Greek leader survives crucial vote on debt crisis

[MadImmortalMan]

The idea is that those banks that hold Greek bonds will have time to dispose of them to manage their risk.
The problem with this idea is that for every seller there must be a buyer, and who is that going to be?  Vulture investors maybe but they will only buy at a deep discount; thus, if sellers want to decrease their exposure they will have to sell at a loss.

Also EU rescue agencies and "bad banks" like FMS.



Spread the pain, as it were.

[The Minsky Moment]

That depends on the willingness of EU institutions to increase their exposure to Greek sovereign debt by buying at or near par from Greek banks.  I dont sense strong appetite for that.

[MadImmortalMan]

Very true. Beyond what's already been done, anyway.

[alfred russel]

That depends on the willingness of EU institutions to increase their exposure to Greek sovereign debt by buying at or near par from Greek banks.  I dont sense strong appetite for that.

It could be a way to achieve a stealth bailout.

[derspiess]

That is what Argentina did, and as you might expect wasn't embraced by the population. The wealthier citizens tended to have wealth outside of the country, or those just with the foresight to get their money out ahead of the collapse, weren't harmed (and in peso terms actually enjoyed a massive windfall). The ordinary citizens of Argentina had their wealth dramatically reduced. The demonstrations in Argentina make the current Greece protests look like family picnics.

The "irate woman chiding a bank employee because she can't make a withdrawal" skit has apparently become a staple in Argentine TV comedy.  It's one of those things everyone there can relate to, because they've seen it happen.

They went through a bunch of presidents because no one in their right mind wanted to have to deal with the mess, and I think one or two actually escaped the country for a while.

That was a hoot.  While I was down there for Christmas and New Years 2001-2002 they changed presidents three times.  The dude who was elected by the Assembly to serve a 3-month term as president held a huge rally to celebrate his election-- he stepped down after just 8 days in office.

I thought Duhalde, the guy who followed him (and who is a dead ringer for Joe Pesci) was going to be the worst president in Argentine history, which would certainly have been a feat.  He was a die-hard Peronist and had an almost unmatched reputation for corruption.  But surprisingly he performed quite well.  He made difficult but necessary decisions his predecessors were unwilling to make, helped stabilize the political & economic landscape and ended up calling for elections 6 months ahead of schedule.

As far as unrest, it got ugly but I'm not sure it was much worse than what we've seen in Greece.  I didn't see any of it firsthand-- all the times we were downtown nothing major was happening.

My in-laws were relatively apathetic about the whole thing.  For them it was just another Christmas/New Years.