As we saw with almost every bailout for the past 2+ years, as long as the can is kicked down the road, short sighted speculators will be giddy and are bidding futures up in gleeful benevolence. Rinse. Wash. Repeat. Yawn.
Via Reuters:
- European Union finance ministers on Sunday promised to counter the "wolfpack" of the financial markets as they sought agreement on a 600 billion euro ($805 billion) plan to keep Greece's debt crisis from spreading.
- The compromise measure under discussion included loan guarantees by euro zone countries worth 440 billion euros, a 60 billion euro stabilization fund and a 100 billion euro top-up of International Monetary Fund loans, EU sources said.
- The safety net being assembled was meant to protect other countries with bloated budgets, such as Portugal, Spain and Ireland.
- Economists estimate that if Portugal, Ireland and Spain -- three other heavily indebted euro zone countries -- eventually come to require bailouts similar to Greece's, the total cost could be some 500 billion euros.
- Moving swiftly to bolster Greece and instill some confidence in shaky markets, the IMF approved a 30 billion euro rescue loan as part of a broader combined EU-IMF bailout for the country totaling 110 billion euros.
- "We now see ... wolfpack behaviors, and if we will not stop these packs, even if it is self-inflicted weakness, they will tear the weaker countries apart," Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg told reporters in Brussels as he arrived for the EU meeting.
- U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke by phone earlier on Sunday about the importance of EU members acting to build confidence in markets.
- Hopes the EU package would successfully tackle the crisis helped lift the euro, which gained almost 2 percent against the U.S. dollar and 3 percent on the yen in early Asia trade. U.S. stock futures also surged at the start of trade on Sunday.
Kick the can Sam.
- "....like the measures taken before -- for the benefit of Greece -- a stabilization fund is just buying time for distressed borrowers," it said.