Greece and the Missing Banking Union
If the Eurozone had a proper banking union, Greek banks would not now be in crisis.
Read more...Category Archives: Europe
Lagarde Distances the IMF From Implications of Leaked Debt Sustainability Report
By Nathan Tankus, a writer from New York City. Follow him on Twitter at @NathanTankus Earlier this week I did a detailed analysis of the way the media misreported Lew and Lagarde’s statements last week regarding Greece. Yesterday this type of misreporting reared its ugly head again when an update to the Debt Sustainability report […]
Read more...ECB Expected to Continue to Strangle Banks, Not Provide More ELA Funding Today, Despite Greek Parliament Passing Austerity Legislation (Updated: ECB Does Not Provide All of Requested Funding, Attaches New Strings)
The ECB is in full sack-of-Carthage mode if it fails to increase the ELA today to give Greek banks some hope of survival and more important for the economy, of providing payment services to citizens, businesses (particularly importers) and tourists
Read more...The History of European Macroeconomics and Exchange Rate Policy
This is a very readable and important account of how Europe came to embrace some of the key elements of its current monetary policy and exchange rate straitjacket.
Read more...Greek Parliament Passes Bailout Legislation
The margin of victory, if you can call it that, was 229 out of 300.
Read more...Odds Favor a Greece Deal Failure and Defacto Grexit
The odds now favor the tentative deal struck over the weekend to “rescue” Greece, which many have correctly depicted as a brutal economic colonization of Greece by its lenders, coming unraveled.
Read more...Convert to the Drachma – Piece of Cake. Right…
Those who consider a Grexit, meaning reintroducing drachma, to be a sine qua non for Greece moving forward have no idea of what that entails.
Read more...IMF Throws a Spanner in Proposed Greece Deal, Says Debt Reduction May Not Be Enough
The IMF has dropped a big shoe before the Greek government has passed any of the legislation required as part of its pending bailout. But if this development leads to more wrangling, that means an even longer delay before Greek banks get any liquidity, which means continued strangulation of the Greek economy.
Read more...The IMF’s Olivier Blanchard Writes a Greek Tragedy
The IMF’s research head, Olivier Blanchard, attempted to defend the IMF’s sorry record in Greece. What if any of his argument makes sense?
Read more...“Greece Brought a Latte to a Gunfight”
How Greece, and in particular, Yanis Varoufakis, grossly misunderstood German interests and how that led Greece to destroy itself and further German rule.
Read more...Greece Has Made No Preparation for a Grexit
This is as bad as we’ve feared.
Read more...A Grexit Looks Almost Inescapable
Despite my generally dour outlook, I never thought we’d arrive at the insane juncture we are at now, that of a Grexit being all but baked in.
Read more...The Greek Last-Chance Proposal: Stepping Backwards to Move Forward?
An analysis of the proposal approved by the Greek parliament yesterday by 251 votes out of 300.
Read more...“Tsipras Has Just Destroyed Greece”
Tsipras has managed to deliver to the neoliberals a victory more complete than they could ever have engineered on their own.
Read more...Greece Told to Submit Proposal By Thursday, Complete Deal By Sunday, or ECB Shoots Its Banks and Forces Grexit (Updated: Greece Requests Three Year Bailout)
Greece has been given a maximum of five days to come up with a proposal acceptable to its lenders. And “acceptable” would be more stringent than if it had agreed to the memorandum when Syriza assumed office in January
Read more...