(snip)"Angela Merkel consigns Ireland, Portugal and Spain to their fate

Germany has had enough. Any eurozone state that spends its way into a debt crisis or cannot adapt to a monetary union set for Northern rhythms will face “orderly” bankruptcy.

Bondholders will discover burden-sharing. Debt relief will be enforced, either by interest holidays or haircuts on the value of the bonds. Investors will pay the price for failing to grasp the mechanical and obvious point that currency unions do not eliminate risk: they switch it from exchange risk to default risk. "(snip)

(snip)"“We must keep in mind the feelings of our people, who have a justified desire to see that private investors are also on the hook, and not just taxpayers,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Or in the words of Bundesbank chief Axel Weber: “Next time there is a problem, (bondholders) should be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. So far the only ones who have paid for the solution are the taxpayers.” (snip)

(snip)"One might argue that bondholders should have been punished for their errors long ago. The stench of moral hazard has been sickening, on both sides of the Atlantic. An orderly bankruptcy along lines routinely engineered by the International Monetary Fund is exactly what Greece needs. It makes no sense to push Greece further into a debt compound spiral by raising public debt from 115pc of GDP at the outset of the “rescue” to 150pc at the end of the ordeal.

If you strip out the humbug, the Greek package allows banks and funds to shift roughly €150bn of liabilities onto EU governments, or the European Central Bank, or the IMF. Greek citizens are being subjected to the full pain of austerity under false pretences, without being offered the cure of debt relief.

It is in reality a bail-out for investors. There is a touch of cruelty in this. Needless to say, the Greek Left has noticed. A socialist dissident from the “anti-Memorandum” bloc (ie anti EU-IMF) is likely to win the Athens region in coming elections.

Note too that the ruling socialists have fallen to 25pc in the Portuguese polls, while the Communists and hard-left Bloco are together up to 18pc. Ain’t seen nothing, you might say.

Yet opening the door to bondholder haircuts at this delicate juncture – with spreads reaching fresh records in Ireland last week, and Portugal struggling to pass a budget – is to toss a hand-grenade into the eurozone periphery."(snip)

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Needless to say, Merkel's ( and for that matter Sarkozy's ) response to financially irresponsible EU states is a major departure from the American response to financially irresponsible US states to date. In exchange for 'backstopping' additional credit for the spendthrift EU states, Merkel ( and Sarkozy ) are demanding both enforced austerity ( i.e. gov't payroll cuts, gov't benefit cuts, selective tax increases on the citizens of those spendthrift EU states, etc. ) and haircuts for the uber-rich bondholders who have been earning big ( tax priveleged ) interest income.