New Greek Aid May Top 100 Billion Euros

[The Masked Tulip]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/greece-aid-may-top-100-billion-euros-report-2011-06-04

Greece may need a new aid package worth more than 100 billion euros to stay afloat, far higher than what was expected, according to a report Saturday.

In a preview of a story to run Monday, the German magazine Der Spiegel said on its web site that the package — the equivalent of $145.2 billion — could be necessary if the economically ravaged nation continued to rely on foreign aid through 2013 and 2014. That comes on top of the 110 billion euros, or $160 billion, in bailout funds agreed to last year.

Greece was expected to need another 60 billion to 70 billion euros, or $87 billion to $102 billion, in further aid. But Der Spiegel says the cost will rise when Greek government bonds need follow-up financing in 2014.

A translation of the magazine shows that it cites officials from the German Treasury, plus the troika of the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Echoing other Euro-zone officials, German Deputy Finance Minister Joerg Asmussen said a new aid program will have to involve private-sector creditors.

Interestingly, Der Spiegel has an interesting article on the need for Europeans to reclaim democracy from the bankers.

Escaping the Clutches of the Financial Markets

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,766518,00.html

In today's Europe, the people are no longer in control. Instead, politicians have become slaves to financial institutions and the markets. We are partly to blame -- and changes are urgently needed to nurse European democracy back to health.

Trouble is brewing all over Europe. Young people with little hope for the future are protesting in Spain. In France, 1.4 million copies were sold of a manifesto titled "Be Outraged." Young Frenchmen and -women are devising utopias that extend well beyond civil society because they no longer expect anything from it. A deep depression has descended upon Greece, combined with a rage directed at politicians and the rest of Europe.

In Germany, this is what politicians are hearing from their citizens today: "You spent billions to rescue the banks, and now I'm supposed to be footing the bill? Forget it!" Hardly anyone is willing to put up with their politicians any more. And German leaders have lost support -- and some of their own legitimacy.

They seem helpless, unable to come to grips with the euro crisis. They meet in Brussels, and they talk, argue and adopt resolutions, and yet nothing improves. Greece isn't getting out of its hole, Ireland and Portugal are teetering on the brink, and Spain and Italy are heavily indebted to a dangerous degree. And no politician is providing leadership.

And then there were the lies. Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg, had his spokesman deny that a meeting of European Union finance ministers on the Greek crisis was taking place, even though that meeting was in fact taking place. It wasn't the kind of lie that frequently crops up in politics: the broken campaign promise. Rather, it was more crass type of untruth: the denial of a reality. Juncker no longer had the courage to speak the truth. He was guided by fear of the financial markets. His lie was a capitulation of politics.

Things Will Have to Change

This is what is so disturbing about the current situation: the fact that politicians seem so helpless and powerless. They have been given a new master, and it's not us, the people, who tend to intervene in milder ways. Rather, it's the ruthless financial markets. The markets drive politicians even further into anxiety, weakness, incapacity and lies. Those who govern us are now being governed by the banks. That's the situation.

[The Masked Tulip]

[okaycuckoo]

The der spiegel photo shows the ongoing construction in Frankfurt of even more warehouses for crap debt.

People really need to kick off about this theft, but all we see is the privileged organising to protect their privileges, and everyone else in private anguish over the rise/fall of the price of accomodation.

I took a little comfort from a Tory council candidate who I've spoken with regularly for the past six months. At first he thought I was libertarian in my views on the banks, but just before his election he told me he was "bloody amazed" at the UK's debt. He'd watched a video about the PFI accounting tricks.

[BlinkTooFast]

I think these bailouts cannot work.

The two numbers in the OP, $145b & $160b, equal the GDP of Greece Link

On top of the existing debt of €280b, Link, that makes the debt >200% GDP.

With Greek bonds at 16% and rising fast, Link, that makes interest payments about 35% of GDP.

With Greek deficit at 10.5%GDP Link, and immediately going to rise by more or less the sudden interest liability above to a deficit of more like 40%, can everyone see where these numbers point not just to a debt spiral, but that Greece is already past the slippery slopes and in free-fall?

What are the ECB & IMF trying to achieve?

[edited for punctuation]

Edited June 5, 2011 by BlinkTooFast

[Errol]

PRINTY PRINTY!!!

MORE BONUSES FOR THE BANKS ON WALL STREET!!!!

[aa3]

The number I read a few days ago was 120 billion Euros for the latest line. This up from 70 billion Euros being talked about just a month or so ago.

Greece blew through the first 140 billion Euro line in a little over a year.

[mdman]

What are the ECB & IMF trying to achieve?

A selloff of the national assets at bargain basement to the same crooks that enabled their lunatic spending binge through fraud, while making those crooks whole on their poor lending decisions.

These crooks should be lynched. They are a graver threat to our life, liberty and freedom than al Qaeda

[madpenguin]

A selloff of the national assets at bargain basement to the same crooks that enabled their lunatic spending binge through fraud, while making those crooks whole on their poor lending decisions.

These crooks should be lynched. They are a graver threat to our life, liberty and freedom than al Qaeda

Agreed, when you read this article you realise everybody feels the same, the Germans, the Greeks, and the British, in fact most of Europe, we've all been victims of the same people and we're all fed up with it.

"In Germany, this is what politicians are hearing from their citizens today: "You spent billions to rescue the banks, and now I'm supposed to be footing the bill? Forget it!" Hardly anyone is willing to put up with their politicians any more. And German leaders have lost support -- and some of their own legitimacy."

Could easily replace Germany with UK in that paragraph

Edited June 5, 2011 by madpenguin

[aa3]

It seems the European citizenry might finally be awakening to the fact that their political institutions have been seized by private bankers. Some are even waking up to the fact that the entire democratic system is compromised. Like in Ireland when they voted out that government which caved in to the bankers, and the new government re-affirmed the bailout.

Finally in Spain masses of people are saying they are against both the main parties in the nation. Not falling for the left-right trap this time.

A question I posed on another thread was can you even imagine a nation like China or Saudi Arabia selling off prized state assets to make loan payments to private bankers? They would simply inform the bankers they were not going to make that payment right now. Beyond that they would never even bother to get private banks to print up money to lend to them. They cut out the middle man and use their own state owned central bank to do it.

[leicestersq]

I think these bailouts cannot work.

The two numbers in the OP, $145b & $160b, equal the GDP of Greece Link

On top of the existing debt of €280b, Link, that makes the debt >200% GDP.

With Greek bonds at 16% and rising fast, Link, that makes interest payments about 35% of GDP.

With Greek deficit at 10.5%GDP Link, and immediately going to rise by more or less the sudden interest liability above to a deficit of more like 40%, can everyone see where these numbers point not just to a debt spiral, but that Greece is already past the slippery slopes and in free-fall?

What are the ECB & IMF trying to achieve?

[edited for punctuation]

In answer to your question, the organisations have become self serving, they (particularly the IMF) need such crises to justify their bloated salaries. Their actions cannot help anyone else.

[Errol]

A selloff of the national assets at bargain basement to the same crooks that enabled their lunatic spending binge through fraud, while making those crooks whole on their poor lending decisions.

These crooks should be lynched. They are a graver threat to our life, liberty and freedom than al Qaeda

Correct. To use the Max Keiser term - what we have here are suicide bankers.

[OnlyMe]

A selloff of the national assets at bargain basement to the same crooks that enabled their lunatic spending binge through fraud, while making those crooks whole on their poor lending decisions.

These crooks should be lynched. They are a graver threat to our life, liberty and freedom than al Qaeda

I'd go further, Al Quaeda are not the terrorists the bankers are.

[Errol]

I'd go further, Al Quaeda are not the terrorists the bankers are.

See Keiser video above.

[wonderpup]

They are a graver threat to our life, liberty and freedom than al Qaeda

You have to laugh- while 'homeland security' ran around in circles trying to take out a man in a turban wall street moved in and took down the USof A

Bin Laden won his war.

[copydude]

I can't find a single economist who believes Greece can ever repay. It can't even afford the interest.

Views differ, however, about whether Greece should leave the Euro or not.

Roger Bootle suggests Germany should leave instead.

My preferred solution is for Germany to leave, taking with her those countries which are closely aligned. This group would include Austria, Finland and Benelux. France could go either way. My suggestion is that this group should form a new currency, call it the New Mark, the Northern Euro, or what you will. The remaining countries would be left with the euro.

This has four advantages. First, the weaker countries are not picked off one by one but remain linked to other countries with which they have some close similarities. Second, weaker countries’ debt would continue to be denominated in their own currency. Third, it would be the stronger countries, led by Germany, that would have to face the difficult technical, legal and financial problems of forming a new currency. Lastly, these countries might be both able and willing to go the whole hog to fiscal and political union.