Eurozone

Presented with little comment aside to ask if someone is off-script?

NOONAN: THE CRISIS HAS COMMENCED
SCHAEUBLE SAYS `HELLISH DIFFICULT TASK' ON GREECE
NOONAN: I HAVE SYMPATHY FOR THE GREEK PEOPLE

But always remember, "Greece doesn't matter," which as Mohamed El-Erian explains, is somewhat true, since European leaders have two other existential issues to contend with also...

"A possible Greek default on debt due to the International Monetary Fund next week would trigger cross- default clauses on 130.9 billion euros that Greece owes the euro area’s temporary rescue facility, a European Union official says."

And just like that, game theory just became over theory:

• DIJSSELBLOEM SAYS REST OF EUROGROUP REGRETS GREEK REJECTION
• DIJSSELBLOEM SAYS `GREAT CONCERNS WITH CREDIBILITY' OF GREECE
• DIJSSELBLOEM SAYS REST OF EUROGROUP REGRETS GREEK REJECTION
• DIJSSELBLOEM: SITUATION IN GREECE WILL DETERIOATE IN BETWEEN

And the punchline, which as we hinted earlier is the biggest problem with the Greek referendum:

• DIJSSELBLOEM: THE PROGRAM WILL EXPIRE ON TUESDAY NIGHT

So just what will the Greeks vote on next Sunday if the proposal is no longer on the table?

While the path ahead suddenly just got very confusing for both Greece and Europe, one thing is clear: going forward the Greeks will only have themselves to blame for whatever the final outcome is. That, and the Greek trargicomedy which has now lasted for over 5 years, may finally be over.

Greek PM Tsipras just delivered the biggest Friday night bomb in recent European history: he stunned the Troika and his peers in Europe with the biggest shocker of all - a referendum announcement, aka the Greek "nuclear option", something which cost his predecessor George Papandreou his job. At this point there is no turning back, and the Greeks - of which 80% want to stay in the Euro even as 80% want an end to austerity - will get to choose their own fate. Whatever choice they make, they will now only have only themselves to blame.

An extensive look at what would happen if Greece were to leave the Eurozone, through a legal fudge.

"Investors have experienced many mood swings, some institutionalized irrationality, as well as treacherous trading conditions in the first six months of 2015. The wacky has become the norm."

Greece is the proverbial early harbinger of everything that’s wrong with the world, and of everything that could be done about it.

Following yesterday's furious market drop in Chinese stocks, just before the overnight open, Morgan Stanley came out with a much distributed report urging investors "Not to buy this dip", and so they didn't. As a result, the Shanghai Composite imploded, at one point trading down 8% while the Chinext and Shenzhen markets crashed even more. This was the single biggest Shanghai Composite one-day drop since 2007, and with a close at 4192.87 the SHCOMP is now on the verge of a bear market, down 19% from its June 12 highs. China's second largest market, Shenzhen, is now officially in a bear market.

There has been some confusion why Germany and the Eurozone are so strict in negotiating with France and unwilling to concede even to the smallest of what they deem as outlandish Greek demands. The reason is not so much whether Spain or even Italy, both countries with soaring unemployment, a lost generation and a sweeping movement against "austerity", follow with comparable demands should Europe concede to Tsipras, but France, where the frontrunner for the next president, the National Front's Marine Le Pen, has just warned that not only is a Grexit inevitable, but that France would follow shortly.

So much for a Greek deal getting "done" today, as the market had priced in for the nth countless time on Monday. Here is what happened moments ago according to Bloomberg and Reuters:

• GREEK DELEGATION LEAVES EU COMMISSION
• SCHAEUBLE SEES INSUFFICIENT PROGRESS FOR GREECE DEAL TODAY
  
• SCHAEUBLE SAYS HE DOESN'T HAVE MUCH NEW TO SAY ON GREECE

And so on, until the next round of buying ahead of the next rumor, until the next denial launches stocks even higher, ahead of more hopes of an imminent deal launches even more buying program, until the next round of rumors leds to new all time highs and so on, and so on...

The renewed optimism that's surrounded Greek debt negotiations since Monday evening evaporated like deposits on a hot summer day in Athens this morning as the IMF has indicated it will stick to its "red lines" on pension cuts and the VAT, meaning PM Alexis Tsipras will either surrender unconditionally or embrace an EMU exit.

"We've won a few months' respite but the problem will come back," France's Marine Le Pen said of Greece... "Today we're talking about Grexit, tomorrow it will be Brexit, and the day after tomorrow it will be Frexit." We shouldn’t need Le Pen to voice the obvious. But that no other ‘leader’, save for Nigel Farage, puts it into these crystal clear terms, does tell us a lot about all other European leaders. And unfortunately that includes Alexis Tsipras. Though we hold out some hope for him yet. Here’s hoping he will not sign that deal, whichever it may be in the end, and thereby set in motion the disintegration of the unholy Union.

Watching as bankrupt (Western) governments pay near-zero or even negative rates of interest on their debts, we see a financial fraud and sham of unparalleled dimensions in the history of our nations. However, when these same regimes inflict these fraudulent interest rates on “savers” (i.e. their own populations), while double-digit inflation rages all around us, this is nothing less than a crime against humanity – with even worse crimes still to come.