Leveraging the EFSF

I’ll repeat this link for background.  I would feel better about the idea if the context were: “We can always go back to the trough, but leveraging the fund is the easiest way for us to strike quickly and decisively.”  Instead I see too much of: “We can’t get any more from our taxpayers, so we’d better stretch this one as far as we can.”  That’s just inviting the speculators to set up camp against you.

Who will fund the leverage?  BRICS?  American investors?  Ultimately other Europeans?  All of those parties already can construct their own leveraged positions in Italian government debt, if they wish.  So presumably the leverage will be a hidden subsidy to the financiers, one way or another, to get them to participate.  Subsidizing the debt buyers, rather than guaranteeing the debt (admittedly that may be impossible and undesirable for Germany), hardly seems like the way to go.  You bear the costs of the bailout without any assurance it will work.

This German-language video suggests many of the German representatives do not know what they just voted for.

You’ll find lots of good comments on Twitter, and here.  How about this take?:

“Germany voted for the EFSF extension. Greece celebrated by going on strike.”

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