Eurozone

BACKGROUND

The referendum on Sunday will likely have a significant impact on the prospects of Greece reaching a new bailout agreement and the immediate future of the governing Syriza party. Following the expiration of the second bailout and the missed IMF repayment on 30th June, Greece has had to impose capital controls while negotiations between the country and its creditors have been put on hold until after the referendum. Eurozone officials have indicated that a “No” vote would likely mean a Greek exit from the currency union although the Greek government sees the vote as only pertaining to the terms of a bailout programme.

The timing of the release of The IMF's 'Greece needs a debt haircut no matter what' report this week was odd to say the least. Being as it confirmed everything the Greek government has been saying and provided the perfect ammunition for Tsipras to spin Sunday's Greferendum as a Yes/No to debt haircuts - something everyone can understand (and get behind). It is understandable then that, as Reuters reports, Greece's eurozone allies tried to block the release of the damning report this week but the Europeans were heavily outnumbered and the United States, the strongest voice in the IMF, was in favor of publication, sources said. While The IMF concluded, "Facts are stubborn. You can't hide the facts because they may be exploited," one wonders if this move merely reinforces Goldman's concpiracy theory.

"Introducing a new currency is a pipe dream and the likely result is a broken financial system reliant on a neighbor’s currency (the euro) and banking system. The choice is not 'do you accept the core’s terms your government has rejected?' Rather, it is 'do you want Greek banks to function independently?' and, de facto, do you want to be able to use the cash machine tomorrow?"

Earlier this week the embattled Greeks delivered still more body blows to the rotten regime of Keynesian central banking and the crony capitalist bailout state to which it is conjoined. By defaulting on its IMF loan, walking away from the troika bailout program and taking control of its insolvent domestic banking system, Alexis Tsipras and his band of political outlaws have shattered a giant illusion.

There’s no there there. Europeans are completely clueless about what’s happening here in Athens. They can’t see to save their lives that their silence protects and legitimizes a flat out war against a country that is, just like their respective countries, a member of a union that now seeks to obliterate it. Europeans need to understand that the EU has no qualms about declaring war on one of its own member states. And that it could be theirs next time around. Where people die of hunger or preventable diseases. Or commit suicide. Or flee. All Europeans on their TV screens can see the line-ups at ATMs, and the fainting grandmas at the banks, the hunger, the despair. How on earth can they see this as somehow normal, and somehow not connected to their own lives?

The Greece impasse set to culminate on Sunday continues to have a massive impact on at least one stock market, unfortunately it is the wrong one, located on a continent which is mostly irrelevant to the future of the Greek people (unless that whole AIIB bailout does take place of course). We are, of course, talking about China which as noted earlier, started off horribly, plunging over 7% with over 1000 stocks hitting 10% limit down, then in the afternoon session mysteriously recovering all losses and even trading slightly higher on the day, before the late selling returned once more, and the Shanghai Composite plunged to close down 5.8%: an unimaginable 20% total roundtrip move!

"Merkel's fear was that Athens would be unable to overcome its problems even with an additional haircut, since it would not be able to handle the remaining debt... Within the German cabinet, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schnaeuble alone continued to strongly back another haircut... with IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde described as undecided on the issue."

"Greece is being 'hit', there's no doubt about it," exclaims John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, noting that "[Indebted countries] become servants to what I call the corporatocracy ... today we have a global empire, and it's not an American empire. It's not a national empire... It's a corporate empire, and the big corporations rule."

The time to negotiate the Greek referendum this Sunday has come and gone and at this point, one can only sit and wait as the vote results start trickling in on Sunday evening. And, as Goldman's Huw Pill prudently observes, the outcome of Sunday's Greek referendum is uncertain. "Regardless of the outcome, Greece will continue to face substantial economic dislocation in the shorter term." What is interesting is that Goldman says "Greece will ultimately remain in the Euro area even in the event of a ‘No’ vote."

European Parliament president Martin Schulz said his faith in the Greek government had reached "rock bottom," and, as AFP reports, that he hopes it resigns after Sunday's referendum. Luckily, he has an idea for a solution... the time between the departure of Tsipras' hard-left Syriza party and new elections would have to "be bridged with a technocratic government, so that we can continue to negotiate." Just what The Greeks need - another "Yes man" puppet government to implement whatever Europe's bankers demand.

It appears the sovereign peoples of Europe would not go gently into a Federal States of Europe night. Investors need to prepare for the inevitable political solution: referendums across Europe on the constitution of the Federal States of Europe needed to sustain the Euro. Events this weekend will trigger the search for the democratic legitimacy for the single currency and the centralised constitution it requires... or the demise of the unelected 'king Juncker' and 'queen Lagarde' of the Federal States of Europe.

According to a report prepared prior to capital controls and the banking sector meltdown, any deal that included creditor concessions on fiscal reforms would mean Greece's debt load would have to be written down.

This process has already begun in Europe. It will be spreading elsewhere in the months to come. Smart investors are preparing now BEFORE it hits so they are in a position to profit from it, instead of getting slaughtered

The ECB has expanded the list of PSPP-eligible SSA bonds, setting the stage for more ECB QE and turning one more conspiracy "theory" into conspiracy "fact."

When it comes to Europe, Greece lost the blame game, and just like the Ukraine civil war last year, became an unwitting catalyst greenlighting Germany's concession to ECB QE, this time it may be Greece that launches the next step in the ECB's master plan: not just QE but more QE. This is precisely what Goldman's Franceso Garzarelli, co-head of macro and markets research, admitted earlier today in an interview on Bloomberg TV, when he said that the ECB "will have to go big" if the situation in Greece worsens and leads to wider peripheral bond yield spreads.