Cosenza (Italy), 5 Giugno 2011
Il Prof. Roubini (NYU) ha recentemente sintetizzato l'argomento con una frase impeccabile: la crisi è cominciata con un livello elevato di debito privato ed ora abbiamo troppo debito pubblico. Talmente elevato, che alcuni paesi hanno perso la capacità di accedere ai mercati, e devono ricorrere ad aiuti sovranazionali per ripagare i propri debiti. Ma chi pagherà questi debiti, se un giorno anche gli organismi sovranazionali (BCE, FMI, ecc.) dovessero avere dei problemi?
Nouriel Roubini ...The crisis started with too much private debt and then we socialized the losses and now we have too much public debt and so these sovereign have lost market access and are now being bailed out by super nationals Greece Ireland Portugal are being bailed out by the IMF ECB EFSF EU you name it , but you cannot kick the can down the road from these stock or public debt from private to public to sopra national no one is going to come from the moon or Mars to bailout the IMF or the ECB if the debt is too much and you cannot grow yourself out of that problem, if you cannot save yourself out of the debt problem and if you cannot inflate yourself out of that problem because the ECB is not going to allow inflation ..then there is only one solution debt restructure and debt reduction done in orderly and market friendly oriented way ...
Il problema posto è rilevante, ma finora non è stato seriamente preso in considerazione a livello politico: basti pensare, per esempio, al nuovo piano di salvataggio per la Grecia che - a quanto pare - non sarà mai in grado di poter ripagare il debito puntando solo su taglio dei consumi interni e aumento della tassazione (vedi Bloomberg 4/6 "EU Preparing New Rescue Package for Greece"):
European Union officials will focus on preparing a new aid package for Greece that includes a“voluntary” role for investors after the EU and theInternational Monetary Fund approved the fifth installment of Greece’s 110 billion-euro ($161 billion) bailout.
“I expect the euro group to agree to additional financing to be provided to Greece under strict conditionality,”Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said after meeting with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou in Luxembourg on June 3. “This conditionality will include private-sector involvement on a voluntary basis.”
Papandreou agreed to 78 billion euros in additional austerity measures and asset sales through 2015 to secure the 12 billion-euro bailout payment and meet conditions for receiving an additional rescue package. He agreed to make “significant”cuts in public-sector employment and establish an agency to manage accelerated asset sales, according to a statement released in Athens on June 3. The plan is fueling popular opposition and protests across Greece.
Greek bonds gained on the prospect of a new aid plan, with the yield on the country’s two-year notes falling 172 basis points yesterday to 22.8 percent, the lowest since April 20. The agreements came at the end of a week when Greece’s fiscal crisis worsened enough for Moody’s Investors Service to raise the probability of a default to 50 percent.
‘Debt Problem’
“The current discussions over the Greek debt problem have arisen mostly because of a realization that Greece won’t be able to raise money through normal bond issuance in 2012,” said Justin Knight, an analyst at UBS AG in London. “The choice for policy makers is one between funneling more aid funds into Greece to avoid default next year and restructuring debt now so that funds due to be paid to Greece under the current plan can last longer.”
A year after the rescue that aimed to stop the spread of the debt crisis, Greece remains mired in a third year of recession, shut out of financial markets and saddled with the biggest debt load in the euro’s history. Ireland and Portugal followed in seeking bailouts and Greece now needs a second rescue package to avoid the euro area’s first sovereign default.
Under the original rescue, Greece was due to sell 27 billion euros of bonds next year. EU leaders and Papandreou have acknowledged that a return to markets won’t be possible with Greece’s 10-year debt yielding 16 percent, more than twice the level at the time of the bailout. The EU is looking to close that funding gap through new loans and bondholders’ willingness to roll over Greek debt, EU officials have said.
IMF Funds
Europe’s financial leaders needed to hammer out a revised Greek package to persuade the IMF to pay its share of the 12 billion-euro tranche originally due in June. The IMF had indicated that it would withhold its 3.3 billion-euro piece unless the EU comes up with a plan to close Greece’s funding gap for 2012. The EU-IMF statement said the full payment would be made in early July.
The Washington-based lender provided 30 billion euros of Greece’s original loans, along with a third of the loans since granted to Ireland and Portugal.
Policy makers have in recent days narrowed in on bond rollovers as a pillar of any new aid package. The step would be favored by the European Central Bank, according to two officials familiar with the situation, as it would reduce the risk of any agreement being classified as a default. Investors may be given preferred status, higher coupon payments or collateral, said two other EU officials familiar with the situation. EU leaders are due to meet in Brussels on June 23-24 to approve a plan.
Spending Cuts
About 55 percent of investors in Greek government bondswould likely roll over holdings of securities maturing through 2013 to help the nation manage its budget deficit, according to ING Groep NV.
Euro-region governments have reached a tentative agreement on a package in which the nation’s private-sector creditors will contribute about 30 billion euros, the Wall Street Journal reported today, citing unidentified senior euro-zone officials. The process of exchanging current debt for longer maturity replacements might begin as soon as July, the Journal said.
Papandreou is promising 6.4 billion euros of spending cuts this year, another 22 billion euros up to 2015, and 50 billion euros in sales of assets including Hellenic Telecommunications Organization SA (HTO) and Public Power Corp SA. The pledges aim to get the deficit down to 7.5 percent of gross domestic product and were key to securing the fifth bailout payment. Papandreou is facing a backlash against the additional measures at home.
Market ‘Turn’
Members of the PAME labor union took over the Finance Ministry offices in central Athens yesterday, preventing employees from entering the building. They hung a banner from the roof calling for a general strike to oppose the measures.
A group of 16 lawmakers from Papandreou’s Pasok party this past week sent the premier a letter asking for a discussion of the austerity process. Papandreou will present the plan to lawmakers and his Cabinet in the new week. Workers at state-owned companies are organizing a 24-hour strike on June 9.
Moody’s downgraded Greece to Caa1, on a par with Cuba, and raised the nation’s risk of default on June 1 after policy makers considered asking investors to reinvest in new Greek debt when existing bonds mature. The move prompted Greek 10-year bonds to fall to the lowest since January.
‘New Territory’
“When more details will be available and we will get declarations that a deal has been reached, we might see a turn in bond markets,” said Chiara Cremonesi, a fixed-income strategist at UniCredit SpA in London. “The risk here is that they find a solution to fix the problem temporarily and don’t address it structurally.”
“The general perception is that Greece will head to some form of restructuring, and eventually the ratings will probably move to D,” said Brian Barry, an analyst at Evolution Securities Ltd. in London. “For a sovereign rating to fall from about A to this level is new territory.”
Moody’s on June 3 cut the ratings on eight Greek banks, including the nation’s largest, National Bank of Greece SA. (ETE)
The austerity measures have choked growth, shedding doubts on whether Greece will generate the tax revenue to pay off its debts. The economy if forecast to shrink 3.5 percent this year after contracting more than 4 percent last year. Some economists including Nobel-prize winner Joseph Stiglitz said the country would be better off if it restructured its debt.
Buying Time
“Hopefully they will go forward with an orderly restructuring -- that is the only way to restore growth with equity,” the Columbia University professor told a conference in Sitges, Spain, on June 3. Austerity will not bolster growth,“but is only a step to the disorderly restructuring that will almost inevitably follow,” Stiglitz said.
The EU program is aimed more at protecting Europe’s banks, than helping Greece, he said.
The new aid and debt rollovers will give Greece more time to trim its budget deficit, though will do little to reduce its rising debt load. Greece’s debt is likely to mushroom to 157.7 percent of gross domestic product in 2011, the highest in euro history, the European Commission said on May 13.
The aid package may be more about buying time for Europe’s banks and other high-debt nations to prepare for the fallout of a Greek restructuring, said James Nixon, chief European economist at Societe Generale SA in London.
“This strategy of playing for time is not without its merits,” he said in a note to investors on June 3. “It buys a number of the other Europeans time to put their own house in order and pursue their programs of fiscal consolidation. Time hopefully will also help Europe’s banks provision against future losses on sovereign debt. Finally and perhaps most critically, time also enables the peripheral economies themselves to implement fiscal reforms and return to a primary balance.” Juncker rejected the worst-case scenario. “It’s obvious that there will be no exit of Greece from the euro area,” he said. “There will be no default and Greece will be able to fully honor its obligations.”
Nel frattempo, anche gli USA stanno pensando ad un nuovo pacchetto di aiuti nei confronti dei proprietari di case, che ancora hanno difficoltà a ripagare i debiti contratti (vedi CNBC 4/6 "Delinquent Homeowners to Get Mortgage Aid from Government"):
The Obama administration wants to help more struggling Americans stay in their homes by reducing the amount they owe on their troubled mortgages, a top Treasury official said Saturday. "We are very definitely trying to facilitate more principal reductions," said Timothy Massad, Treasury's acting assistant secretary for financial stability. "It is a very important piece of the overall solution," he said. The administration is trying through taxpayer-funded programs to prevent homeowners from losing their homes. Nearly $50 billion has been set aside from the $700 billion bank bailout known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, to help distressed homeowners.
Persistently high unemployment and a weak housing market pose a threat to President Obama's re-election prospects next year.
So far, one of the programs has helped some 670,000 distressed homeowners win lower mortgage payments. But that has done very little to help the overall housing market, which remains depressed even as other parts of the economy have started to recover.
A glut of houses for sale, foreclosures, tight credit and little demand have impeded the housing recovery. Recent data showed that home prices dropped below the low seen in April 2009 during the financial crisis.
Come uscire da questa situazione? C'è chi avanza una strategia su 4 punti (vedi CNBC 3/6 "Cramer: These 4 Things Could Fix Market"), la maggioranza dei quali assomiglia molto da vicino alle osservazioni da me indicate in miei precedenti post:
Matteo OlivieriThere are four "cure-alls" that can get us out of this bad market, Cramer said Friday. First, Cramer said stock prices may need to fall across the board. Should the Dow fall from 12,151 to 10,000, he thinks there would be a lot of buying opportunities. Second, Washington has to come to an agreement on the debt ceiling. Third, the price of oil needs to go down. He thinks that could happen should the exchanges raise margin requirements, as the silver exchanges recently had. Fourth, we need some indication that the Chinese central bank will stop raising interest rates. “Without one of these four cure-alls,” Cramer believes, “we are going to be in this horrible free fire zone with the worst option, the price fall, being the least palatable solution if you own stocks, but the most opportunistic one if you have a lot of cash when it happens.”
>> Le informazioni qui contenute non (!) costituiscono sollecitazioni ad investire.
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento