Loading ...Many funny tricks have been employed to keep euro area banks and governments afloat during the sovereign debt crisis. Essentially these consisted of a version of Worldcom propping up Enron, with the central bank’s printing press as a go-between.
As an example here is how Italian banks and the Italian government are helping each other in pretending that they are more solvent than they really are: the banks buy government properties (everything from office buildings to military barracks) from the government, and pay for them with government bonds. The government then leases the buildings back from the banks, and the banks turn the properties into asset backed securities. The Italian government then slaps a “guarantee” on these securities, which makes them eligible for repo with the ECB. The banks then repo these ABS with the ECB and take the proceeds to buy more Italian government bonds – and back to step one. Simply put, this is a Ponzi scheme of gargantuan proportions.
No doubt GS are in the forefront of the above……it is also border line illegal, as the ECB is not allowed to bail out banks…..but when did that sort of thing worry Draghi, ex Goldman….it also puts all the risk onto Germany/Holland etc the only half solvent Euro members…who tks to these kind of tricks, probably are no longer solvent …..
When all this goes wrong GS will be at the epicentre…watch their stock, once that cracks the end game is on.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-09/walking-dead-something-rotten-banking-system