Cheers to Greek PM, thumbs down for ratings agencies
Kudos to Greece's George Papandreou for contributing, perhaps unwittingly, to his compatriots' realisation that the October 26 Eurozone plan will be hard, but that going without it would be even harder.
The next step should be a broad-based coalition government, with a new prime minister, who would be in a better position to start in earnest with the implementation of the plan.
Supposing a coalition government cannot be formed immediately, a referendum at the beginning of December, with a clear-cut question (made perfectly clear if necessary by the Eurozone authorities and the ECB), might still be the best way to manage the Greek-debt problem.
Should the answer be “no”, the Greeks will have all the time they need to sort out the internal politics of the situation through new legislative elections – unless they prefer to settle their accounts on the streets, which is doubtful, since we are dealing with a democracy and an uncommonly intelligent and practical people.
But if they vote no, let the banks – Greek, French, American, British and so on – shoulder the Greek debt, unless somebody can show a good reason why the Eurozone governments and their citizens should substitute for the Goldman Sachs of this world.
Also, getting rid of the Moody’s, S&P’s, Fitch’s and similar incompetent moneygrubbers is becoming a priority. Not only are they unable to predict problems in due course (remember the subprimes!), but they make them much worse with their theatrical announcements of triple ZZZs.
A triple KKK in the AAA is what they deserve, along with a plus rather than a minus.
Jacques Roman
Chiang Mai
