Creditors

With Greece facing a critical €3.2 billion payment to the ECB on August 20, creditors are under immense pressure to conclude official discussions on a third bailout program within the next three weeks. Now, Focus magazine says some German officials doubt whether the quadriga's timeline is realistic. 

When fiat fragility shows its fecklessness, it appears people turn to the alternatives...

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While the Puerto Rican creditors' bargaining power on the island is to put it mildly, negligible, especially after the budget director made the imminent default into a crusade of poor versus rich, saying he won’t redirect cash from its operating budget to make debt payments, an unexpected supporter has emerged thousands of miles from the beleaguered island: New York's socialist mayor Bill DeBlasio. As CBS reports "New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio demanded President Obama and Congress immediately come to the island's fiscal rescue." "It's the federal government's obligation to act, because they can't stand idly by and watch Puerto Rico fail," de Blasio told a crowd of hundreds of Puerto Rico boosters gathered on the steps of City Hall.

"The International Monetary Fund’s board has been told Athens’ high debt levels and poor record of implementing reforms disqualify Greece from a third IMF bailout of the country, raising new questions over whether the institution will join the EU’s latest financial rescue."

Speaking to a gathering of some 200 Syriza lawmakers on Wednesday, Greek PM Alexis Tsipras drew a line in the sand, insisting that the divisions within the party cannot persist. In a dramatic move, Tsipras called for a party referendum on Sunday to decide once and for all whether Syriza lawmakers will support the bailout or push for its cancellation.

"He is going to pay me back in some sort of product when he is able to, maybe in cheese."

If Greece does find it has a legal basis to criminally charge Varoufakis with treason merely for preparing for a Plan B, then it brings up an interesting question: if Varoufakis was a criminal merely for preparing for existing the Euro, then comparable treason charges should also be lobbed against none other than Varoufakis' nemesis - Eurogroup president and Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem.

With creditors now on the ground in Athens, and with a third prior actions vote in parliament due at the first of August, Greek PM Alexis Tsipras spoke out about the new bailout "deal", debt re-profiling, the referendum, party politics, and the possibility of early elections in an interview with Sto Kokkino radio station.  

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The FOMC are to hold their July policy meeting on Wednesday at 1900BST/1300CDT with the overwhelming consensus being that the Fed will once again keep rates at their record low with attention more so on subtle tweaks to the statement given the broader consensus of a September move and given that this month there will be no projections or press conference.

In a key ruling that may have implications far beyond Austria's borders, the country's constitutional court has struck down a bail-in that would have imposed losses totaling some €800 million on junior Heta bondholders.

As Greece prepares to weather still more austerity in exchange for a third EU bailout program, the economy has fallen into a veritable tailspin, as retail sales collapse, doctors flee, and credit is nowhere to be found. 

The German Council of Economic Experts is out with a new report on euro area crisis management which backs state bankruptcies and euro exits for governments deemed "uncooperative." "A permanently uncooperative member state should not be able to threaten the existence of the euro. In view of this, the Council of Economic Experts recommends that the withdrawal of a member state from the currency union must be possible as an utterly last resort," the council says.

For the first half an hour after China opened, things looked bleak: after opening down 5%, the Shanghai Composite staged a quick relief rally, then tumbled again. And then, just around 10pm Eastern, we saw a coordinated central bank intervention stepping in to give the flailing PBOC a helping hand, driven by the BOJ but also involving NY Fed members, that sent the USDJPY soaring which in turn dragged ES and most risk assets up with it. And while Shanghai did end up closing down -1.7%, with Shenzhen 2.2% lower at the close, the final outcome was far better than what could have been, with the result being that S&P futures have gone back to doing their thing, and have wiped out all of yesterday's losses in the levitating, zero volume, overnight session which has long become a favorite setting for central banks buying E-Minis.