Greece lightning

Against the odds the Greece bailout reached approval of the Eurozone ministers today.

They have agreed a second €130Bn bailout after asking private investors to to bigger losses on Greek debt and by taking away more of Greek sovereignty over finances, including a permanent presence of EU officials supervising Greek finances, and the setting up of a blocked account containing three months worth of debt interest payments at any time, in return for which Greece debt is supposed to fall to 120.5% in 2020, though that figure is clearly a fudge when the trioka (IMF, ECB, and EU) have a report warning that it could still be up to 160%.

In typical EU muddle-through problem solving, the hope is that the Greek solution will go to plan, but with the economy collapsing the only certainty is that we will continue to see Greece in the news in 2012.

Meanwhile the agreement is good for confidence and should do much to cheer up world markets, including Australia.