European Sovereign Debt Crisis

  

The financial crisis of 2008 started in the U.S. subprime mortgage market, but spread around the world. The European pocket of the disaster was named "the European Sovereign Debt Crisis."

"Sovereign debt" is the name given to bonds issued by governments. The hardest hit of the EU countries was Greece, which became the face of the crisis. The country's bonds reached junk status, prompting international agencies, like the International Monetary Fund and the larger EU countries, to step in and bail Greece out.

Greece has a 32-hour work week. How are your lats and glutes there, Greece? You people must be in amazing shape, able to spend allll that time at the gym while the rest of the world, um, works.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is LIBOR?21 Views

00:00

Finance allah shmoop what is a lie Boer No it's

00:07

not the result of these two zoo animals Mating lie

00:10

Boer stands for london interbank offering rate And it's basically

00:15

just the british quote fed unquote central bank rate reflecting

00:20

the absolute lowest interest rate at which the british banking

00:23

system well loan money to its best Most well heeled

00:26

customers like you know sainsbury's and bp and barclays and

00:30

the guy who plans royal weddings So library is the

00:33

best or cheapest rate at which the british banking system

00:36

will lend money Most loans come at some premium to

00:40

lie before i risk your loans might come in something

00:42

like on a live or plus fifty basis points or

00:45

something like that so that if lie boris currently quoted

00:48

at two point two five percent interest well then the

00:50

lie bore plus fifty loan would be loaned out at

00:53

two point seven five percent interest And libras important has

00:57

been around forever and much of the world uses it

00:59

as thie pegging number two then add some risk percentage

01:03

on top of it when they quote loans to whoever

01:06

they're loaning money to That's basically it No need for 00:01:08.819 --> [endTime] any wild animals teo you know get wild

Up Next

Econ: What is the European Monetary System? (How the Euro Came To Be)
7 Views

What is the European Monetary System? (How did the euro come to be) The European Monetary System is the agreed upon currency that’s used by many...

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)