David Einhorn on Pireus Bank: now I know what He thinks, ViennaCapitalist Blog, 05 November.   I am grateful to reader IAthinker who commented on my recent Pireus bank post providing a link to David Einhorn’s presentation he gave at the recent Robin Hood conference, an annual gathering of Hedge Fund managers. At the conference, Einhorn reiterated his bullish stance on Pireus and Alpha bank, two of the biggest banks in Greece. As regular readers know, …Read More

“Greece’s shadow economy: The treasures of darkness“, The Economist, 10 October.   Getting Greeks to pay more tax is not just hard, but risky TWO out of three Greek workers either understate their earnings or fail to disclose them to the taxman altogether, according to Stephen Hall, an adviser to the Bank of Greece. Last year an estimated 24% of all economic activity in Greece went undeclared to evade tax …Read More

Chrepa, E. & Chrysoloras, N. (2014) “Private Bad Debt Buildup Casts Shadow on Greek Rebound“, Bloomberg News, 29 September.   To Aristides Belles, it’s clear what’s blocking Greece’s recovery: a quiet build-up of about 164 billion euros ($208 billion) in bad loans. “The inability of Greek companies to repay their loans to banks and their dues to the state is clearly holding back Greece’s return to growth,” said the chief …Read More

Joyce, P. J. (2014) “The IMF and Sovereign Debt“, Economonitor–A Roubini Global Economics Project, 09 September.   The continuing inability of the Eurozone economies to break out of their current impasse means that any optimistic projections of declining debt to GDP ratios are unlikely to be achieved. As long as European governments continue to raise funds in the financial markets on favorable terms, the current situation remains sustainable.  But the …Read More