EurAnalysis

I would argue that in the cold world of politics that when those without power pay the ultimate price when those with power f*ck up.

It looks like the Greeks got a break until you think about what they could have done if they were not tied to the Euro: 100% default of 100% of bond, devalue their currency and raise money through import duties.

However, the net effect is that the ECB will own a large portion of Greek output for the next couple of decades, which, to me, seems pretty wrong.

Let's start off with fairness. That has nothing to do with the ECB who take no losses on their Greek Bonds. The pension funds of Greece take a good part of the hit. This is all about self interest and bottom line those that have the Gold make the Golden rules and that is called "Human Nature"

Fantasy is the article I am linking here from the Greek website that I use for my information on Greece.

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w...03/2012_432348

Snippet:


PSI completion should woo investors

The successful debt swap must be used to open a window of opportunityhttp://wwk.kathimerini.gr/kathnews/images/dot_clear.gif


By Dimitris Kontogiannis
The apparent success of the private sector involvement, or PSI, for bonds written under Greek law is not a panacea and may have come too late to make the country’s public debt sustainable. Nevertheless, PSI reduces significantly the potential risk of a Greek exit from the euro.

The future government’s ability to capitalize on this lower exit risk to attract private investment and convince the Greek public that the country is making progress will shape Greece’s future to a great extent.

The strong endorsement of the PSI by European Union policymakers and the International Monetary Fund, including the retroactive introduction and use of CACs (collective action clauses) to bonds written under Greek law, amounts to an admission with almost two years’ delay that Greece had been facing a solvency problem and not a liquidity crisis right from the beginning.

Since 2010, a number of economists, businessmen and very few politicians have argued that Greece needed debt relief to have a shot at stabilizing its economy while pursuing a policy of fiscal consolidation and structural reforms.

Whether significant debt relief should have come via a frontloaded program of asset sales and privatizations and/or an EU-financed program of debt buybacks and/or public debt restructuring was debatable. Perhaps a combination of the above would have been optimal.

Eurozone leaders did not endorse this strategy in the spring of 2010 for various reasons. They thought it would have sent the wrong signal to other debt-laden periphery countries and would have taken pressure off Greece to stick to the terms of the economic adjustment program.

However, the most important reason seems to be their concerns about contagion as a large-scale Greek debt restructuring would have inflicted big losses on major banks and insurers in core countries.

It could be argued the current PSI would have been more effective at arresting adverse Greek debt dynamics by reducing the public debt ratio if it had been implemented earlier -- that is, before more than 70 billion euros in Greek bonds turned into EU bilateral and IMF loans and the ECB had bought more than 50 billion euros in local bonds.

Although the haircut -- of 53.5 percent applied to 95 percent of outstanding Greek bonds equal to 206 billion euros -- implies a debt reduction of more than 100 billion euros, the actual debt relief thanks to PSI will be much smaller initially, driving the debt-to-GDP ratio to between 150 and 161 percent at the end of 2012.

The recapitalization of banks, estimated at 50 billion euros, and the exclusion of intergovernmental bond holdings, such as bonds held by pension funds, from the calculation of the general government debt ratio account for this development, as Nomura analysts have pointed out.


Kno's Comments: Here Is The FANTASY PART...

Therefore, the current PSI may not do much to cut the Greek debt-to-gross domestic product ratio to sustainable levels initially but it definitely reduces substantially the risk of a Greek exit from the euro. This is something the Greek side will have to drive home to attract private investments from Greeks, the diaspora and foreign investors.

The risk premiums tied to a euro exit which is assigned to Greek direct and portfolio investments is material at this point. So convincing investors there is a significant reduction in the risk of a Greek exit from the euro after the PSI is important in attracting investments and boosting GDP as fiscal consolidation continues to bite. Readers are reminded that the drop in private investment spending has been bigger than the drop in private consumption over the last few years.

It is equally important for the new government to convince the public that the country is making progress on the fiscal and other fronts to help improve consumer and business sentiment and possibly put a halt to the continuous outflow of bank deposits. Speeding up the recapitalization of banks is likely to help to this extent although it cannot do much to reverse the deposit outflows due to the recession.

All in all, the PSI is not a panacea and could have been more effective in making the debt sustainable if it had been implemented much earlier when a good deal of the Greek debt was in private hands. Still, there are strong reasons to argue the current PSI reduces the potential risk of a Greek euro exit. Therefore, the PSI opens a window of opportunity for the new government to capitalize on this and try to attract private investments as it works to prop up public sentiment.

Love And War...

This Man Loves Greece...

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w...03/2012_432319



Greece on road to recovery, says Schaeuble




http://sup.kathimerini.gr/kath/engs/...e_390_1201.jpg http://wwk.kathimerini.gr/kathnews/images/dot_clear.gif
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Sunday he was confident Greece was on the right path for recovery after tough decisions to secure a second bailout package.

However, he warned there could be no guarantee of success.

"I am confident the difficult measures decided with the government in Athens will put it on the road to recovery,» Schaeuble said in an interview in Sunday's La Repubblica newspaper.

Greece averted the immediate threat of an uncontrolled default on Friday when private creditors agreed on a bond swap that will cut the country's public debt and clear the way for a new 130-billion euro ($170.55 billion) bailout.

Schaeuble said he was sure the best decisions possible had been taken against a backdrop of uncertainty.

"But it wasn't easy and I cannot give a 100 percent guarantee of success,» he said.

Schaeuble said the need for another aid package for Greece could not be ruled out, but said «it is not the time to speculate but to approve the second package for Athens."

The austerity programmes did not create recession, he said, adding structural reforms were now needed to relaunch growth.

Schaeuble told To Vima newspaper is «ready to do whatever is asked» to help a tough economic overhaul applied in the struggling nation under close EU-IMF supervision. This includes sending German tax experts to improve Athens' poor revenue collection.

"We are ready to do whatever is asked,» the German minister said.
"If Greece wants us to send German tax officials under an international programme to strengthen the Greek tax system, we are ready to do it."


War will come once the Greek Elections are over. Not the physical war just the financial one after the elections in April or May 2012.

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w...03/2012_432346


Samaras eyes clear ND win at elections



In a speech that essentially marked the start of his campaign to become Greek prime minister, New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras told his party’s political committee on Sunday that he is not aiming to form a coalition government with PASOK but wants the conservatives to govern on their own.

“I don’t want my hands to be tied,” said Samaras, adding that elections should be held “immediately” after Easter on April 15. “A single-party government is essential so the country can be saved.”

New Democracy is leading in the opinion polls but this month’s Public Issue survey for Kathimerini indicated that the conservatives only had 28 percent support, well short of what they would need for a majority.

Samaras said that a clear majority would allow him to build on the breathing space that Greece would receive as a result of the private sector involvement, or PSI, agreed last week.

“If we have a one-party government we will be able to use this time for the good of the country,” he said.

Samaras heavily criticized PASOK and, indirectly, its imminent leader Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos for serious mistakes in the handling of the economic crisis over the past two years. He also attacked the leftist parties for adopting an equivocal stance on Greece’s membership of the euro.

The ND leader also promised to crack down on illegal immigration and crime while placing more emphasis on growth.

Shortly after Samaras spoke, one of his former deputies, Panos Kammenos, launched a new party called Independent Greeks. Speaking in the central Greek town of Distomo, famous for being the site of a Second World War massacre, Kammenos heavily criticized the International Monetary Fund and European Union, Germany in particular.
Sunday March 11, 2012 (22:52)

Kno's Comments: Right after the elections things will change for the better for Greece if the people get the results they want.

Will Greece leave the Euro Zone ?

Probably.

Will they follow through on Austerity ?

Probably Not at the levels they agreed to. This Story is far from over and whatever the ECB, IMF and Germany says the opposite is what they mean.

March 11, 2012

"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe" -- Frederick Douglass

Hmmm I think there was a spelling mistake on the headline.

It should have been PSI completion should shoo investors

Right or wrong, that's the world of finance and pseudo capitalism. I say "pseudo capitalism" because if it was true capitalism, there would have been no bailout from the official sector and Greece would have declared bankruptcy or been petitioned into bankruptcy two years ago and by now would have been well on the road to recovery.

Looks like the short side of E/U is not so crowded any more.
I'll hang on to my short positions for now.

Shoo Away Indeed.... Watch the next few days carefully.

Pseudo capitalism indeed.

From WWW.JSMINESET.COM

March 10, 2012, at 11:54 pm
by Jim Sinclair in the category Jim's Mailbox |

Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Now we are up to $79 billion from $3.5 billion.
What tells me this figure has a lot to go on the upside?

Post Greek PSI Deal, We Are Not BULLish Or BEARsh, We Are GORILLAish

The Greek PSI deal is done, deadline passed, the ISDA has called a credit event on bonds that did not voluntary sign up for a 70% plus haircut.

However what all the folks in Wall street are doing this weekend are trying to work out how long the queue is outside the door of the ISDA (the folks who trigger CDS deals) Monday morning coming, to see what debts will be forced to be reported on profit and loss statements.

After the forced accounting standards change back in 2009,a loan need not be written down to its true value until it has been proven [via default] to be worthless. This means bailouts of banks and countries allowed loans to maintain full value on banks balance sheets. The Greek default and soon to follow cascade of loan defaults and more ISDA meetings triggering CDS means that more losses will be printed on Profit and loss statements in the near future. How large this is, will determine what happens to the market starting Monday.

Mark J Grant makes this point in The Eight Hundred Pound Greek Gorilla Enters The Room

Extract..
I expect the ratings agencies to place Greece in “Default” and with their banks following. The markets are “Ho-Humming” and the conversations revolves around “Net” CDS exposure and the write-downs that have already taken place at the European banks. Please recall AIG and what happened with Lehman and what do we find this morning; KA Finanz, the Austrian bad bank, faces $1.32 billion in losses due to their exposure to the Greek CDS contracts according to a Bloomberg article. So now we will wait and see who else is on the hook, who may be seriously impaired, because the Gross number of about $79 billion for Greek CDS is about to enter center stage.

I hold up my hand, “One moment please” as I introduce you to the 800 pound Greek Gorilla that is about to enter the room. Allow me to now present to you the “OTHER” Greek debt that is outstanding and will have to be accounted for as the country defaults. Detailed below are some of the “OTHER” sovereign obligations of the Greek government which have now been submitted to the ISDA and I list some of them below. You will note that there are bank bonds, Hellenic Railway bonds, Urban Transportation bonds et al that are guaranteed by Greece. (RTT Etc etc the list grows)

More…

It Gets Far Worse
I hold up my hand, “One moment please” as I introduce you to the 800 pound Greek Gorilla that is about to enter the room. Allow me to now present to you the “OTHER” Greek debt that is outstanding and will have to be accounted for as the country defaults. Detailed below are some of the “OTHER” sovereign obligations of the Greek government which have now been submitted to the ISDA and I list some of them below. You will note that there are bank bonds, Hellenic Railway bonds, Urban Transportation bonds et al that are guaranteed by Greece. You will also note that there are bonds tied to Inflation, Floating Rate Notes, Asset-Backed securities and a whole mélange of other structured products with a Greek sovereign guarantee. What we all thought was fact is now clearly fiction and default will now bring “Acceleration” one could reasonably bet in all kinds of these securitizations and in all kinds of currencies. This could come from the ratings agencies placing Greece in “Default” or it could come from the CDS contracts being triggered depending upon each indenture and you will also note that a great many of these off balance sheet securitizations are governed by English Law and not Greek Law.

You may also wish to consider the fallout to the banking system as the lead managers of all of these deals could find themselves behind the eight ball as various clauses trigger and as the holders of these securitizations line up at the judicial bench [ZH note: there is a reason why Allen & Overy is getting paid $1500 an hour to indemnify ISDA with a plethora of exculpation clauses - they know what is coming] The ISDN numbers are on all of these securities and the lead managers may be found on Bloomberg or other sources as well as the holders of the debt. The curtain just lifted and the show is about to get way too interesting!

I too will be holding short, but also watching for turning points. Until we see a break of the highlighted low, trend is still up for long term traders.

This Is A Debt Swap !!!

EUR/USD hit low of 1.3084

Will We Test 1.3055 50% of 1.3487 - 1.2624 ?

Just Asking ?

Good morning fellas

Lolz

Good morning Fx.

Hoping to get a good bounce so that I could short this (1.3115, 1.3125 or DPP @ 1.3165).
So far 1.3085 is holding
Next stop 1.3056 (50% retracement and also neckline of daily H&S pattern in formation). I'm expecting some bounce from this level,we'll see.

Off Topic However Interesting To Read - Good Luck Bernard

10. The Old Man and the Sea and Ron Paul
"The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists." - Ernest Hemingway

Sadness, resignation and the inevitability of death permeate the pages of Hemingway's brilliant novel, The Old Man and the Sea. But it is grace under pressure in the face of overwhelming odds that is the true message Hemingway leaves with the reader. There is no avoiding death, but the critical test of mankind is how you live your life and how you endure the suffering and pain that are inflicted upon you.

Life is a journey. At the end of every worldly journey, death awaits. That is a certainty. The ending will be the same for everyone who walks this earth. What matters is the course chosen on the voyage through life. The vast sea represents life's journey, with its ebbs, flows, and storms that must be navigated. In Hemingway's portrait of the world, death is inevitable, but the finest men will nonetheless refuse to give in to its power. In both the sea and in life, there are a number of possibilities that lie hidden from the common eye; some are gifts to be treasured and some are problems to be defeated. Neither will be found unless man embarks upon the journey. If man is lucky enough to discover a treasure he must fight until death to retain it; if man is unlucky enough to discover an evil lurking underneath the surface of the sea, he must fight it bravely and nobly until the end. In either case, it is the struggle that is all-important, and a man obtains the status of hero if he battles the sea (life) with grace under pressure. The only way to obtain the status of hero is to set sail on the uncertain sea of life.

"But man is not made for defeat; a man can be destroyed but not defeated." - Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea.

Click HERE to read this inspiring comparison between The Old Man and the Sea and Ron Paul by Jim Quinn of the Burning Platform.

Closing Remarks:
John Wayne defined "courage" as being scared-to-death but saddling up anyway." That pretty well sums up waiting to be sentenced. There is just nothing else to do by saddle up as there is no way to walk away from the commitment for a value based currency.

Many thanks for your donations and continued support. For it is only by banding together and adopting a free and independent currency that provides us with "just weights and measures" will we be able to throw off the yoke of a manipulated monetary/tax system and generate a peaceful and prosperous society.

Thank you again for all your efforts to return America to value - one dollar at a time!

Bernard von NotHaus
Monetary Architect/Editor
[email protected]

PM's office to get permanent cooridination team



http://sup.kathimerini.gr/kath/engs/...s_390_1103.jpg http://wwk.kathimerini.gr/kathnews/images/dot_clear.gif Acting on the recommendations of French advisers as well as other experts, Prime Minister Lucas Papademos is overseeing the creation of a permanent team that will be responsible for coordinating the actions of future governments.

Sources said that Greece is hoping to create a unit made up of permanent staff rather than advisers that are picked based on their personal relationship with each premier and who change each time the prime minister or government changes.

Sources told Sunday’s Kathimerini that Prime Minister Lucas Papademos raised the issue with his ministers on Thursday. Athens is being advised on the overhaul of its public administration by French experts who have been brought to Greece by the European Union Task Force. However, a number of other experts, including those from the OECD and McKinsey consultants, have identified the lack of a permanent coordinating body as a key weakness.

Greece has committed to address this problem as part of its new bailout. A list of candidates to staff this team, which will be made up of less than 10 people, is currently being drawn up and the final selection is due to be made by the end of the month.

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w...03/2012_432358
ekathimerini.com , Sunday March 11, 2012 (23:01)


http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w...03/2012_432346

Samaras eyes clear ND win at elections



http://sup.kathimerini.gr/kath/engs/...speech_390.jpg http://wwk.kathimerini.gr/kathnews/images/dot_clear.gif ND leader Antonis Samaras speaking to his party’s political committee on Sunday. </B>http://wwk.kathimerini.gr/kathnews/images/dot_clear.gif In a speech that essentially marked the start of his campaign to become Greek prime minister, New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras told his party’s political committee on Sunday that he is not aiming to form a coalition government with PASOK but wants the conservatives to govern on their own.
“I don’t want my hands to be tied,” said Samaras, adding that elections should be held “immediately” after Easter on April 15. “A single-party government is essential so the country can be saved.”

New Democracy is leading in the opinion polls but this month’s Public Issue survey for Kathimerini indicated that the conservatives only had 28 percent support, well short of what they would need for a majority.

Samaras said that a clear majority would allow him to build on the breathing space that Greece would receive as a result of the private sector involvement, or PSI, agreed last week.
“If we have a one-party government we will be able to use this time for the good of the country,” he said.

Samaras heavily criticized PASOK and, indirectly, its imminent leader Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos for serious mistakes in the handling of the economic crisis over the past two years. He also attacked the leftist parties for adopting an equivocal stance on Greece’s membership of the euro.

The ND leader also promised to crack down on illegal immigration and crime while placing more emphasis on growth.

Shortly after Samaras spoke, one of his former deputies, Panos Kammenos, launched a new party called Independent Greeks. Speaking in the central Greek town of Distomo, famous for being the site of a Second World War massacre, Kammenos heavily criticized the International Monetary Fund and European Union, Germany in particular.
ekathimerini.com , Sunday March 11, 2012 (22:52)

Morning,

Normally Daily open below yesterday close indicate down further,lets see how this one reacts

I should have been more specific. Trend is obviously down long term, and short term. What i should of said is medium term. IMO until that low is broken, there is a chance we could see another rally. Overall i am bearish EUR.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltw1ipX7jp1qe87qe.gif

Time is GMT

9:20EUR Schaeuble Holds Speech on Tax Policy at ZDH: Berlin
14:30EUR ECB Announces Weekly Bond Purchases
14:30EUR ECB Calls for Bids in 7-Day Main Refinancing Tender
14:30EUR ECB Calls for Bids in 1-Month Refinancing Tender
15:00USD U.S. Fed to Purchase USD1.75-2.25 Bln Notes
15:30USD U.S. to Sell USD33 Bln 3-Month Bills
15:30USD U.S. to Sell USD31 Bln 6-Month Bills
15:30EUR WTO Appellate Body Rules on Boeing Appeal
16:00EUR Euro-Area Finance Ministers Meet in Brussels
16:30CAD Bank of Canada's Macklem Speaks in Sao Paulo
17:00USD U.S. to Sell USD32 Bln 3-Year Notes
19:15GBP Bank of England's Fisher Speaks in London
EUR "EU's Barroso, Kallas Meet With EIB's Hoyer in Brussels"

After movement on friday, price statistically tends to make corrective action on monday. So I'd say we go up a little today.

EURUSD is way oversold and requires a bounce back before further dive.