Addio alla Grecia? Il comma 22 delle agenzie di rating. Aggiornamento al 23 aprile.

E' divertente confrontare il tono sdrammatizzante del commento di Roberto Perotti  al probabile default della Grecia pubblicato in prima pagina sul Sole 24 Ore di oggi (se non lo avete a portata di mano potete leggerlo qui) con l'editoriale del New York Times sullo stesso tema intitolato...Greece and who is next? Perotti invita l'Unione Europea a lasciare che la Grecia vada in default:


(...) Aiutando la Grecia, l'Fmi fa il suo lavoro; come sempre applicherà condizioni molto onerose, e per questo salutari nel lungo periodo; e come sempre verrà percepito come il diavolo yankee venuto a imporre austerità. È un ruolo cui è abituato, e che fa comodo a tutti i governi, a partire da quello greco. Il salvataggio della Ue sarebbe invece, per motivi politici, molto più riguardoso, e quindi molto meno utile nel lungo periodo alla Grecia stessa.

Quale occasione migliore, per la Ue, di dire «questa volta no»?

Questa invece è l'opinione del Times:


(...) Greece’s efforts to curtail public spending have not made enough of a dent in its deficit to persuade investors it can bring its debt under control. But amid a severe recession, which is likely to be exacerbated by budget cuts, even the tightest belt-tightening can’t eliminate a deficit that amounted to more than 13 percent of its gross domestic product last year.
To stop a rout, the European Union must commit to activating the bailout. Then Europe and the International Monetary Fund must start negotiations with Greece for a much bigger bailout package. This would help restore investors’ confidence, allowing interest rates on its debt to fall from the punitive heights of nearly 9 percent reached last week. While some economists believe Greece would still have to restructure its debts, it would have space to negotiate the terms.
As investors made clear this week, the turmoil doesn’t end with Greece. Portugal, Spain and Ireland have seen their deficits balloon as the housing bust and the economic downturn took a toll. The European Union and the International Monetary Fund must put together a pre-emptive bailout package to convince investors of the stability of their finances and head off a flight to dump their bonds on a bigger scale. Speed is essential.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and European finance ministers should start working on that during this weekend’s International Monetary Fund meeting in Washington. This is mainly a European problem. But Washington must ensure that the fund commits adequate resources. The good news, if there is any here, is that American banks do not own much Greek debt. But the American economy won’t be immune if the Greek crisis spreads much further.


Il New York Times si diverte a descrivere il clima all'annuale International Swaps and Derivatives Association conference quest'anno incentrata su “Collateralization and Netting — the Impact” e “Systemic Risk: Advances and Challenges in the Wake of the Crisis.” Sempre sul Times vi segnalo un altro articolo dedicato alle agenzie di rating  (oltre a quello che vi ho segnalato in questo post). Per giustificare le grossolane sottovalutazioni del rischio nel 2008-2009 si invoca addirittura il Comma 22 (io l'ho conosciuto grazie alle Sturmtruppen e recita: chiunque sia pazzo può chiedere di essere esonerato dalle missioni di guerra, ma chi chiede di essere esonerato dalle missioni di guerra non è pazzo): 

(...) The major credit rating agencies, Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch, drew renewed criticism on Friday on Capitol Hill for failing to warn of the dangers posed by complex investments like the one that has drawn Goldman Sachs into a legal whirlwind.

But while the agencies have come under fire before, the extent to which they collaborated with Wall Street banks has drawn less notice.

The rating agencies made public computer models that were used to devise ratings to make the process less secretive. That way, banks and others issuing bonds — companies and states, for instance — wouldn’t be surprised by a weak rating that could make it harder to sell the bonds or that would require them to offer a higher interest rate.

But by routinely sharing their models, the agencies in effect gave bankers the tools to tinker with their complicated mortgage deals until the models produced the desired ratings.

“There’s a bit of a Catch-22 here, to be fair to the ratings agencies,” said Dan Rosen, a member of Fitch’s academic advisory board and the chief of R2 Financial Technologies in Toronto. “They have to explain how they do things, but that sometimes allowed people to game it.”

Ecco l'aggiornamento al 23 aprile.