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Greece Debt Default Increasingly Certain Outcome

September 12th, 2011

What savvy observers have long predicted, a default by Greece on her massive public debt, has  until recently  been refuted by Eurozone politicians as even a possibility. These policymakers have already gone through two massive bailouts, funded by European taxpayers, involving more than 200 billion euros, to keep Greece from tottering over the edge. However, the marketplace, and even below the radar some European politicians, especially in Germany, have now been conceding what is so obvious to almost every other knowledgeable observer. Athens will default on her debt. With an imploding economy, in which ironically the austerity measures imposed on Greece as the price of the bailouts have worsened her public debt to GDP ratio, and no possibility of inflating her way out of default by currency devaluation (the trap of being in a common currency-the euro), mathematical certitude cannot be overcome. Greece is in an unsustainable sovereign debt trajectory.

Two year Greek government bond yields have soared above the 50 percent range. Such yields only exist in a universe where the marketplace prices in the certainty of a sovereign debt default.  And this is only the beginning. There is not only Portugal and Ireland next in line; there is also Italy and Spain. Then there are the French and German banks, highly exposed to a Greek sovereign debt default. In other words, Lehman Brothers on steroids. The doomsday debt crisis scenario I predicted in my book (Global Economic Forecast 2010-2015: Recession Into Depression) is being increasingly vindicated by a fiscal architecture that is unraveling with surreal velocity.

                 

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