Ian Bremmer: The Middle East will suffer from our G-zero world

From FT:

Nowhere will this lack of global leadership allow for more near-term turmoil than in the Middle East. In recent years, for good and for ill, self-interested outsiders, mainly Americans and Europeans, have imposed a stable status quo across the Arab world. They have promoted and protected autocrats, but they have also helped maintain a sometimes tenuous balance of power.

A Tenuous Balance Has Been Struck in the Markets… Can It Hold?

by Phoenix Capital Research

 

The markets will likely try to rally this week based on the following items:

 

End of quarter performance gaming
Last week’s weak stock performance
Angela Merkel signaling that Germany will increase the pointless “firewall” around Europe’s banking system
Bernanke’s hint that more QE is coming in April in this morning’s speech

 

#1 is a regular phenomenon in the markets and needs not be explained. #2 is closely tied in with the latest policy [...]

EL-ERIAN: Even EU Leaders Know This Greek Deal ‘Will Only Last A Few Months At Best’

by Simone Foxman

If you thought you could finally breathe a sigh of relief about Europe after the latest news about agreement between Greek politicians on new austerity measures, then you are wrong.

PIMCO CEO and co-CIO Mohamed El-Erian is out with a new FT column to crush your dreams. While he calls the latest accord “courageous and ambitious,” in the long run, he says, there’s little chance it will work.

He lists two reasons for this:

“First, [...]