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Strategies & Market Trends : ahhaha's ahs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ahhaha who wrote (20182)	12/16/2011 8:44:39 AM
From: ahhaha	Respond to of 24758

As I was saying --- Take as an example the fate of Greek banks. These institutions were not the cause of “the Greek problem”. Indeed the severe difficulties they face is as a direct result of their government’s fiscal waywardness, tolerated for too long by a negligent Brussels, that eventually excluded the Greek government and by association Greek banks from the international markets. To add insult to injury the banks have been punished again for their risk aversion and investments in Greek government bonds that as late as the beginning of this year were still regarded as relatively “safe” given what at the time was considered the low risk of a Greek, let alone European, default. In coming days BlackRock Solutions, the international investment firm appointed by the Bank of Greece to assess independently the quality of Greek banks’ loan books, will deliver its results. At the same time the banks are also engaged with the International Monetary Fund, the EU, the European Central Bank and international investors in the latest round of negotiations to define the details of a proposed 50 per cent haircut to be applied to Greek sovereign debt, a core condition of the latest bail-out for Athens agreed by Greece’s European partners. The upshot of all this will be a capital shortfall at all the Greek banks that if not filled by special measures such as fundraising and disposals will probably lead, to a greater or lesser extent, to nationalisation. This week’s announcement by National Bank of Greece, the country’s largest lender, of a proposed €1bn issue of non-voting preference shares to the Greek government shows a determination to avoid eventually being delivered up into the hands of a discredited public sector. Only time will tell to what extent they and their fellow banks succeed. Meanwhile, Greek depositors have shown a certain degree of sangfroid as the euro crisis has ratcheted up. While deposits have seen material outflows, there has been no run on a bank like the one seen at Northern Rock. The Greek banks’ situation must be all the more galling for their managements, not to mention their clients, given that their descent into the financial abyss has been perfectly synchronised with the mishandling of the eurozone crisis by Europe’s leaders. First and foremost among the culprits is the odd Merkel-Sarkozy couple that has led the demonising of Greece as the cause of the crisis, all but ensuring that what should have been a relatively small and eminently solvable problem at the margin of the union became a full-blown crisis of confidence in the entire European project. Found in FT's "Inside Europe" December 15, 2011 5:15 pm Plight of Greece’s banks due to poor European leadership By Paul Betts

To: ahhaha who wrote (20182)	12/16/2011 9:10:47 PM
From: ahhaha	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24758

We have a potential watershed event coming up next week. As I mentioned earlier Greece has to "rollover" government bonds. Why do I use the term, "rollover"? No one seems to use that term these days. Maybe there's no rolling over going on in the world today? Hah! Next Monday and Thursday Greece has to rollover $1B per. They have to come up with $1B in euros each day to pay creditors(France, Germany, many others), and they can't borrow that from the ECB, nor will France or Germany lend them that by previous agreement, an agreement that those majors recognize is absolutely essential to them and to the euro. In theory, they could borrow the euros indirectly from say, Russia, China, BRICS, but practically, that won't happen. So Greece has to come up with this money from internal sources. This will only be possible if the Greek people cooperate. If it was Italy and soon enough it may be Italy, there's no way Italy's leftist dominated unions would cooperate. Greece may be different, but Greece may be so broke that they can't cough up the dough. Or, it may be the private sector there has decided to starve out the government imposed austerity based solely on self preservation, That's when all hell would break loose because Greece would have to be expelled from the EU or confidence in the EU would disintegrate. Greece would experience a true run on domestic banks, and marshal law would have to be declared.