WHY ME?

Phone call bright and early.  The long-absent Massimo.

"Egg in your lap, eh Charlie?"

"The phrase is on your face, and what the hell are you talking about?"

'The Greeks, Charlie, the Greeks.  They just do more than 4 Billion in T-Bills.  How do you like that?"

"They did WHAT!?   Who bought it?"

"I'ma no know, ma she's a good job, no?  See Charlie, you know Europa good, ma not THAT good."

And he hung up on me chuckling.  OK I admit it, I'm Gob smacked.  I never thought they would come anywhere close to that number, I don't know who bid on it or whether it all got dumped into the ECB.  But I will by tomorrow.  What it does tell me, however, is that the Greeks will get their tranche at a point because nobody in the know is going to have this slug of debt with damn firm assurances that it will be refinanced.  And so the creditors get paid on Friday and the sound of that tin can being kicked down that European road echos loudly in the night.  The lengths to which the Euro will go: they'll even embarrass me.

Big pow-wow up on the Hill tomorrow.  In case you missed it, and that was easy to do, the Euros announced the final version over the weekend of Basel III and the U.S. promptly announced that we would delay implementation.  Oh year, there are higher Tier I capital requirement's (as useful as Mammary glands on a boar hog) but the rest looks remarkably like Basel II to include the near-zero call on capital for sovereign debt which as you might remember demolished the Euro banking system right at the start of this rodeo.  The bankers and politicos are going to sit down and to decide how we should modify Basel III for our purposes which should take most of the day thereby avoiding the need to deal with anything either important or controversial.  A day like all days.  And speaking of that, The Leader just moments ago announced how he will solve the fiscal problems of the nation:  Tax the Rich.  News at eleven.  The rest must wait until tomorrow.