit limited I think, typical Washington Post.

What about Asia?

Huh?

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 18:36 | 882737 Ancona
Ancona's picture

Bwaaahahahahahaha!!

Were doomed.......doomed I say!

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 18:49 | 882763 Seasmoke
Seasmoke's picture

what we have now is stagflation and it is the very Worst of all the flations

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 19:11 | 882813 OddFieldIsStrong
OddFieldIsStrong's picture

I would appreciate some insight as to why Ireland is so incredibly exposed:

Loans to extended to UK from Ireland = 121% of Ireland GDP

Loans to extended to US from Ireland = 52.5% of Ireland GDP

 

Loans to extended to Italy from Ireland = 23.8% of Ireland GDP

If UK, US or Italy get a hiccup, there would not any ash left of Ireland. 121% of GDP? WTF?! 

Which banks/institutions are responsible for extending these loans? What is the rationale? Isn't there any oversight? 

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 21:21 | 883034 Eternal Student
Eternal Student's picture

There is a lot you need to come up to speed on. Since no one else has bothered, I'll take a too brief stab. For starters, take a look at Iceland's recent history. It might shock you. One guy was working on a fishing boat one day, and was a international banker the next. I wish I were kidding.

As far as what banks made the loans, Germany has a huge exposure. That's why they recently raided Ireland and grabbed their retirement funds. All in the name of "saving Ireland".

The rationale was to make money. We've been in a Credit bubble, and that's deflating. Ireland had a convincing story (it was the "Celtic Tiger"), and people with excess cash bought it.

As far as "oversight" goes, you'd need to define the term. Does a blind man offer oversight? How about a crazy, deluded one?

Tue, 01/18/2011 - 04:17 | 883568 OddFieldIsStrong
OddFieldIsStrong's picture

I don't think you have exactly answered my question. My specific questions are around Ireland, not Iceland. 

Ireland is incredibly exposed - loans originating in Ireland to UK, US and Italy are almost 200% of Ireland GDP. No other country even come close. It raises so many questions. Where do the money come from? Which company/institution gave out the loans? Is it a small group of companies/institutions, or a big bunch of people all gone mad?

 

 

Tue, 01/18/2011 - 09:09 | 883673 THE DORK OF CORK
THE DORK OF CORK's picture

A significant amount of this debt is washed through the IFSC building in Dublin , the irish state is not important in its transactions - that place is full of dark matter and is one of the centres for the shadow banking sector , also the majority of Irish "deposits" are external bank bonds which was and is used to farm naive people - Ireland is a colony.

Check out the amount of US Treasuries running through Ireland on a monthly basis - it will shock you.

 


Major Foreign Holders of U.S. Treasury Securities - US Department ...

 - 2 visits - 05:

Sat, 02/05/2011 - 04:28 | 937070 OddFieldIsStrong
OddFieldIsStrong's picture

Thank you for the insight. Under that context there is even less legitimate reasons for the Irish government to have bailed out these banks under the control of foreign interests. 

Sat, 02/05/2011 - 04:32 | 937072 OddFieldIsStrong
OddFieldIsStrong's picture

Wow. UK more than *tripled* holdings of US Treasuries from Nov 09 to Nov 10.

Yup that makes sense. Obviously.

Wed, 01/19/2011 - 11:19 | 886998 Eternal Student
Eternal Student's picture

Google is your best bet for the specific Banks. But you're looking at individual trees, and not the forest. Which won't lead you to understand what happened, and why.

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 19:50 | 882871 buzzsaw99
buzzsaw99's picture

The circle jerk chart is simpler.

banks->CONgreff->tehfed->banks

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 19:51 | 882872 cityguyusa
cityguyusa's picture

I think this is just a tactic to keep eyes from the US debt.  Anytime a company even with a smeared reputation like Goldman Sach talks people follow their lead regardless of the evidence which wasn't really presented just stated.  But markets are ulimately about beliefs and not reality at least in this day and age a rumor has more power than 10 acres of old growth forrest trees turned in paper and printed with accounting information.

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 20:28 | 882949 Hephasteus
Hephasteus's picture

Especially when the 10 acres of printed paper are just repetive lies that don't mean anything.

Mon, 01/17/2011 - 23:09 | 883264 ZackLo
ZackLo's picture

I was looking at the export chart and i figured that we exported most of our stuff to europe  but it says no more then 1% of all us exported goods go to europe (britain included) and on the debt chart it looks like ireland and britain are all in on the usa with ireland leverageing up it's bets through britain?

so my main question is what do we export? and who buys it? or is the whole world loaning us money and betting on which ussa company is going to buy the most plastic garbage from china? and if ireland sinks will it take britain and by proxy the united states?

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!