Germans tell Greece to declare itself bankrupt

The German Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has told Greece to stop prolonging the inevitable and declare itself bankrupt.

A join EU Commission/ECB/IMF report says that Greece will be unable to meet its target of getting national debt down to 120% of GDP by 2020 even if it implements all of the EU's austerity demands.

In order to get the promised EU/IMF payday loan, the Greek government needs to agree a 70% write-off with its private creditors.  Apparently this will take four weeks to arrange and Greece needs €14.5bn of someone else's money to service its debts on the 20th of March.  That means a bailout loan has to be agreed no later than Tuesday to give the Greek government the 28 days it needs to negotiate the 70% write-off.

The EU was supposed to have agreed the bailout loan on Wednesday but they decided to make Greece wait until Monday for a decision.  The most likely reason earlier in the week was that they would try and screw more concessions out of the Greek government because Greece getting the bailout loan was believed to be a foregone conclusion but Schäuble's comments and the EC/ECB/IMF report cast doubt on that theory.  Could they be holding back because they're genuinely unsure whether they should let Greece fail?

Apparently, US banks are already preparing for a Greek default and if the rumours are to be believed, Greece is being managed into default.  If they do default and crash out of the €uro there won't be many Greeks complaining.  They've seen prices go through the roof since the Drachma was replaced, interest rates pegged unacceptably high to suit the Franco-German Empire and now devastating EU-imposed austerity measures when they're in trouble.

Greece should have left the €uro before things got out of hand.  Without wanting to sound like a broken record where Iceland is concerned, they have really set the bar for economic recovery.  They're forecasting a budget surplus next year and Fitch have just upgraded their credit rating to investment grade, citing their "unorthodox crisis policy" as the primary reason for their recovering economy.  The "unorthodox crisis policy" involved letting its banks fail, prioritising their own citizens over foreign investors, reducing interest rates and imposing restrictions on foreign currency transactions - none of which is an option to Greece while it's in the €uro.

Greek PM begs for support for EU austerity measures

Lucas Papademos, the Greek Prime Minister, has gone on TV today calling for calm as about 4,000 protesters protested outside the Greek parliament (they're allowed to do that in more enlightened countries) and begging MPs to vote in favour of the EU's crippling austerity measures designed to try and keep the €uro going for a bit longer while they await divine intervention.

Just smile and nod Lucas, it always works for me

Appearing next to the EU ring of stars logo probably wasn't the cleverest move when Greeks are rioting about the EU's austerity measures (even burning German flags to protest at the fourth reich's interference in Greek affairs) but then if he was a clever man, Papademos would have told the EU to bugger off by now and defaulted.  Iceland was in technical default a couple of years ago but are now predicting a 3% growth in the economy and a budget surplus next year.  Iceland let its banks fail, looked after its own citizens, stuck two fingers up to foreign investors and devalued its currency.  Greece isn't allowed to let its banks fail, it has to look after all EU citizens, it's not allowed to stick two fingers up to foreign investors and it can't devalue its currency.

Greece needs to find €14.5bn in 5 weeks time to make bond repayments and it doesn't have the money.  The only plan the Greek government has is to borrow the money from the EU and IMF but in return, the EU wants devastating cuts in Greek spending, EU control of the Greek budget and their sockpuppet heading the government.  Greece can't afford to pay back the loans it's already taken out, let alone billions more.

Back in November (before the EU effected a coup to remove Papandreou from office) we said that Greece needs to forget about the EU/IMF bailout plan, default on its debts, withdraw from the €uro and reintroduce the drachma at a cheap rate to stimulate the domestic market.  There is no conceivable way out of the current economic mire that Greece finds itself in whilst remaining a member of the EU and the €urozone.