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Europe 1, Rating Agencies 0

Yesterday, a rating agency (not my favorite people) downgraded Portugal's debt 4 notches to junk!  The implications for Portugal was serious, and the pricing of Portugal's sovereign debt rose to 12% (unsustainable).  This should have been the beginning of the end for the "Kick the Can" crowd, ECB/IMF and EU would finally have to face the reality that several European countries have intractable problems that will require some hard decisions.

I've often stated in this blog that the current generation of European managers will avoid at all cost the ending (in any form) of the Euro.  The reason is that it is their dream -- they are the architects of the Euro (with all its flaws, and successes -- these too are important).  Obviously Europe's bureaucrats are pissed with the rating agencies (i'm pissed too that they allowed Greece, Ireland and Iceland to maintain AAA ratings for so long when the rot was apparent to all) and this morning (this afternoon in Europe) the ECB has announced that they will accept as collateral Greek and Portuguese Sovereign bonds -- despite their junk status.

The ECB was already pissed with S&P for "not buying" the French bank's Greek exposure restructuring proposal -- because of accounting legerdemain for European banks, the French proposal would enable them not to take a hit on their Greek bond exposure (on a pure discounted cash flow basis this proposal represents a 18% haircut).  The rating agencies called their bluff, of course one of the dilemma is that the plan was a proposal and not in fact an actual policy -- so the ECB/EU are blaming the rating agencies for jumping the gun!

I admire Europe's desire to create its own "independent" rating agency -- frankly the three that exists (Moody's S&P and Fitch) are not exactly covered in glory for the number of terrible transactions they have  supported based on deeply flawed models (CDO, MBS etc).  It is also possible that the rating agencies are playing the game for the benefit of the credit default swap market -- it's easy to forget that the rating agencies were bought and paid for by the investment banks (although I would be surprised since there's no upside here for the rating agencies).

What the ECB has proved today that they will do absolutely anything to avoid a true restructuring for Greece, Portugal and Ireland.  Maybe the fear that things will extend to Italy are forcing their hand.  This final step (complete socialization of the disaster that is Greeks sovereign debt is the end game, no default will occur until all of Europe's financial institutions are departed themselves of their exposure to the PIIGS).

P.S.  things are very quiet in Canada -- so this is what I write about instead

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