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Finally, about reducing Greek debt to the level that it was prior to the crisis, it's important to remember that creditors fled Greece when it's level of debt to GDP was at 110%. It had been at 95-105% for at least a decade if not more. So, presumably, a reduction to that level would not improve things as far as credit goes because those levels are the levels which spooked the credit markets in the first place (after several hedge funds made huge short bets against the country).
Finally, it may be that Greek banks are repatriating Greek debt by having the ECB back them in their purchases of Greek bonds, thereby paying off outside creditors while the EU and Greek banks take on more EU debt. In other words, the longer these austerity measures continue, then we come to the point when the totality of the debt has moved from private hands to EU taxpayers and Greek banks.
I could live with that. Then all you have to do is shaft the Greek banks and the ECB, which is if nothing else politically easier than shafting German pension funds.
But unless the ECB is moving massively in this market, it's mostly cosmetic anyway, because these buybacks will be matched by Greek interbank debt to the rest of the -zone. So shafting the Greek banks will still shaft the creditor countries.
- Jake Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.
We know the ECB has bought under 80bn of Euro sovereign debt. That's no more than 1/3 of Greece's outstanding debt. Keynesianism is intellectually hard, as evidenced by the inability of many trained economists to get it - Paul Krugman
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