Europe: Still a slow-moving train wreck

 

Now that it looks like Cyprus won't be leaving the eurozone, investors should not forget that the continent has bigger problems.

Sure, Cyprus yielded about a week of scary headlines, but the Cyprus obsession served as a distraction from the real story: much of Europe is still an economic mess that has nothing to do with Russian bank deposits in the tiny island nation. There never was a silent C for Cyprus in the PIIGS acronym of troubled European nations that actually matter.

Stocks did pull back Monday, after an initial celebration of the Cyprus bailout. It was a pretty mild sell-off though. And the market bounced back a bit Tuesday.

But here's why you still need to be worried about Europe.

The most recently available unemployment rates in Greece, Spain and Portugal (which last I checked are all a tad bigger than in Cyprus) were 26.4%, 26.2% and 17.6% respectively.

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A train without a breaks on a downhill

Reason: