Re: Where Greeks Are Stashing Their Cash
Ludwig von Mises characterized the third and final stage of a currency’s collapse, where people are desperate to exchange their currency for almost anything of real value, as a “crack up boom”. Notice the “boom” part. The German automobile industry is booming, because Greeks (and others) are converting their depreciating euros into real goods. Apparently Greek pharmacies cannot get drugs, because they or their government do not pay their bills. But luxury cars are still available and Germans are happy to sell them. OK, now the Germans have euros instead of cars. What can they do with these depreciating euros? Well, for one thing, these euros are stacking up as credits at the Bundesbank’s TARGET2 account at the European Central Bank. Unlike other clearing systems run by central banks, which require member banks to fund their deficit clearing accounts with real assets on a daily basis, the ECB allows its national central bank members to run overdrafts. A close look at the latest TARGET2 accounts reveals that Germany and Luxembourg are running significant positive balances; whereas, Spain, Italy, and Greece are running significant negative balances. The other ECB members carry somewhat less significant positive (Finland, the Netherlands) or negative (Ireland, France, Portugal) TARGET2 balances. Another way of looking at this is that Germany and Luxembourg are not getting paid for the goods and services that their hard working population provides to Spain, Italy, and Greece. It’s all funny money. Germany, especially, carries a huge positive balance of around a half trillion euros.
ECB president Mario Draghi is determined to drive down the value of the euro vis a vis other world currencies and generate positive inflation in the euro zone. So Germany’s TARGET2 balance is officially under attack. Draghi is a fool for believing that his bank can peg inflation to a low number once inflation gets a good hold on the people’s psyche.
Germany should get out of this monetary loony bin forthwith, reinstate the Deutsche Mark, and treat its euro credit at the ECB as a bad debt. One of the rules of debt collection is to stop lending the debtor more money! A strong Deutsche Mark exchange rate vis a vis what’s left of the euro and especially vis a vis a reinstated Greek Drachma and/or Italian Lira would reveal that Germany in effect has been giving its products away for almost nothing. This used to be called slavery.
Pat Barron
