Today is Thursday, tomorrow is Friday, the day after tomorrow is Saturday, and on Sunday, the leaders of the European Union, in their reunion in Brussels, are supposed to find the miraculous solution which would end the sovereign debt crisis - the Greek metastasis and the poliomyelitis (that is, a single word for weakness and contagion risk) of the European banks - , but yesterday it was a Wednesday and the day before that, on Tuesday, Standard&Poor"s downgraded 20 Italian banks and Moody"s warned against a potential downgrade of France and downgraded Spain, even as the doctors in charge, (French president Nicolas Sarkozy, and German chancellor, Angela Merkel) are arguing over the cure.
And that"s because each of them wants a solution that would favor their own country.
Angela Merkel wants a 50-60% haircut on Greek bonds (50-60%), at the expense of the bondholders, but the main holders are the French banks (which aren"t doing so hot anyway), so Nicolas Sarkozy would "prefer" (but he"s rather adamant about it), for some "technical adjustments" to the preliminary agreement of July, where they had agreed with private bondholders to only have a 21% haircut on the Greek bonds.
Sarkozy"s alternative expects Greece to rely mostly on the second payout of the European Financial Stability Fund (which was initially stipulated to be 110 billion Euros), to which Germany is the largest contributor.
Of course, the French want to have their cake and eat it, considering that the more money they give the Greeks, the more frigates the latter buy from them.
You didn"t know?!, Greece is getting ready for war!, by buying four French warships, at a total price of 1.2 billion Euros, and 400 American tanks - that"s sure going to help their current money problems (what could be their target?, Turkey?, or its own protesters?).
On the other hand, the Germans
