Nos nos olvidemos de Irlanda...y la periferia Área euro

La última semana el foco de atención de los inversores ha girado hacia la subida de las tensiones en el bloque MENA. Un nuevo punto de tensión sobre los mercados financieros a tener en cuenta pero que no debe desplazar el análisis sobre una de las variables clave del corto y medio plazo.... Irlanda, Portugal, Grecia, etc... deuda, niveles de endeudamiento y cómo pagar la deuda.

En la carta semanal de Mauldin hay observaciones muy relevantes al respecto. Entre otras:

"What if the opening negotiating line started was, "We will repay the principle, but no interest, and the timeline has to be stretched out over 25 years?" And no payments for five years. Oh, and we have about 300,000 houses you can have as our first payment.

Yes, the Irish would be frozen out of the bond market. It would result in an even more serious recession. But they could actually grow their way out of it over time. A lot faster than if they were trying to pay off the debt at 6-7% interest. And remember that Argentina, for God's sake, got money just a few years after defaulting - twice, if I remember right! If Ireland got back on a sound footing, they could once again find acceptance in the bond market.

I know, that sounds radical. But give it a few years of austerity and see what the next elections bring. Irish debt will default, not because the Irish don't have hearts of gold or don't want to not pay their debts, but because they are under such a burden they can't. And eventually enough voters will realize that. It may not be next month, or even next year, but it will come. You can only ask so much of a people. Defaulting on sovereign debt is only unthinkable in elite European Union circles. And asking German voters to pay for those defaults? Care to run on THAT platform?"