Tuesday, November 01, 2011

Meanwhile, in Greece

It would appear that, despite the central role it plays in Greek cuisine, there's not a lot of interest in eating their spinach:

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou called a referendum and a parliamentary confidence vote, raising the prospect of derailing the European bailout effort and pushing Greece into default. Stocks and the euro tumbled.

Papandreou’s gambit risks pushing the country into default if rejected by voters, and raises the ante with dissidents in his own party. Papandreou’s popularity has plunged after a raft of austerity measures cut pensions and wages, increased taxes and sparked a wave of social unrest. An opinion poll published Oct. 29 showed most Greeks believe the accord on a new bailout package and a debt writedown is negative.
Not surprisingly, the early returns don't appear to be favorable:

The 17-nation euro fell versus the dollar, dropping 0.6 percent to $1.3770 as of 8:49 a.m. in Berlin from yesterday in New York, when it sank 2 percent, the sharpest slide since August 2010. German government bonds opened higher, pushing the yield on the 10-year bund 16 basis points lower to 1.86 percent. The Euro Stoxx 500 Index sank as much as 4.2 percent.

Pacific Investment Management Co. Chief Executive Officer Mohamed El-Erian said the referendum call “is material and consequential.”
Yeah, I'd say so too. If Greece has a referendum and rejects the ministrations of the EU ministers, the whole enterprise could go down the crapper pretty quickly.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The Greeks don't want no freaks!