Hedge Funds Won’t Take Haircut
An eminent Oxford Academic, has just said on the BBC that hedge-funds hold 4.4% of Greek debt, which they bought late and they won’t be taking any haircut.
Does this mean that Greece is back on the slippery slope to bankruptcy?
Angela Merkel on Greece
Well not really, but someone purporting to be her has tweeted.
I’m glad I’ve solved the Greek crisis and I look forward to solving it again next week.
Very funny! But it may well be true!
Lloyds Bank Bonuses and the Greek Bailout
The two main financial stories on the BBC this morning are that Lloyds Bank has taken back a lot of bonuses and that the Greek bailout is to be finalised.
I was just wondering if the bosses of Greek banks got any bonuses.
WIll This Greek Package Work?
The Greek government passed a new package of austerity measures last night as this report says. but will the Greek public accept it? As Greeks by repute seem to feel that taxes are optional, I doubt that this deal will stick.
Greece In a Downward Spiral
Not my words, but those of Jason Manolopoulos in an article in The Times today.
This paragraph sums up Greece’s progress to get their economy in check.
The technocrats are nominally in charge and the EU elite is applying plenty of pressure on my country to accelerate reform, but they are discovering that the Greek system is almost ungovernable. It took Ireland just a few weeks to make more progress on cutting back their public sector debt than we have seen in two years in Greece.
And there’s a lot more in the same vein.
The article finishes by saying that an unplanned Greek default and return to the drachma would be catastrophic.
I think I may get hold of Jason’s book called Greece’s Odious Debt.
Everybody else should get hold of today’s Times and read the article, as it has a lot of repercussions for us all. For instance, he claims that the IMF is breaking its own rules, by lending to a country whose debt is above 120% of GDP. nd who’s funding the IMF? We are for a start!
Technology Means It Would Be Easier to Leave the Euro Than It Was To Join
When I wrote the piece about Michael Spencer’s thoughts on the drachma, I didn’t think the whole thing through. I didn’t think about all the new notes that would need to be printed and the conversion of cash machines.
But this article sets it all out. It also contains this interesting paragraph.
“It also rather depends on how individual institutions adapted their systems to the original change-over to the euro,” says Lewis. “My guess is that many organisations in Greece might simply have put a converter around their existing systems, rather as some UK companies did when we went decimal in 1971 – we discovered in the run-up to the year 2000 that at least one major insurance company’s accounts were still running in pounds, shillings and pence!”
So we were still using £sd in 2000. I’ll also admit that in some of the systems I’ve programmed, where we displayed data in Iranian dates or Korean currency, what went on underneath wasn’t pretty. But it worked!
So how did I find the article. A friend told me that De La Rue were printing drachma notes. So I used Google and found that Greece would probably use its own security printer.
Although the De La Rue share price was up by one percent today.
Michael Spencer’s Thoughts on the Drachma and Taxation
Michael Spencer is the CEO of ICAP and someone whose business judgement I respect. He’s also a man with strong Suffolk connections, which is always a plus point.
An article with the headline of “Spencer ready for return of drachma”, sums up his view on what to do, if or when Greece falls out of the euro.
He s also very forthright on what would happen if the financial transaction tax is imposed on the City.
After reading the article though, I suspect it will never be levied, as everybody has too much to lose. Except of course countries like Dubai, who’d laugh all the way to the bank, if it was implemented in substantial parts of the world.
One thing I like about Mr. Spencer, is that his company does its bit for charity. Here’s their page.
If you can get a copy of the article, read it!
If you look at ICAP’s major competitors, they are either in London or based in the United States. Not one is based on German or French soil. So if the European Union brought in a unilateral transaction zone and the UK didn’t levy it, they’d raise precisely zilch. Would banks like Deutsche Bank do their business in Frankfurt, when they could do it cheaper in New York? Of course they would!
The New Greek Bailout
Greece is the Pakistan of Europe.
It is corrupt, totally resistant to change and bankrupt in both a financial and moral sense. And as I pointed out earlier, they can’t even spell tax.
When a company goes bust, you put in administrators to see if they can sort out the mess.
Where are the administrators for Greece?
Let’s face it, I’m sure Disney could make a better job of running the Parthenon!
We Need Rebekah’s Law
Popbitch is starting a campagn, so that we can all know if we have any former red-top editors living near us. Here’s the gist.
Rarely does Popbitch get on its soapbox
but recent events have stirred us up.
Inspired by the News of the World, we
demand the right for the public to know
if there are any ex-News International
execs living near us.
As the NOTW once said on its cover
“Everyone in Britain has a sex offender
living within one mile of their home”.
This is surely just as true of ex-
News of the World editors too.
And, like Mrs Brooks, we vow to name and
shame any politician who impedes our
crusade for tougher laws against
former red-top editors.
We need… Rebekah’s Law!
Come on, join our campaign.
It’s what she would have wanted.
I’m now getting very much towards feeling that all of this tabloid wrongdoing is all rather irrelevant and that stories like the multiple killings in Stockport and the financial problems in the eurozone are much more important.
I certainly won’t be venturing anywhere near Stockport or Greece in the near future.
Would Any Sane Person Buy Into the Greek Privatisation?
Let’s say you are the CEO of a utility company, which has a good record of managing water supply in say, Britain, France or Germany.
If you were asked to participate in the buy-out of a Greek water company would you be interested? Given the feeling in Greece and the attitudes of the workers to the proposed privatisations to help bail the country out, I think you would probably say no, as you value your health and you don’t want to be fired by the shareholders of your company.
I suspect very few companies will actually get involved in providing the finance, unless the prices are so low. But then if that is the case, Greece will not be able to meet its debts.
So are we back to square one with the Greeks?
No! Square zero maybe or even square minus one!
On the other hand consultancy about the privatisations might be a nice wheeze! But who will pay you, if no-one will provide the finance.
The Anonymous Widower 