The ECB (European Central Bank) decision to strike Greek bonds off its list of accepted collateral caused European shares and bonds to fall out of bed. The ECB’s move is a blunt attempt to turn-up pressure on Greece’s new anti-austerity government. Greek bank shares plunged over 20 percent and the country’s short-term debt yields surged to almost 20 percent. Greece should DEFAULT on Euro bonds externally and swap them for Drachma internally. Greece is getting nothing outr of the Euroland but grief from a bunch of clowns who themselves borrow every year and have no intention of paying anything back.
The Euro is a dead currency and sooner Greece leaves the better. Perhaps then and only then will the rest of Southern Europe depart. The ECB’s move has upped the stakes in a standoff between the rest of Euroland and Greece, where a new government wants to rewrite its aid-for-reform agreements. Greece’s central bank will now have to provide the country’s banks with billions of euros of emergency funding. So this is the perfect time to DEFAULT on all external debt.
Meanwhile, the Ukraine conflict continues as Russia accused the United States of trying to tear Ukraine away from it and warned any supply of U.S. arms to Ukraine would pose a danger to Russia’s national security. The IMF delayed providing the loans to Ukraine as promised and that led to food panics and the collapse in the currency. The Russia warning further impacted Ukraine’s currency, the hryvnia, which slumped 34% after its central bank has been running out of reserves. Ukraine has now been forced to hike interest rates to 5.5% to 19.5%, even though the economy is expected to continue to decline in a recessionary spiral downward.
