Eurozone crisis - a selection of resources

How to deal with this in school? I cannot be the only teacher who is struggling to keep up with the eurozone developments myself, let alone help my students to make any sense of it. Some searching this morning has come up with a variety of articles, graphics and interviews which range from the very basic such as the one-minute video reports from Robert Peston, which might be helpful to an AS student who is just starting to get to grips with the principles of macroeconomics, to some analysis of actual and potential threats to the UK economy and graphics showing the interrelated borrowing between the eurozone countries, which might help the ambitious A2 students to stretch themselves. These are listed below, with a brief description of each one. I am sure that you will have many more to add to the list.

How can countries go bust?
One minute video description of government deficit, borrowing and default by Robert Peston

What is the euro bailout fund?
One minute video description of the EFSF by Robert Peston

Eurozone crisis hits UK companies
Many UK firms are living in fear of an export crunch after the European Union slashed its eurozone growth forecast in 2012: from 1.8% down to just 0.5%. Includes references to Vodafone, Unilever and Barclays among others

Q&A – how will the Eurozone crisis affect British pensions?
The eurozone crisis has slashed the value of pensions by a tenth in the last month alone and threatens to bankrupt some company schemes after investors piled into British government bonds, pushing their yields – or interest rates – to the lowest level in living memory.

Eurozone bank exposure to government debt map
Really good graphic showing the level of exposure (in $) of banks in various countries to debt in Eurozone countries – look particularly at French exposure to lending to Greece and Italy….

Europe’s web of debt
Data from May 2010 but shows extent of interrelated lending between the PIIGS and also some of the extent of their borrowing from Britain, France and Germany

Eurozone deepening crisis
Brilliant interactive graphic from The Economist showing levels of debt:GDP; Budget balances; unemployment; GDP etc

Today programme, Saturday 12 Nov
Some fascinating discussions of the crisis this morning – this link takes you to the running order for the programme, from where you can listen to the programme in full – I suggest you fast forward to the interview at 8.30am with Sir Victor Blank, former chairman of Lloyds Banking Group, Great Universal Stores and Trinity Mirror among other things, and then to 8.53am for the discussion ‘Is the eurozone crisis a moment of panic, or a turning point in history?’ between Oxford University’s Timothy Garton Ash and the LSE’s Mary Kaldor.