Can you imagine? It is Holy Thursday, you wake up and instead start dying Easter eggs and kneading dough for Easter sweet bread, you run to the bank and write a 450-million-euro check in order to avoid default. “Greece’s payment to International Monetary Fund is scheduled for today,” media reported Thursday morning, by noon the news is that Greece did made the payment.
The payment is one installment of the bailout loan Greece received in 2010.
Last Sunday Greek Finance minister Yanis Varoufakis assured Christine Lagarde that Greece will meet all its obligations to creditors.
It is not clear whether the payment will be made from the money Greece raised yesterday by selling €1.138 billion in 6-month T-bills or from the several millions euro the country has raised by making settlement for arrears to the state. Fact is that Greece has been left without creditors’ bailout tranches since August 2014.
The good news does not hinder the usual Cassandras to predict that Greece will default by May 12th, if Athens and the creditors will not come to an agreement over the Reforms Program and the debt-ridden country will not manage to receive the last bailout tranche of 7.2 billion euro. It is Cassandras’ job after all to see disasters only and put their bet on a non-agreement.
Much will depend on the Euro Working Group that had a teleconference yesterday and is supposed to have one today too. However, the media reports about “progress vs non-progress” are very controversial so far.
Side note: Economic “prophets” had it wrong, April 9th is not the Day of Default for Greece. Some religious prophets have claimed thought that April 9th is the Day of Reckoning in terms of Energy. So be prepare to feel the good vibes, reckon and confess your sins!
Check who did buy those 6 months T-bills: Greek banks only. Who are on the ECB’s ELA lifeline were “slightly nudged” by the government to swallow them. That means: the ECB has paid the IMF tranche.
What does that tell us? How much junk can the Greek banks absorb before ELA must be cut cut and a bankrun forces the government to impose capital controls?
The Greek’s pensions, savings and your utilities’ assets have been confiscated and churned into teh balance sheets of Greek zombie banks and the Greek public does not even understand this.
Good questions. Here’s some answers.
The Greek banks are empty husks, no need to cry. The fact that ECB ELA paid the IMF tranche should be self explanatory, but if it isn’t, let’s just say ECB does one thing & says another – and leave it at that. ELA will be cut off when Merkel & Draghi decide to take the risk on imploding EMU and not before. They would not appreciate the Greek government overstepping them and deciding this for the eurozone. Since Greek government is negotiating in good faith, this option is off the table.
Greeks understand a lot more than you give them credit for – believe it or not. And foreigners less, either innocently or by design. As your questions show.
copy cats we had holy thursday last week
our holy thursday is better 🙂
Am I right in thinking that Cassandra’s problem was that nobody believed her even though she was right, not that she saw disaster where there was none?
Hurray for Greece and its new government!!!!
This weeks request of the Greek government for ECB’s ELA amounted to € 800 – 900 Mio.
The ECB is already directly financing the Greek state and exactly this is strictly forbidden by law.
Any judge in a constitutional court in the Eurozone could issue a writ and then this needs to stop immediately and the default is inevitable.
You just love scare mongering, don’t you? Remember the times when deficits of over 3% were “strictly forbidden by law”? Who was it again that broke these laws first, and repeatedly, mmmm, I think Germany, followed by France, no? Were you jumping up and down about the law then as well?
If “any judge” can do this, what’s stopping you, the rightious, law abiding citizen from filing a complaint, as you obviously would relish this default. Just remember, your precious Wolfie does NOT want an internal default, that is what he is so afraid of (as are the rest of the EZ turkeys). “Any judge” would trigger just that… Make my day and bring it on. I will thoroughly enjoy watching the dominoes fall, one by one. The grand finale will be priceless…
Some call it scaremongering, some call it talking terms – you know what? – Call it what you want.
The funny part here is tha tyou claim Greek to be relaxed and the whole Eurozone is afraid of your genius moves.
You are just to blind to see what is currently happening: the ECB is providing exactly so much money that Greece is not defaulting. But life is getting worse by the day. Let’s check back in summer how public sentiment regards the performance of your government and – don’t forget – after the € 7.2 million, the end of the rope is reached, becaúse a 3rd bailout package for a chaotic radical left government will definitely not be ratified by creditor nation’s parliaments. – What then?
Only one way to find out, isn’t there? But gloating now about what you would like to happen in 3 months is, to say the least, a little pre-mature, not to mention immature. Wishful thinking has the habit of being proven wrong by fact…
As for this
you mention, I wonder who you are talking about. All the Greek government is doing is putting forward policies which were standard througout Europe in the 80′ and 90’s when Europe was indeed prospering thanks to those policies. This prosperity was reversed in 1999 when the neo-liberal vulture economy was introduced, mainly with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act in the US which opened the door for the Casino banking culture which eventually brought the whole show to it’s knees. It is nothing but the snake eating itself, and I wonder how much gloating you will be doing when it’s your time to be gobbled up in order to feed the greed?
You are right about the ECB, what that actually proves is indeed just how scared the turkeys are of an internal default. So scared that they will do anything to avoid it, because allowing means end of game for all, not just Greece. As much has been admitted by most within the ECB, the EC and the banking world.
Meanwhile, the Greek government is not just looking for, but finding valid alternatives. Which is of course the real reason for you constant offensive, irrational rethoric. How dare they not roll over and play dead when told to. Keep jumping up and down my friend, keep showing us who the real clown is. When the time comes, you too will have to realise that the emperor does indeed not have any clothes, or friends…
To quote Winston Churchill
But not just consequences for Greece. The one consequence that will prevail for everybody is “chaos”. Chaos in the banking system, chaos in the ECB, chaos in international trade, political chaos, especially in countries with a history of political division (Belgium, Spain, Italy), not to mention social chaos. In the middle of all this chaos, one country has a government supported by its people, alternatives in place, and the will to do things differently… He who laughs last, laughs best…
“the performance of your government” and “chaotic radical left government”…..hmm, these unsolicited prejudiced opinions are not based on fact, along with the rest of your incorrect comments above. Apart from rendering your contributions worthless, we can also conclude that you are just another of those paid you-know-whats that fill comment threads with selective bad faith half-truths and untruths. Cheers.
The ECB is also strictly forbidden from exerting political pressure / interference in EMU countries; it broke this rule twice since the start of the year for Greece – once back in early Feb by suddenly tightening money supply for no economic reason and second from excluding Greece participation in EMU QE bonds.
Yet I don’t see you crying and knashing your law-abiding teeth over that….or maybe this was left off your FAQ sheet? LOL