August 14, 2012
"Investors Prepare for Euro Collapse"
Der Spiegel story on plans among banks and investors for dealing with a complete meltdown of the eurozone. In one way, this isn't exactly news as the predictions have existed for so many years, but now the reality of the growing risk in (especially) Greece (and Italy, Spain, France, etc.,) is causing a serious effort to prepare for collapse, which may in fact escalate the chances of that very thing happening.
"...According to the ECB, cross-border lending among euro-zone banks is steadily declining, especially since the summer of 2011. In June, these interbank transactions reached their lowest level since the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2007."
",,,the situation in Greece appears hopeless. Spain is in trouble and, to make matters worse, Germany's Constitutional Court will decide in September whether the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) is even compatible with the German constitution."
The Spiegel story goes on to detail with many anecdotes how investors or running to German-based bonds and toward real estate investments to weather a stormy breakup of the monetary union. Contingency planning seems to be everywhere in Europe now.
Greece's Golden Visa program
