Category: Default

You have THREE last chances!

13 February, 2012 (11:02) | Default, Eurozone, Global news, Greece, Sovereign bankruptcy |

By:David A. Smith   Our chief weapon is surprise …   Merkozy: Nobody expects the European Commission! Our chief weapon is surprise.  Surprise and fear.  Fear and surprise.  Our two weapons are fear and surprise and ruthless efficiency.  <Pause>  Our three weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency and an almost fanatical devotion to the [...]

Government animals are more equal than others: Part 2, property rights are human rights

24 January, 2012 (11:25) | Capital markets, Credit default swap, Default, Eurozone, Global news, Greece, IMF, Restructuring, Sovereign bankruptcy |

[Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]   By:David A. Smith   Yesterday we saw that Greece’s puppet masters appear to be compel private bondholders to take a severe loss but to exempt the European Central Bank from that selfsame loss, on the theory (though that’s not how the New York Times put it) of protecting one’s [...]

Government animals are more equal than others: Part 1, creditors’ rights are property rights

23 January, 2012 (10:31) | Capital markets, Credit default swap, Default, Eurozone, Global news, Greece, IMF, Restructuring, Sovereign bankruptcy |

By:David A. Smith     In the two months since I pronounced sentence on it (“The euro is over.  Either that, or European democracy is“), the Eurozone has postponed disorderly default only through a series of progressively more contorted, dubious, and anti-democratic measures, of which the most recent was reported backwards by the New York [...]

The emperor’s new bonds: Part 2, indecent exposure

12 July, 2011 (09:42) | Default, Euro, Global news, Greece, Recapitalization, Sovereign bankruptcy, Workouts |

[Continued from yesterday’s Part 1.]   By: David A. Smith    Yesterday’s post introduced, via the Economist, the latest gimcrackery intended to enable a collective delusion that Greece is not in default and will not go into default, with the reprehensible and irresponsible decision by the ECB not to adjudicate the structure on its own, but rather [...]

The emperor’s new bonds: Part 1, pretending we’re covered

11 July, 2011 (09:16) | Default, Euro, Global news, Greece, Recapitalization, Sovereign bankruptcy, Workouts |

By: David A. Smith   If I can allay your doubts, then surely I must at the same time quell my own worries.   Mustn’t I?   Looks good to us, your majesty   As the Eurozone lurches toward its by-now-inescapable first sovereign default – that of Greece – we can expect ever-more-implausible scenarios thrown [...]