-
Europe Has a Looming Debt Problem
Europe’s leaders have so far demonstrated surprising courage in handling the coronavirus pandemic. If they want a banking system capable of supporting a recovery, they’ll have to muster some more. European Union members have taken bold steps to help the economy heal, most notably by pooling hundreds of billions of euros to support the hardest-hit among them. Yet as the pandemic drags on, another challenge looms: managing the losses that banks will inevitably suffer as corporate and household borrowers prove unable to pay their debts. By one estimate, worst-case losses could exceed 800 billion euros across the ... (full story)