[Lypepuddyu]

Don't worry since the U.S. is a major donor to the IMF...more taxpayer money will be dumped down the toilet for the Club Med economies in the Eurozone. Of course, the IMF will then take over the economies and impose harsh austerity measures on the populace all because of a collusionary relationship between gov't hacks and investment "banks" such as Goldman Sachs selling the "sophisticated" rope in which to hang themselves with. Predatory capitalism in conjunction with the predatory state ...wonderful business.

Well if the Euro collapses the dollar will get a short term jolt since it's still the least worst currency of last resort. It will help fund some of that interest on the trillion + budget deficit that needs to be rolled over and over and over. Unlike Greece we still have a sovereign currency and can print away but ultimately that game will end when the new reserve currency (SDR's?) possibly via the IMF will be instituted by default especially when the U.S. at the urging of Ben Bernanke self-impose austerity measures with the help of born again deficit hawks and devalue the currency and living standards. It's going to be a fun ride after the elections when the massive dose of liquidity laxative that has been injected into the economy starts to be reined in and the real economy gets flushed down the toilet while the casino financial economy continues unabated due to watered down financial reform (thanks to a supine and bought off politial class) that refuses to rein in the major culprits....the financial oligarchy emodied in the TBTF institutions....

The head of the International Monetary Fund has warned that the crisis in Greece could spread throughout Europe.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn said that every day lost in resolving Greece's problems risks spreading the impact "far away".

World financial markets, recovering slightly on Wednesday, have been badly hit by fears of contagion from Greece.

Mr Strauss-Kahn was speaking at a news conference in Berlin after trying to persuade reluctant German politicians to back the terms of a rescue deal.

But even as politicians were trying to resolve the crisis, Europe's debt problems were flaring elsewhere.

Standard & Poor's ratings agency delivered more bad news by cutting Spain's rating to AA from AA+.

The agency said Spain's growth prospects were weak after the collapse of a credit-fuelled housing and construction bubble.

Mr Strauss-Kahn's comments foreshadowed S&P's news. "What is at stake today is the economic situation of Greece. But it's more than that.

"We also need to restore confidence... I'm confident that the problem will be fixed. But if we don't fix it in Greece, it may have a lot of consequences on the European Union," Mr Strauss-Kahn said.

Mr Strauss-Kahn, and ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet, were in Berlin to urge German MPs to agree to a rescue deal under which Greece would get billions of euros in loans.

BBC News - Greece crisis: Fears grow that it could spread

[michael247]

more taxpayer money will be dumped down the toilet for the Club Med economies in the Eurozone.

Don't worry, most of the toilets in Greece can't flush down paper.

[Lypepuddyu]

Greece and the rest of Club Med will be wishing they could sh!t gold bricks which definitely can't be flushed down the toilet as easily as paper...

[PRengin]

Didn't Spain just get massively downgraded as well? I thought I just heard that on the news.

[Lypepuddyu]

Portugal and Spain but not as massively as Greece which is junk status. Spain's economy is the largest of the 3 and they are equating Spain with a Lehman event in the sense that it may be too big to save and it would result in contagion. It's really a mess right now in the Eurozone but this is what happens when you form a monetary union with a weak or nonexistent political union....

[PRengin]

Equating with Lehman?!? So what do you do - you can't dissolve the country and give it back to the goats.

[Lypepuddyu]

The French and German populace is suggesting as much. Doesn't make it right but afterall....it's mostly German and French banks that want their pound of economic flesh from the Club Med economies and they want the IMF to do their dirty work and extract it from them. Germany benefits from a devalued Euro anyway since it's a large export economy. If they have to sacrifice Spain, Greece, Portugal...maybe Italy to the alter of the IMF and it's austerity measures they won't mind as much as they want to let on....

[Ettiominiw]

lolz

[disappointment2]

From the news this morning thats about what it happening. France and Germany are going to make sure a loan goes through but let the IMF be the austerity bad guys for the home crowd.

I will say the ratings agencies seem sort of whim driven. Greece's debt is a problem for sure but they just rated them lower than Azerberjan and Lebanon (yes Lebanon) in terms reliability at paying off their bonds. Thats S&P waiting too long to downgrade and then over reacting when it did.

[Lypepuddyu]

lolz

try this one


YouTube - International Philosophy

[Lypepuddyu]

Gonna be a fun week for the markets.... Germany just threw down the gauntlet against the "speculators" to protect the German banks who will never be repaid. The next leg down is rearing it's ugly head in Europe....

Hope the little helpers in the market have a quick finger....

[Lypepuddyu]

Look out below...

[emexiagog]

Greece does not matter.

When over the last 10 years has any econmist, strategist etc mentioned anywhere that the reason the markets are doing so well was because of Greece?

Never.

If you are not a factor on the way up, you can't be on the way down. Greece is too small to matter.

Is it going to spread - I don't think so.

Germany is the biggest holder of Greek debt. They are pulling to get this fixed and get their money back and through stringent terms. The Germans are not the push overs that the US is when it comes to bailing people out. They make a deal with lots of strings and unlike the US the actually remember where the strings are and how to pull them.

The rest of the EU does not want to deal with Germany in the same way. They are suddenly starting to get their sh!t together and becoming more financially responsible.

[Lypepuddyu]

Greece does not matter.

When over the last 10 years has any econmist, strategist etc mentioned anywhere that the reason the markets are doing so well was because of Greece?

Never.

If you are not a factor on the way up, you can't be on the way down. Greece is too small to matter.

Is it going to spread - I don't think so.

Germany is the biggest holder of Greek debt. They are pulling to get this fixed and get their money back and through stringent terms. The Germans are not the push overs that the US is when it comes to bailing people out. They make a deal with lots of strings and unlike the US the actually remember where the strings are and how to pull them.

The rest of the EU does not want to deal with Germany in the same way. They are suddenly starting to get their sh!t together and becoming more financially responsible.

Completely disagree.....no matter what Eurozone debt particularly by the Club med economies will have to be restructured or written off. You can't get blood from a stone. All the draconian measures imposed on the PIIGS so that Euro bondholders and financial oligarchs can extract 100% of their economic pound of flesh will drag down the Eurozone. Over the weekend Germ, France etc just put together a bailout package of around 1 trillion along with the IMF AND with Federal Reserve swaps (our money) to stem the bleeding. They are just buying time and papering over losses and trying to stop the bond vigilantes from taking down sovereign governments. As one person put it....Goldman Sachs can mint CDO's faster than the Central banks in Europe can print money. The German populace is completely p'ode over the bailout and they let Merkel hear it in the most recent election. There are now rumors that the Germans may bail on the Euro and reintroduce the German mark which would effectively kill the Euro. Some say it is more likely the PIIGs should get out of the Euro and repay their obligations in their own currencies via devaluation. However, even if the German rumor of reintroducing the mark sounds crazy we don't live in normal times and the German's are very nationalistic and thus capable of blowing up the Euro experiment. They don't want to be beholden to a global financial architecture of central banks that print money and extract economic rent from taxpayers at the expense of investing in productive capacities any more than any other sovereign gov't that wants to retain some semblance of control so that it won't make the "natives" restless. In due time the whole monetary union experiment in Europe may come crashing down anyway as respective nations feel the heat from the populace who don't want to pay increased taxes to service debt that they didn't necessarily create. I wouldn't downplay the Greek situation. It may be small in terms of impact in a nominal way but it has implications for the whole European monetary structure in ways that may seem unimaginable. There is a huge global sovereign debt bubble that has been formed and when..not if it pops it's going to be messy. Stay tuned.....