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Tuesday, February 21

21st Feb - Too much Risk-On?

See my previous (updated 21-Feb 12:30 GMT) Eurogroup Special for the Greek bailout analysis. Greece’s ministry of finance has announced that they will enforce losses on bondholders who do not participate in the voluntary bond swap. I don’t think ISDA could still consider this as a voluntary event, and credit default swaps will be triggered.


News roundup – Between The Hedges
Emerging London Headlines – beyondbrics / FT
  -Funding gap closed by larger write-down for private investors, lower interest rates on
Greece’s loans and contribution from ECB’s profits on its Greek bonds
Morning BriefingBNY Mellon
  -First thoughts on the agreement overnight
Market Preview – Saxo Bank
  -Europe expected to open mixed, on the back of weak macro from China and Japan.
Press digests by Reuters: FT, WSJ, NYT

Debt crisis: live – The Telegraph
Europe Crisis Tracker – WSJ
Tracking Europe’s Debt Crisis – NYT

EURO CRISIS
What the Greek debt crisis is really aboutThe Daily Reckoning
It's about the subversion of sovereignty and democratic processes by removing decisions from people and giving them to trans-national financial elites. It's about preserving a global system that's based on the accumulation of debt and growing government power because there are two groups of people who benefit tremendously from that system, even if most people don't.

Iron Lady Merkel Bucks German Street BB
Merkel may be homing in on her platform for the election next fall: enforcing the budget discipline that Germans want, while fending off the breakup of the euro area as too risky to contemplate for a country that has staked its post-World War II role in Europe on promoting consensus.

Spain Sinks Deeper Into Periphery on Debt RiseBB

Greece and the Eurozone: political leaders should get off their high horsesvoxeu.org
Willem Buiter / Citigroup in an audio interview: Greece’s public debt should be written off, its banks recapitalised and the country provided with conditional support for growth. Also LTRO and possible national central bank insolvencies discussed.

OTHER
Krugman InterviewPlayboy
Even though this site is ”safe for work”, I must say I am curiously satisfied to have an excuse to link to Playboy.

The Volcker Rule is not going to bring your house backSober Look
With a scribd link to Darrel Duffie’s Market Making Under the Proposed Volcker Rule, from 16-Jan.

Slaves cost more than you thinkCapitalists@Work
Free workers are not free - they are expensive to the companies that employ them.

As Everything Disconnects And Everything Is Soaring, Morgan Stanley Issues A Warning ZH
Speculators are bullish on equities, bonds and oil…which has provided strong sell signals over the last decade

The Great RepressionThe Daily Capitalist
Highly paid shills for the status quo on Wall Street have recently been wheeled out to observe the fundamental ugliness of western government bonds. They are correct. This is an asset class that has managed to defy the laws of economics in becoming ever more expensive even as its supply swells. Their response has been to recommend piling into stocks instead. The logic here is not so pristine.

Monetary policy at crisis times ECB
Lecture by Peter Praet, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the International Center for Monetary and Banking Studies, Geneva, 20 February 2012