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Weekly Wrap: Greece and American banks

Kai Ryssdal Jan 20, 2012

John Carney from CNBC and Felix Salmon from Reuters discuss this week’s news on Wall Street and beyond.

If Greece doesn’t get a deal:

John Carney: So Greece has, on March 20th, a tremendous amount of debt that’s coming due. They do not have the money to pay it off. This will be a gigantic default that would put several European banks in trouble, and we would have an enormous international financial calamity.

Felix Salmon: I don’t think it would be that bad, to be honest. Well, it is a default, there’s no two ways about it. If you don’t pay back $14 billion when it’s due, that’s a default. The only question is: Will you replace that amount that you owed with something else and keep on paying that, or will you just owe that $14 billion and have that paper be in default?

For more analysis, listen to the full audio above.

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