In order to explain the Euro debt crisis, Michael Cembalest, the Chief Investment Officer of JP Morgan’s private bank, sent around a research note that used Legos to depict the different players. The Legos were fashioned by his 9-year old son. This really happened. Here’s the legend to explain which parties each figure represents, or you can play a fun game and guess on your own first.

1. Spain, Italy, Euro Periphery
2. CDU, CSU, FDP, the three German parties controlling the German Bundestag, their parliament
3. Finland
4. Social Democrats and Greens
5. Bundesbank, the German central bank
6. IMF
7. European Central Bank
8. Poland
9. France
10. EU taxpayers in Core countries
11. EU Commission and Euro Group Finance Ministers
12. EU bondholders and shareholders

For such a big fancy bank to use Legos to discuss such a serious issue might seem silly, but Cembalest says it serves the message. He wrote, “If today’s diorama analysis borders on the absurd, so does maintaining the fiction that accumulation of massive public and private sector claims in Europe can somehow be engineered away.”

Here’s a PDF of the whole research note.

JP Morgan explains the euro crisis with lego [Felix Salmon] (Thanks to RevancheRM!)

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