So... not sure where that leave us.

One thought is that the majority of toxic debt has now been passed from private banks to governments, so Draghi is more comfortable about governments bailing-in...

now every fool is getting interested in how the sausage gets made, and it's going to turn a lot of stomachs.

like Galbraith said in his quote about moral repugnance that Mig reminds us of sometimes, this mass education may be the only hope capitalism has to survive, albeit hopefully changed beyond recognition.

the patient is very ill indeed, and intent on continuing the same bad habits that got us up the creek.

it's not really that different than understanding how bookmakers make a profit, probability and luck, intuition and bluff, with the goal of making money, the greatest artificial motivation driver humanity has ever conjured up, easily outstripping religion by now.

the immense brainpower getting sucked into this global casino is staggering, one wonders what results would emerge if it were harnessed to endeavours that were actually productive socially-

banking served a non-nefarious purpose, once upon a time, and it attracted cautious, sober, prudent men more than bareback gamblers and coke-crazed yuppies with the attention span of ferrets.

the benefits of banking were locally obvious, and one can easily appreciate how the industry/profession attained its high social status, especially when even kings and queens had to moderate their behaviour to keep the finance folks sweet.

all those wars to keep the men of unruly age busy (and their wives home alone and undefended) never came cheap!

"It's very hard to see what is kept invisible" Roseanne Barr

Doesn't something need to be done about the urgency of the situation?

Let me tell you about my experience.

Let me duck your question by telling a story, which will divert your attention because people always listen to stories.

In 1988 the Delors Committee set out the route towards Monetary Union, with a goal, a timetable and commitments to be respected. This prospect resulted in the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. Italy's borrowing rates were very high at the time. But as a result of its involvement in the project of Monetary Union, Italy saw an abrupt fall in its rates, before there was even a decrease in the deficit, which stood at 11% of GDP!

See, the peripherals got cheap rates, that's the problem and don't forget it!

This leads me to believe that if countries make firm commitments, even iof a long-term nature, this has an impact in the short term.

My conclusion is blatantly specious, but don't you worry, I'm making sense. The takeaway is:

1. cheap rates (see above)
   
2. Italy is the bad apple in the barrel.

By the way, I'm not the Eurozone's sovereign. The German political/economic/financial establishment is.

When all is said and done, the picture that emerges is one of a Europe with an arm that is meekly trying to fix things while the other arm is violently destroying whatever the benign limb is putting together. The EIB announces a 600 million euros of SME funding from 1st September (tiny compared to Greece's unspent structural funds) at the same time that the ECB (a) pulls the remaining piece of the rug from under the Greek banks and (b) demands of the Greek state that it borrows from the EFSF 900 millions so as to hand them over to it on 20th August as a pure profit payment. Does this sound like sensible policies of a currency union in trouble? Or does it look like the last stages of a currency union that has lost the will to live?

While Frankfurt's two previous refusals to accept Greek bonds this year were linked to specific events and served as a brief parenthesis in the liquidity process, by linking its latest decision to the troika report on Greece, the ECB has opened a bracket without knowing when or if it will be closed.

...

It is slightly puzzling that such an onerous decision as rejecting Greek bonds should be taken by the ECB just a couple of days after one of its board members made extremely generous comments about Greece's fiscal efforts. In what is probably the most positive statement about Greece to come out of the mouth of an ECB official over the last two years, policymaker Joerg Asmussen told Germany's Stern magazine: "We should show respect for what Greeks are doing. From 2009 to 2010, Greece took fiscal adjustment measures equivalent to 5 percent of GDP. If this was translated to the Germany economy, it would mean saving about 125 billion euros within a year. Something like this would create real problems for any government. So, we should at least say: `Well done, it's a start.'."

...

Taking all this into account, the ECB's policy verdict on Greek bonds carries an unusual political tilt. It appears that Europe's independent central bank has taken a deliberate political choice rather than an impartial economic decision. Frankfurt has opted for the one policy tool it had that could maximize the pressure on the Greek government at this crucial point. Maybe it is a reminder to Athens that it has yet to conclude its bank recapitalization process, with the questions over the future of ATEbank in particular remaining unresolved. It seems more likely, though, that ECB policymakers are making it clear to Greek politicians their room for maneuver disappeared some time ago. Using the troika review as the pivotal moment is unlikely to be a coincidence.

Roesler told ARD television Sunday he is "more than skeptical" and that, if Greece doesn't fulfill the conditions, "there can be no further payments to Greece."

He added: "I think that for many experts, for the FDP, for me too, a Greek exit from the eurozone has long since lost its horror."