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• 一年前にもEFSFで同じような話を見てきたような気がする。その時はやがてESMが全てを解決する的な論調だったけど、単なる先送りだったということで。

From Munchau in the FT:

The real constraint for ESM bond purchases had less to do with the rules than with the overall size limit of the ESM. It has a lending capacity of ?500bn ? and that has not changed. No matter how you twist and turn it, the ESM is simply not big enough. It will inject equity into Spanish banks. It will need to refinance the programme for Greece, Ireland, and Portugal. It will soon have to cope with Cyprus and, who knows, maybe Slovenia as well. A full-scale programme for Spain still looks likely.

The reason is the following.

Suppose a new movement of fear and panic, triggered for example by the deepening recession in Spain, pushes up the Spanish government bond rate again.

? To stem the tide the ESM starts buying Spanish bonds. Suppose it buys ?200 billion worth of Spanish bonds.
At the end of the operation it will be clear for everybody that the ESM has seen its resources decline from ?500 billion to ?300 billion. Less will be left over to face new crises.

? Investors will start forecasting the moment when the ESM will run out of cash.
They will then do what one expects from clever people.

? They will sell bonds now rather than later.

So De Grauwe argues:

The only way to stabilise the government bond markets is to involve the ECB, either indirectly by giving a banking license to the ESM so that it can draw on the resources of the ECB (see Gros and Mayer 2010), or by direct interventions by the ECB. But the European leaders were unable (unwilling) to take that necessary step to stabilise the Eurozone.

Though our response might be ? ESM bond-buying is already a bad idea for lots of technical reasons anyway. There’s little evidence from the ECB’s own SMP that it would reduce yields or help liquidity in the long term. The SMP likewise suggested bondholders could also fear subordination from ESM debt purchases.