Students at my worthless alma mater, the University of Notre Dame, had a lot of favorite chants that livened up football games and distracted the home crowd from the poor performance of the Fighting Irish on the field. One such chant was "Here come the Irish!" The thinking behind this one was to scare the visiting team into running away in fear at the sight of the Blue and Gold. It never worked.
This chant may actually be an appropriate way to announce the queuing up of the real Irish for a European bailout. Irish debt will still be a bad bet for investors but now all Europe's taxpayers will share the pain of a default. Stalling on needed tax increases won't help Ireland reassure European investors that they can put their house in order. The EU has learned nothing from dealing with Greece. Then again, Greece is making fitful progress towards forcing austerity on its people, so there's some slim hope for sanity after all.
All of this makes me wonder if the iShares MSCI EAFE ETF will be headed down. Its P/E of 12 makes it almost a good deal but it will take more than Continental-sized defaults to make the price reasonable for entry.
Nota bene: No position in EFA at this time.
This chant may actually be an appropriate way to announce the queuing up of the real Irish for a European bailout. Irish debt will still be a bad bet for investors but now all Europe's taxpayers will share the pain of a default. Stalling on needed tax increases won't help Ireland reassure European investors that they can put their house in order. The EU has learned nothing from dealing with Greece. Then again, Greece is making fitful progress towards forcing austerity on its people, so there's some slim hope for sanity after all.
All of this makes me wonder if the iShares MSCI EAFE ETF will be headed down. Its P/E of 12 makes it almost a good deal but it will take more than Continental-sized defaults to make the price reasonable for entry.
Nota bene: No position in EFA at this time.
