The Big Picture - Macro Perspective on the Capital Markets, Economy, Technology, and Digital Media

With so many cooks now in the Greek kitchen, the howls against a debt restructuring got more pointed today. “Default or debt restructuring is a dramatic economic and social event for the country which experiences it, I would call it political suicide, which leads many into poverty,” said ECB member Bini Smaghi. Stark, another ECB member said “a restructuring wouldn’t be a solution to the problems that Greece needs to overcome.” Austria’s Finance Minister said, “I completely reject a restructuring, that wouldn’t be any good and only would increase the problem.” Greece sold 3 month bills at a yield of 4.88%, slightly higher than last month’s auction and a newspaper story spread that the IMF was readying a new financing plan for them that would replace the existing bailout and would cover the extra 30b euro’s they need. A Greek official though has denied that report and said “the discussion underway at the moment relates to a more convincing solution in the framework of the EFSF and the clarification of terms in the EU’s stability mechanism. Greek yields are lower and stocks higher in response and its helping other European markets. With respect to the cries from the officials above, I say ‘whatever,’ Greece’s problem is simple, they have too much debt and not enough growth and handing them more money isn’t going to fix that, it just buys time and the market says time is up.