The Meeting For Nothing Day

Everyone was hyped up for the EU-Greece emergency meeting yesterday.  The agenda was.....the Greeks would show up with new proposals....talks would occur.....and maybe some miracle deal would be drafted up.

Well.....the Greeks showed up for the meeting with no new proposals.  Yeah.....shocker.

What they said was.....they just didn't have the finalized new proposals list.

You can imagine the folks around this entire meeting.  There's probably fifty folks in the room itself who cancelled their schedules to be at this meeting.  Each of them have at least two or three support personnel who put time and effort into making sure their boss had some agenda and topics.  For the building itself, there's probably another three-hundred folks who provide security and support.....same deal.  All of this....for nothing.

What was to occur.....was a later introduction of the new proposals, and the strong effect of a Sunday meeting now on the schedule to either agree to the new proposals, or be prepared for plan B (the exit plan from the Euro).

I sat and watched a five-minute piece yesterday where the potential idea of the Drachma got discussed.  As the finance-expert guy (British) pointed out.....it takes a minimum of six months to get to a issuance point with a new currency.  With problems that might develop.....even six months might be impossible to meet on some schedule.  Then the issue of inflation came up.  When you swap out a currency in this case.....it's hard to predict just how quick a new currency might fall in the initial days.  Then he suggested in the case of Greece.....people might just stand there and continue using the Euro....especially if dealing with tourists.  So, it'd likely be a two-currency country and no one is quiet sure about the long-term effects of this situation.

An odd problem for the Euro note itself?  Well, this got brought up yesterday.  Euro notes have Greek symbolgy on them.....so one financial guy said that somewhere over the next year.....all of these notes would have to be swapped out with non-Greek symbology if the Greeks exit the Euro.  Cost?  Unknown.

I don't see much hope now for the new proposals idea.  There's just too much of an expectation by the Greeks for forgiveness over the bulk of the past loan, and the necessity of a new fresh loan which might end up being simply another forgiveness episode in the future.  Where the Greeks might finally stabilize, change their taxation and revenue program, and start to pay on debt.....is virtually unknown.  Even if they proceed onto the Drachma scenario.....one has to question how it would ever stabilize or create a solution-atmosphere for the Greek people.

In the American use of the 'fat-lady-singing'.....I believe we are barely at the middle of act two and the fat lady is still three or four acts away from coming out and singing.