Sunday, June 28, 2015

Beware of Greeks bearing Debts

The current EU-Greece deal expires on the 30th of June, this coming Tuesday.  The EU wants reforms in Greece leading to a balanced budget.  Which means laying off thousands of Greek government employees (apparently 25% of Greece draws government paychecks), cutting pensions to the more thousands of retired Greek government employees, and hiking taxes.  The Greeks call this "austerity" and the current Greek government was elected  on a "stop austerity" program.  After refusing the last EU offer on Friday, the Greek government is calling a referendum back in Greece about accepting the EU terms.  In short, the Greeks want to keep on spending more money than they take in and have the EU keep on giving them money to spend. 
   We don't know what is going to happen.  The Greeks have two more business days to cave in to the EU.  They might do it.  The EU may fear the turbulence that "Grexit" will cause and keep on subsidizing Greece to avoid trouble.  Or both sides may dig in their heels and the EU cuts off Greek subsidies. 
  In that case, things get really tough in Greece.  It will cause a bank run strong enough to break every Greek bank.  Right now the EU is loaning/giving Greek banks enough Euros to pay withdrawals and keep them afloat.  That may stop anytime now.  When it does, the Greek banks will have to close their doors, they don't have any Euros for depositors to withdraw.  Which means Greeks will loose whatever money they have on deposit.  The bank run is already started and the Greeks are talking about closing all their banks on Monday.
Greece will have to balance the budget, 'cause they cannot borrow money from normal financial sources.  Surely every banker and investor in the world knows how deep underwater Greece is.  In the real world there is zero chance that the Greeks can pay off their current loans, let alone any new loans.  They just don't have the money. 
Then the Greeks will have to do something to meet payroll.  Their choices are to just stop paying all or some of the people on the payroll, or to give them IOU's (aka Drachma) instead of Euros.  The IOUs aren't going to be worth nearly as much as Euros.  So everyone on the payroll takes a haircut, probably a 75% haircut. 
   Question 1:  Do the Greek voters know what they are headed for?
   Question 2:  What will happen to the rest of the Eurozone?  The Europeans (like the Economist)  foresee total disaster.  The Americans aren't paying much attention. 

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