A long WSJ article on the individual hardships currently experienced by the Greek population is here.
Also new from the European Commission:
The Second Economic Adjustment Programme for Greece – First Review December 2012
Year: 2012
Available here.
Lots of comparative data and analysis across the eurosystem – available here.
Too good to miss . . .
Re Box 6, By Gavin Kostick
[Scene: A spacious drawing room in Frankfurt. A patient is strapped to a table. M Drachet in attendance, plus admirers]
M Drachet: Our diagnosis for this fellow is an excess of partying, too much of the punch-bowl, a surfeit of humours, grass corpulence and a palpable debt overhang. Our remedy? Leeches!
[Enter Mr deKrugman, a plain talking Yankee]
Mr deKrugman: Hold your hand, sir! The patient is week. Leeches will only distress his condition further.
M Drachet: Oh that annoying fellow. Even your fellow Americans agree that leeches are the cure.
Mr deKrugman: Not any more they don’t. They’ve changed their minds.
M Drachet: Really? Never mind – bring on the leeches.
Mr deKrugman: Rather than leeches, this fellow needs an infusion of fresh blood to recover.
M Drachet: Are you volunteering?
Mr deKrugman: You, sir, can create all the blood you wish and you know it.
M Drachet: Balderdash.
[A fop whispers in M Drachet’s ear]
M Drachet: Well that’s news. But you forget, our medical charter expressly forbids it. And you miss the nicer point, if we were to do so, this fellow would learn nothing from his foolishness and return to his profligate ways.
Mr deKrugman: Are you trying to cure the fellow, or teach him a lesson?
M Drachet: A soupcon of A and a morsel of B. Now, the leeches.
[The leeches are applied, and the patient becomes noticeably paler]
Mr deKrugman: Told you.
M Drachet: You really are the most arrogant fellow.
Mr deKrugman: Says the man with the leeches.
M Drachet: But this is part of the cure! You see he is being purged, in in being purged he will ultimately return stronger.
Mr deKrugman: Or dead like that poor Greek fellow.
M Drachet: And anyway, you quite misunderstand. It is not the leeches that make him pale, but, er, that, that and la bas!
Mr deKrugman: You’re pointing at a bunch of random things.
M Drachet: Not at all, I’m pointing at fetid air! Contagion I tell you. Stop looking at the leeches.
Mr deKrugman. Look, are the leeches to teach a painful lesson or to help the patient get better?
M Drachet: Can they be both?
Mr deKrugman: No.
M Drachet: To be honest monsieur, we do it because we’ve always done it.
But our meticulous research shows that if the patients have, er, died in the past – it wasn’t the leeches fault! It was, um, something else!
Mr deKrugman: I strongly recommend an infusion of fresh blood.
M Drachet: But if we tried something new and it proved better, why our reputation for competence would be in tatters – you laugh sir?
Mr deKrugman: No sir, I weep. I weep.
[They continue to bicker as the bloated leeches suck happily at the patient]
The Central Bank have released the Q3 2012 update of the Mortgage Arrears Statistics. The arrears situation continues to deteriorate. There is some useful new information in this release. On owner-occupier loans a further breakdown is given of loans that are more than 180 days in arrears. This is the number of accounts in each sub-category:
- In arrears 181 to 360 days: 23,035
- In arrears 361 to 720 days: 24,825
- In arrears over 720 days: 19,541
The accounts in the final category are an average of €40,000 behind on their repayments. Loans in arrears over 90 days are now equal to 15.1% of the total balance of owner-occupier mortgages. The total stock of owner-occupier mortgages has declined from €118.6 billion in Q3 2009 to €111.2 billion in Q3 2012.
Some additional forbearance measures are added to the list usually provided. These are for a permanent interest rate reduction and a split mortgage but the numbers of these provided remain small at 194 and 12 respectively. Of the 153 owner-occupied properties repossessed during the quarter 70 per cent were by way of a voluntary surrender.
Details are also provided on buy-to-let loans for the first time. A spreadsheet with the data for both loan types is available here.