My morning Globe has this good news/ bad news story from Spain.
The gist of the story is that there's bad news ahead for Spaniards who bought preferred shares in Spain's banks, the so-called retail investors, regular folks who bought preferreds as a supposedly safe investment for whatever life savings they have been able to accrue.
The authors suggest that the Spaniards will likely come away with around 30 cents on the dollar.
So where's the good news? Well, in the first place, it's good news that they won't be quite as screwed over as the small investors in Ireland, who came away with an even greater fleecing.
But the really good news is in the last sentence of the article;
So far there is no suggestion of forcing losses on senior creditors.
And who would these "senior" creditors be? Why, the same banks that the austerity-ravaged folks in the street have been busy bailing out!
And who would be the genius behind this save-the-rich strategy? Why none other than Luis de Guindos, who before becoming Economic Minister was a director of Lehman Brothers European operations.
It's yet one more example of how being part of the team that created the global crisis in finance is considered qualification to run a national economy.
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