Eurozone debt crisis plan: live

BRUSSELS – The European Union reached a landmark deal on Thursday to make the European Central Bank the bloc’s top banking supervisor, giving EU leaders greater confidence that they are gaining the upper hand over the eurozone’s debt crisis. EU finance ministers forged a deal on the single supervisor in the early hours of Thursday after marathon talks. Leaders will give their stamp of approval at a summit starting later in the day, their last of 2012, and also discuss closer fiscal ties for their troubled currency area.

By Eric Parnell:In our third week since the end of QE2, a fleeting feeling of euphoria returned to the stock market. Today’s crisis is dead, and stocks celebrated, but the crisis unfortunately lives on in many forms that remain far from resolved.

The eurozone sealed a grand deal to overcome its festering debt crisis Thursday when banks agreed to take a 50 percent loss on Greek debt, officials said.Eurozone officials announced the deal following tough talks in Brussels between leaders of the eurozone and the Institute of International Finance banking lobby to force the private sector to share the pain of Greece's debt burden.The agreement was the last and perhaps toughest chapter to negotiate in a wide-ranging four-point plan to find a lasting solution to Europe's festering debt crisis.

DAVOS, Switzerland — Is the euro crisis over? A leading U.S. economist says not by a long shot. Even as the head of the European Central Bank talked Friday of “positive contagion” in the markets and predicted an economic recovery for the recession-hit eurozone later this year, economist Barry Eichengreen warned that the debt crisis that has shaken Europe to its core could easily erupt again this year unless European leaders move faster to solve their problems.

DAVOS, Switzerland — Is the euro crisis over? A leading U.S. economist says not by a long shot. Even as the head of the European Central Bank talked Friday of “positive contagion” in the markets and predicted an economic recovery for the recession-hit eurozone later this year, economist Barry Eichengreen warned that the debt crisis that has shaken Europe to its core could easily erupt again this year unless European leaders move faster to solve their problems.

LONDON — It would be fair to say that U.S. hedge-fund manager Kyle Bass does not expect the explosion in global debt in recent years to turn out well. “This ends through war,” Bass, the founder of Hayman Capital Management in Dallas, said. “I don’t know who’s going to fight who, but I’m fairly certain that in the next few years you will see wars erupt, and not just small ones,” he told a recent conference.