Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Shock, Awe, but will it Work?

When the financial crisis hit the United States, the American government release billions, trillions of dollars to bailout their banks. It was a partial success as the bailout stop things from getting much worse but it never stop the crisis.

Taking a page out of the American playbook, Europe and the IMF now announced a 750 billion euros war chest to deal with Greece’s debt problems. This immediately gave a boost to world markets and sent global stock markets and the euro soaring. Central banks from around the world also got into the act by agreeing to ensure there would be liquidity in the money markets.

The question now is whether it will work?

Despite what government officials in Europe are saying in public, the cause of the debt crisis are not money speculators betting against the euro but…well, debt! Greece is basically bankrupt, and with the debt levels of Spain, Ireland, Portugal and Italy all at a high, I question if the trillion-dollar war chest will work. Mind you, the United Kingdom’s debt is as high as Greece’s and they are saved only because the U.K’s economy is bigger than Greece’s. With debts like these, who wouldn’t bet against the euro?

Greece is at least doing its part by announcing a radical overhaul of the pension system to slash their debt. This highly unpopular move will probably cost the current Socialist government in the next election but they are doing it. Now the rest of Europe need to follow Greece’s example or else even 750 billion euros will not be enough.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It won't work as long as there is no auditor or rigid transparency procedures in place...

Whatever monies are pass to greece to bail out...well, the outflows of capital from greece will still continue unless the EU and the IMF put a stop of the outflow of capital from greece...

If they don't...money ... lots of it will continue to be lost...why because of corrupt people, opportunists, financial "raiders" etc...

It looks real bad...the world economy is right now hanging literally with its finger nails on the edge of the cliff...and the parasites and monsters are still pushing it's finger nail one by one of it...as they continue to take as much flesh as they still can...even though the parasites and monsters had their full and more already...but just can't stop beacause of greed and avarice...and importantly the lack of a conscience.

The world is hurting...and more various types of even greater pain and hard shocks has not even started yet...

Scary and sad.

Ghost said...

I think a lot of the problems are created by ordinary Greeks themselves. Already there are riots in Greece and 3 bank workers were killed by protesters, and for what? The current Socialist government is doing all the right thing but the people of Greece just want handouts from the EU without suffering pain themselves. It's easy to blame the money men for the problems but I don't think it is exactly the case in Greece right now.