Word: zone
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Three other nations on the fringe of the euro zone--Portugal, Ireland and Spain--are caught in the undertow of Greece's crisis. All three have displayed better fiscal behavior than Greece, but they suffer from the same disconnect between their dire local economic conditions and the monetary policymakers in Frankfurt with other things on their minds. Meanwhile, a core euro-zone country, Italy, has also fallen out of favor with investors because of its high government debt. In a sure sign that these troubles are serious, market analysts have assigned them a catchy acronym: PIGS, for Portugal, Ireland, Greece...
...power to use monetary policy to ease its pain, as the Federal Reserve has been doing in a big way in the U.S. The only options for Greece are to 1) scrimp and save to convince creditors that it can keep paying them off, 2) convince its fellow euro-zone countries--or maybe the International Monetary Fund--to bail it out, 3) default on its debts or 4) pull out of the euro...
Across the quake zone, relief agencies were quickly distributing some 30 tons of high-energy cookies that the World Food Programme (WFP) developed for just this kind of emergency. Each 100-g packet--that's roughly the weight of two Snickers bars--delivers 450 calories of energy, a bunch of vitamins and minerals and up to 15 g of protein and 15 g of fat. Oh, and no more than 15 g of sugar. This is meant to be survival food, not Red Bull in solid form...
...rest of the euro-zone countries can come to the rescue. Indeed, these countries - led by France and Germany - have pledged twice this month to do what's necessary to see Greece through its deficit crisis and defend the common currency. If need be, officials say, that will include a financial bailout of Greece, providing the funds to allow Athens to make its debt payments as the government slashes spending and raises taxes, no matter how unpopular this may be with its taxpayers. (See "In Paris and Berlin, Fury Over a Greek Bailout...
...convinced the euro zone will be forced to further integrate their economies, coordinate budgets and tax structures as well as cede budgetary and oversight powers to a central body tasked with preventing collective calamities from happening - and distributing emergency funds when problems do arise. Some observers even hope that, far from killing the euro, the crisis may remedy its structural failings. "Europe has always advanced when forced by necessity," editorial writer Bernard Guetta noted in the Libération newspaper on Wednesday. "So it's now that things will start to happen...