The EU 'Loan'

One of the little stories that folks probably missed in Europe over the past week....involved the EU and Iran.

IranFocus carried part of this story, and I'll use it as the reference.

For those who haven't been following Iran over the past year....it's banks are in a spiral, and fairly negative movement.  A lot of this fragile banking business is due to the general business public having zero confidence in the banking sector to survive.  So when businessmen turn a profit.....they take a portion (maybe not 100-percent, but a very fair portion of their profit), and convert it to dollars or Euro, then they ship it out of the country (usually Dubai gets the investment nod).

So as Trump did the 180-degree here and tore down the open door for surviving....Iran sought the brilliant folks at the EU, and they finally delivered.  The EU voted last week, and told it's investment arm....the EIB....to loan money to the Iranian banks.  The loan is expected to be paid back. 

The odds that the money will be paid back?  Virtually a zero percent chance. 

The business sector of Iran isn't going to develop any confidence with this measure.  The EU folks?  I doubt if they understand much except that they'd really like to counter President Trump.

The cash flow?  I would expect this to happen within the next two months.  I would imagine by late fall of 2019....some small payback would be expected, and Iran will admit that it doesn't have the money......plus they'd like to get another bank loan.  My guess is that the EU would be stupid enough to loan out another billion Euro (minimum). 

Along about 2022....some wise guy at the EIB will stand there and admit that at least three to five billion Euro is tied up in these Iran loans, and all they are doing is propping up a failed banking system.