Bye Bye Greece

This week was not nearly as wild as I expected-- until today, when a number of events in the Euro mess gave us a clearer indication as to where we're all heading with this.

First today was the resignation of Jurgen Stark, Germany's representative, from the ECB due to policy differences. A little later there were strong rumors that Greece would default, perhaps as soon as this weekend. They are due to make another debt payment in late September. Earlier in the week the IMF team sent to inspect Greek government finances stormed out of Athens with no return visit even scheduled. Germany and Holland subsequently said that without an agreement with the IMF they would not participate in another tranche of aid the Greeks were expecting. Also this week Greece announced that their economy is in complete free fall, losing nearly 8% of their GDP. Their tax revenues are undoubtedly suffering because of this. Unemployment is skyrocketing. Quite literally Greece will probably run out of cash in early October. Simply put, The End for Greece has arrived.

There is to be a meeting of the G7 industrialized powers this weekend. Tonite, even before the meeting started, they issued a startling statement: “Central Banks stand ready to provide liquidity to banks as required. We will take all necessary actions to ensure the resilience of banking systems and financial markets" 


This is a remarkable statement.. and to me, it indicates that the decision has been made to cut Greece loose to it's own fate, which will lead to Greece defaulting on it's debts. This may set off a huge storm in the Euro banks, which is why interbank lending has been frozen all week. This has the possibility of setting off another Lehman Crisis, though with the above G7 statement I believe it will be quietly contained-- and Stark's exit will ensure that the ECB will do their part in this print-a-palooza. When will Greece default ? My guess is before this month ends. For the people of Greece, it's going to mean a 1930's Depression and possibly a Storming of the Bastille type scenario followed by military rule.  


Unfortunately, this is but the first of many. Depending on how this plays out, Portugal might be the next country made to walk the plank, possibly within months. They don't even have a government. The real fear here is that Italy, Ireland or Spain will be sucked into the morass-- or willingly enter into it themselves if somehow Greece escapes this relatively unscathed and is able to jettison most of it's bad debts with little or no consequences. I doubt that. My sympathies lie with the people of Greece here, who deserve better than the incompetent and corrupt politicians they keep electing. With some help from their friends {The Fed and the Bank of China}, Europe's bloated, dysfunctional, over-indebted system will survive this torpedo. But when {not if} one of the bigger nations goes belly up, look out. 


Update Monday 4pm: Seems that the IMF is going to approve another round of aid for the Greek government: http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/09/imf-officials-say-troika-expected-to.html. It's pretty clear that these bailouts will continue until the Greek people storm their parliament building and demand to not be "saved" anymore.