OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria On Spain, Portugal, U.S. Deficit, Global Food Inflation & Imbalance

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Video - Angel Gurria, secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, talks about efforts to address fiscal problems in Spain and Portugal. Gurria also discusses imbalances in the food supply chain, global inflation threats, the U.S. deficit and the outlook for this week's Group of 20 finance ministers meeting - Feb. 17, 2011

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[DailyBail]

Spain Bond Sale Short of Top Target as Demand Drops

The gap between Spanish and German 10-year borrowing costs widened for the first time in three days, to 216 basis points after the sale from 210 basis points yesterday. That compares with a euro-era high of 298 basis points reached on Nov. 30 and an average of 15 basis points in the monetary union’s first decade.

“It’s disappointing, we were expecting the auction to go fairly well,” said Harvinder Sian, a senior bond strategist at Royal Bank of Scotland Plc in London. “It’s not a disaster but the market is in no mood for a nuanced debate.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-17/spanish-bond-auction-falls-short-of-maximum-target-as-demand-declines.html

[DailyBail]

Spanish Bonds Fall as Country Sells Less Debt Than Planned

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-17/spanish-government-bonds-fall-as-debt-sale-falls-short-of-treasury-target.html

[john]

Breaking:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2011/02/gov_patrick_ope.html

[john]

This story appeared this am so I knew something was up..... It is a friday news cycle....

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2011/02/obama_heading_t.html

[S. Gompers]

I agree with many of the points Angel Gurria is making in regard to systemic problems in the food supply chain. Will they get corrected? No.

However I disagree with far more of his other points.