From the January 31, 2012 issue of the Financial Times comes the following in no particular order:

Poland’s foreign minister recently called for more German leadership concerning Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has agreed to campaign for Mr. Sarkozy in this year’s French presidential election…irony?

European banks are now asking for one trillion euro in emergency funding. Apparently, some of the banks have been using this money to invest in higher-yielding euro-zone sovereign bonds in an effort to drive down borrowing costs for the likes of Italy, Spain, Ireland and Greece…defaults in the making?

And…yields on Portugese 10-year bonds have hit 17 percent. This is reminiscent of those Icelandic banks that were offering high interest rates on certificates of deposits just before the big crash…coincidence?

Greece will struggle to meet its target for asset sales even by the already delayed deadline of 2017. Private equity firms are visiting Athens shopping for bargains…imminent collapse of the real estate market?

Data on US money market mutual funds suggest that dollar deposits withdrawn from European banks have gone to other international banks or directly into US bond markets…panic?