“Very few beings really seek knowledge in this world. Mortal or immortal, few really ask. On the contrary, they try to wring from the unknown the answers they have already shaped in their own minds -- justifications, confirmations, forms of consolation without which they can't go on. To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.”
-Anne Rice.
By Mark Grant
One way or another, left or right, the funder or the
funded; Greece is going. The situation is just not sustainable and $1.3
trillion in debt is going to be refuted and refuted with consequences that one
only hopes the European Union acknowledges and is prepared for past the drivel
that they spew out in the Press like Mount Vesuvius throwing up the phlegm of
the world on some ashen afternoon in Rome. Sovereign debt, bank debt, municipal
debt, $90 billion in derivatives, corporate debt and other obligations of the
government left out to dry as Germany reeks with the stench of boars head gone
bad. This is about to be the way of it.
The poor, the impoverished, line up for bread and Eurobonds and Berlin frowns and mumbles the appropriate phrases which all equate to the great finality,
“We are not going to pay.”
It would be amusing, I
suppose, if France and the alms seeking nations somehow managed to pass
Eurobonds while Germany was left fluttering in the wind and, if they did, one
might see the Berliner Bear head back into its cave and if not directed by Frau
Merkel then by someone else who would appear on the stage and demand some sort
of religious conversion. Do not be mislead by the passage of time. What has
been delayed, what has required ever larger amounts of money, has only caused
the canker sore to grow in size so that when it bursts it will expel far more
fluid that it would have had it been adequately dealt with at inception. Do not
for one moment assume that the additional minutes that have transpired will do
anything except to make matters worse; do not be fooled by those moments which
have come and gone and solved nothing. The Barbarians will soon enough arrive
at the gate.
“And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend; legend became myth.”
-The Lord of the Rings
As the Prime Minister of Spain publically acknowledged today that he is going to personally ask the ECB to buy the bonds of his nation I note the stirrings of fear and the kind of desperation that was felt just prior to Greece, Ireland, Portugal unveiling their begging bowl and asking the rest of Europe for some type of fiscal porridge that is always served cold and with a certain amount of malice by those that still retain sustenance in their cupboard. If you listen carefully you can hear the tremors in the Spanish voices, the inflections of need, the beginnings of sentences not quite finished. Spain has arrived at the wall; now all that is left is the public announcement.
There is no other conclusion now; addition and subtraction are
still functioning elements of our grade school educations and the use of them
will lead me, you, anyone, to the correct conclusions. The Spanish banks are in
the redline, the regional governments are past the point of peril and the
Federal government has neither the capital nor the ability to raise the amount
of money that is required. In the greatest of Spanish traditions the Prime
Minister is engaged in a fight to the death as he tells all who will listen
that it is nothing but windmills. Now my steadfast eyes know windmills
when I see them and they are not on this Spanish plain or any other plain in
this realm for that matter. Let Poncho and Don Miguel pretend to joust with the
winds if they must but a pine tree is just that regardless of the name used by
those less informed.
It is to be Treasuries to higher prices, risk/credit
assets widening against Treasuries. European debt/equities down precipitously
and wider and then far wider against their American counterparts. Recession in
Europe forthcoming to the American shores. The Euro down against the Dollar and
bonds denominated in Euros gaping out against their counterparties in the
United States so that “home law” spreads to “home currency” and the lessons
learned must be applied one more time. It is to be risk off and then any sort
of repellent to keep any sort of risk away. It will be cash and Grant’s Rules
1-10 “Preservation of Capital” that will stand as the golden orbs lighting the
way so that keeping what has been obtained will be the mantra and the only
mantra during the coming battles with the denizens of the dark as directed by
the long ago songs of the sirens wailing about the end of an Empire. What
cannot be seen by many will be uncovered once again as the old truths, the old
adages, find practical use in the days ahead.
Whether it is the EU running to the G-20, nations in
Asia, the IMF or Spain and Italy and their brethren calling for Eurobonds the
distinction is easily made; you pay or you pay or you pay because I cannot.
That is the cry in the wilderness as politely, very politely, quite politely
everyone says, “No
thank you.” The curtain is going down on the show and the
normal pleas are being made to keep the spectacle in operation but the
pocketbooks are closed and Germany and the rest are not going to bet the family
farm when the final act draws nigh. The Elves in the boulders cackle and the
“invisible people” move on and sigh as the ending of one more chapter is
inscribed in the Book of Life.
“May God forgive you for what you've done...
Father, if God has issues, they won't be with what I've done. They will be with what I'm about to do.”
-Dan Brown, Angels and Demons
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