CITI's Chief Economist Willem Buiter on Sovereign Debt Crisis

An interesting analysis by Citi's Chief economist Willem Buiter. I think one of the strongest point is that "Irish crisis highlighted that the distinction between public and private balance sheets can become blurred in a crisis". But then this highlights the need for public authorities to regulate private banks's exposure to debt to unsure that it can covered by the state up in the context of a crisis. This in turn raises the question of how we define property rights in capitalist economies and whether this is consistent with how we deal with financial crisis.