Saturday, March 3, 2012

Someone Finally Admitted It - Greeks Default


I have been saying for some time that the Greek debt situation is just a slow motion default, but no one wants to call it by its true name. KT alerted me to this gem about Moody's and S&P's view of the matter:

Moody’s dropped Greece’s rating to C from Ca, saying in a statement that investors who participate in the nation’s debt exchange will get about 70 percent less than the face value of their holdings. The deal constitutes “a distressed exchange, and hence a default,” the New York-based rating company said.

The downgrade follows Standard & Poor’s decision on Monday to lower Greece to «selective default» after the announcement of the plan for investors to trade their bonds for new securities. The swap will reduce Greece’s 200 billion euros of privately-held debt by about half if all investors participate.

Haircut my a**. Investors are unlikely to get even the 70% promised.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the link. Now for the interesting part. Life for the Greeks under real, honest-to-goodness austerity.

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