Monday, April 26, 2010

Greece Going Critical

Greece is in a world of hurt right now -
Moody's Investors Service has taken the following rating actions on covered bonds issued by Greek banks:

- Mortgage covered bonds issued by National Bank of Greece S.A. ("NBG"): Downgraded to Aa2 and placed on review for further downgrade; previously on 31 March 2010 downgraded to Aa1;

- Mortgage covered bonds issued by Alpha Bank S.A. ("Alpha"): Aa2 placed on review for possible downgrade; Previously on 31 March 2010 downgraded to Aa2;

- Mortgage covered bonds issued by EFG Eurobank Ergasias S.A. ("EFG Eurobank"): Aa2 placed on review for possible downgrade; previously on 31 March 2010 confirmed at Aa2.
And defaults are starting to take place -
Payments of amounts owed to health service providers [6 billion euros of debt], public sector construction [1.2 billion], ICT [200 million] and media-advertising [100 million] have ceased, according to Kathimerini.
The Real Effect
Notice how everyone is starting to end up in the same boat, broke? Notice how the semi-not broke countries (at least as of now) are getting sucked into the drain right along with the bad ones? (Portugal, Spain)

Still think "globalism" and "free trade" are good ideas?

Still think spending 50% of your income on "government services" is a good idea?

Starting to see some parallels between the "socialistic" countries of the 1950s-1990s and our own?

Perhaps now would be a good time to investigate what liberty really is. Or perhaps you'd rather wait until the World War breaks out?

No comments: