Saturday, February 14, 2015

Tax and Spend

Greece has all the leverage against its eurozone lenders.
"Amazingly, Greece has all the leverage in these negotiations. Really? Yes they do and the following quote sums it all up….“If you owe a bank one thousand dollars and cannot pay it back, then YOU have a problem; but if you owe a bank one million dollars and cannot pay it back, then the BANK has a problem”. In this case the Euro-Zone is the bank…and they are owed > $315B. Greece is the poor little client with no practical chance of repaying any of this debt.
The Euro-Zone is well aware of this predicament. The worst case scenario for them is Greece “flipping them the bird” as they wave goodbye to the euro. The write-downs would be massive, capital would have to be raised to replace it, the economic disruption to all of Europe would be substantial and other large creditor countries to the Euro-Zone [Italy and Spain] may be tempted to copy Greece’s move and just “bolt” from the EU.
And…the future of the Euro-Zone could actually be in peril and that is dangerous to the entire global economy."
To keep Greece in the eurozone, lenders have to accommodate it.
"But…alas…Greece’s leaders have a brilliant idea to solve all of these lingering problems and, of course, it has to do with money printing. Greece has suggested that the Euro-Zone’s central bank [ECB] simply purchase most of Greece’s near term [5 years] maturity debt and actually deliver the proceeds back to Greece.
Greece’s message to the Euro-Zone amounts to…since you are starting an indefinite debt monetization program in just two short months…why not include us in the money printing party too even though our ability to repay our obligations is essentially zero? Hey…we’ll even pay for the paper and ink….with the money you’ve already given to us.
Everybody wins… no write-offs for the Euro-Zone, a little breathing room for Greece, the euro depreciates even more [an objective of debt monetization] and when Greece, inevitably defaults, the ECB can just print more money for them, once again, to defer the inevitable pain.
“In your face” Euro-Zone. Greece outsmarted you at the negotiating table and you will likely acquiesce to their creative requests…in all of your money printing shame…or is it just a dubious honor?"
They'll probably do it. At least a bunch of it.

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