Martin van Winden wil gulden terugRotterdam, 1 mei. Niet Griekenland, maar Nederland moet uit de euro stappen. Dat zegt vermogensbeheerder Martien van Winden vandaag in een vraaggesprek met NRC Handelsblad.Van Winden heeft diverse boeken geschreven over de kracht van de Nederlandse gulden in historisch perspectief: Rijk blijven, Nederland, de schatkist van Europa en Slag om de toekomst. Ook heeft hij een studie gemaakt van de renteniveaus en aandelenkoersen in Nederland vanaf 1540 tot heden.
„Je kunt een land niet uit de euro zetten. Ik denk ook niet dat het gebeurt. Uitstappen zou voor Griekenland enorme problemen geven. Wat wel mag, is dat Nederland uit de euro stapt en de gulden weer invoert.”
Ingewikkeld zou een eventuele herinvoering van de gulden niet zijn, zegt Van Winden. „Ieder land drukt zijn eigen eurobiljetten, aan de code op het biljet kun je zien waar die vandaan komt. Nederlandse biljetten beginnen met een X en je kunt bepalen: dat zijn voorlopig weer guldens. Met de munten is het helemaal makkelijk, op de Nederlandse euromunten staat de afbeelding van de koningin. Om middernacht kunnen Wellink en De Jager besluiten om terug te gaan naar de gulden.”
Lijsttrekkers Geert Wilders (PVV) en Rita Verdonk (Trots op Nederland) zeiden vandaag dat Nederland moet overwegen om uit de euro te stappen. Volgens het ANP roept Wilders het kabinet op om die optie „nu onder de loep te nemen en er serieus naar te kijken”.
Wilders: „We kunnen de Grieken niet dwingen uit de eurozone te stappen maar zelf kunnen we er als Nederland wel uitstappen. Het kabinet moet die optie nu onder de loep nemen en er serieus naar kijken voor het geval het met Griekenland, Spanje en Portugal verder fout gaat.”
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http://www.nrc.nl/economi(...)den_wil_gulden_terug-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The cracks spread and widenPanic about the Greek government’s ability to repay its creditors is infecting other euro-area countries’ sovereign debt. Where will it end?AFTER simmering for months, the Greek sovereign-debt crisis has boiled over. The promise of a rescue by the IMF and the country’s euro-zone partners, worth ¤45 billion ($60 billion) or more, is no longer enough to persuade many private investors to hold Greek public bonds. Opposition to the bail-out in Germany meant that market confidence had all but vanished by April 27th, when Standard and Poor’s (S&P) slashed its rating of Greek government bonds to BB+, just below investment grade. The rating agency also lowered its rating on Portugal, to A-; a day later it downgraded Spain from AA+ to AA.
In keeping with its practice when rating bonds as junk, S&P gave an estimate of the likely “recovery rate” should the worst happen. It said bondholders were likely to get back only 30-50% of their principal were Greece to restructure its debt or to default. That prompted panic in bond markets. The yield on Greece’s ten-year bonds leapt above 11% and that on two-year bonds to almost 19% at one point on April 28th. Portugal’s borrowing rates jumped, too (see chart 1). At those rates, the racier sort of hedge fund might still be prepared to gamble on Greece paying back its debts at face value, but mainstream funds are abandoning the bonds in their droves. The speculators blamed by officials for precipitating the crisis may now be the only people willing to take a punt on Greece.
Had the rescue been swift and squabble-free, there was a chance, albeit slim, that private investors might have rolled over their existing holdings of Greek debt at tolerable interest rates. That Greece’s would-be rescuers may not after all stump up the money they promised is one of the risks that bondholders are loth to bear—though Germany may now approve its share of the bail-out by May 7th (see article). Another is that Greece will not be able to stomach the programme of budgetary and economic reform which the IMF is due to set out in early May, and on which the euro-zone rescue funds will depend.
A third concern is that even if the programme runs smoothly, the debts that Greece will continue to rack up will be too great for its feeble economy to bear. Earlier analysis by The Economist suggested that Greek government debt would rise to 149% of GDP by 2014 even if its deficit reduction went well. It assumes that Greece could sustain a brutal reduction in its primary budget deficit (ie, excluding interest costs) of 12 percentage points. Even that relied on an interest rate of 5%, roughly what euro-zone partners have agreed they will levy on Greece, on all new borrowing and on maturing debt. If interest costs are much higher, the government will have to find extra savings elsewhere. The deep cuts will only prolong Greece’s recession. Wages will have to fall if the country is to regain the cost competitiveness needed for a recovery. Both influences will push down nominal GDP for a while and make crisis management all the more difficult.
The scale of the task and the bungling of the rescue make the bond market’s capitulation seem natural. Greece needs so much money that the only thing standing between the country and default is open-ended funding from the IMF and the rest of the euro area. The ¤45 billion fund announced on April 11th would be enough to cover Greece’s budget deficit and repay its maturing debts (including the ¤8.5 billion that falls due on May 19th) for the rest of 2010. But Greece may need as much again in 2011 and still more thereafter. In an average year, Greece has to refinance around ¤40 billion of its debt (this year, would you believe, is a mercifully light one for redemptions). Add to that the ¤70 billion or so of fresh borrowing that may be needed to cover Greece’s cumulative budget deficits until 2014 and the scale of a credible rescue fund becomes clear.
Yet Greece’s would-be rescuers may feel they have little choice but to press on with the bail-out. A default that would cut the value of Greek public debt by a half or more would cripple the country’s banks. (S&P has also downgraded four of them to junk status.) It would also spark a wider financial panic in Europe. Around ¤213 billion-worth of Greek government bonds are held abroad. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) estimates that foreign banks’ lending to Greece’s government, banks and private sector was ¤164 billion at the end of last year. How much of this is public debt is unclear. But if half of the foreign holdings of government bonds are held by banks, and if each country’s banks owns those bonds in proportion to their total holdings of Greek assets, then perhaps ¤76 billion is held by euro-zone banks (see table 2).
Euro-zone countries might be tempted to let Greece default, force non-bank investors to take a hit, and use the funds earmarked to rescue Greece to fortify their banks instead. That would cost perhaps ¤53 billion if, as S&P fears, a restructuring of Greek debt resulted in losses of as much as 70%. That may look small next to a rescue fund. But if Greece defaulted it would still rely on its EU partners to fund its budget deficit, which will take time to shrink from the 13.6% of GDP it reached last year. It seems there are no longer any options for Greece that will not cost its partners a lot.
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Lees hier verder:
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16009119-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
De gulden komt dus weer terug. Of toch niet?
[ Bericht 0% gewijzigd door Q.E.D. op 08-05-2010 15:41:32 ]