{"id":301,"date":"2012-06-22T11:09:18","date_gmt":"2012-06-22T11:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.globalbuzz.net\/europe\/?p=301"},"modified":"2012-06-22T11:09:18","modified_gmt":"2012-06-22T11:09:18","slug":"outfoxing-the-greeks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz.net\/europe\/news\/outfoxing-the-greeks","title":{"rendered":"Outfoxing the Greeks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Outfoxing the Greeks<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_302\" style=\"width: 585px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.globalbuzz.net\/europe\/files\/2012\/06\/euro-greece.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-302\" class=\"wp-image-302  \" title=\"Eurozone and Greece\" src=\"http:\/\/www.globalbuzz.net\/europe\/files\/2012\/06\/euro-greece.jpg\" alt=\"Eurozone and Greece\" width=\"575\" height=\"389\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz.net\/europe\/files\/2012\/06\/euro-greece.jpg 639w, https:\/\/www.globalbuzz.net\/europe\/files\/2012\/06\/euro-greece-300x202.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 575px) 100vw, 575px\"><\/noscript><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-302\" class=\"wp-image-302   lazyload\" title=\"Eurozone and Greece\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20575%20389%22%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\" alt=\"Eurozone and Greece\" width=\"575\" height=\"389\" srcset=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%20viewBox%3D%220%200%20575%20389%22%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E 575w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 575px) 100vw, 575px\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz.net\/europe\/files\/2012\/06\/euro-greece.jpg 639w, https:\/\/www.globalbuzz.net\/europe\/files\/2012\/06\/euro-greece-300x202.jpg 300w\" data-src=\"http:\/\/www.globalbuzz.net\/europe\/files\/2012\/06\/euro-greece.jpg\"><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-302\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eurozone and Greece<\/p><\/div>\n<p>There are times when it pays to be hard-assed, get good legal advice \u2013 and never trust any government\u2019s promises.<\/p>\n<p>When Eurozone governments restructured Greece\u2019s government debt a few months ago, they tried to force all private-sector investors to accept a big \u201chaircut,\u201d or loss of interest and capital, by exchanging their original bonds for new paper worth much less.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Despite enormous official pressure and threats that if they didn\u2019t comply they would end up with nothing, a handful of investors refused to go along with the deal, mainly those who lent money using contracts wisely based on foreign (usually English) law, not Greek law.<\/p>\n<p>The Greek parliament has unlimited power to scrap or forcibly change the terms of any contracts made under its laws, but cannot do that to contracts where the well-advised lenders originally insisted on terms set under foreign laws.<\/p>\n<p>Now the \u201chold-outs\u201d are benefiting from their stand. They are being paid out interest originally promised, and are recovering all their original capital as their contracts mature, without suffering any loss.<\/p>\n<p>The Greek Debt Management Office has paid interest due on yen-denominated floating-rate notes owned by Japanese investors, and repaid in full the maturity value of a \u20ac436 million bond largely owned by speculators \u2013 using money newly-borrowed from Eurozone taxpayers!<\/p>\n<p>Apparently Greece\u2019s debt managers are paying out in such cases to avoid the risk of what commentator John Dizard describes as the \u201csheaf of bondholder lawsuits\u201d that would otherwise \u201cbe launched all over the world, seeking to tie up any Greek assets or payment streams that show their face.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>CopyRight \u2013 OnTarget 2012 by Martin Spring<\/p>\n<p>for more on Martin Spring see &#8211; <a title=\"Views and Forecasting\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thebizsense.com\/views\" target=\"_blank\">TheBizSense Views &#8211; Views &amp; Forecasting<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Outfoxing the Greeks There are times when it pays to be hard-assed, get good legal advice \u2013 and never trust any government\u2019s promises. When Eurozone governments restructured Greece\u2019s government debt a few months ago, they tried to force all private-sector investors to accept a big \u201chaircut,\u201d or loss of interest and capital, by exchanging their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,37,1],"tags":[605,1244,240,604,6],"class_list":["post-301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-featured","category-news","tag-bailout","tag-business","tag-crisis","tag-eurozone","tag-greece"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz.net\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz.net\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz.net\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz.net\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz.net\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz.net\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz.net\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions\/304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz.net\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz.net\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz.net\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalbuzz.net\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}