Good ‘cut to the chase’ article in the Financial Times from Nouriel Roubini on likely outcomes facing the European union staggering under debts far and wide:
“…since half of the European financial stability facility’s resources are already committed to Greece, Ireland, Portugal and to their banks, there is only about €200bn left for Italy and Spain. Attempts have been made to use financial engineering to turn this small sum into €2,000bn. But the leveraged EFSF is a turkey that will not fly, because the original EFSF was already a giant collateralised debt obligation, where a bunch of dodgy, sub-triple-A sovereigns try to achieve, by miracle, a triple-A rating via bilateral guarantees. So a leveraged EFSF is a giant CDO squared that will not work and will not reduce spreads to sustainable levels. The other “turkey” concocted by the EFSF was supposed to be a special purpose vehicle where reserves of central banks become the equity tranche that allows sovereign wealth funds and the Bric countries to inject resources in a triple-A super senior tranche. Does this sound like a giant sub-prime CDO scam? Yes, it does. This is why it was vetoed by the Bundesbank.
So, since the levered EFSF and the EFSF SPV will not fly – and there is not enough International Monetary Fund money to rescue Italy and/or Spain – the spreads for Italian debt have reached a point of no return.
…The eurozone can survive with the debt restructuring and exit of a small country such as Greece or Portugal. But if Italy and/or Spain were to restructure and exit this would effectively be a break-up of the currency union. Unfortunately this slow-motion train wreck is now increasingly likely.
Only if the ECB became an unlimited lender of last resort and cut policy rates to zero, combined with a fall in the value of the euro to parity with the dollar, plus a fiscal stimulus in Germany and the eurozone core while the periphery implements austerity, could we perhaps stop the upcoming disaster.”
