Someone needs to put some order on this noise about Greece and its public debt to GDP.

I have held bank regulators responsible for Greece’s excessive debt. That because anyone authorizing banks to lend to a sovereign against 1.6 to zero percent in equity, meaning being able to leverage their equity from 62.5 to infinite times to 1, must know that sovereign is doomed to end up with too much debt.

And to bet that would not happen, sooner or later, is about as a high-risk gamble on a country’s future as these gambles come… and seemingly Greece was one of the first to loose that (someone could argue fixed) bet.

And Sir, that is why I could not really make heads or tails of FT’s editorial titled “A high-risk gamble on the future of Greece” December 10, since having or not a Samaras winning or not a presidential vote seemed, in comparison, like a very minor gamble on Greece’s future.

But now in FT I also see today a full two pages advertisement by a: www.freegreece.info who states that Greece public debt to GDP, after rescheduling and concessions, is only 18%, and not some 175% purportedly reported by Maastricht Treaty.

If so, great news, but then lets pray for that some credit rating does not give Greece an AAA rating, and so that banks and other lenders find it attractive to raise Greece’s debts to, for instance the levels of Germany.

18% and 175% clearly indicates much more than a simple tomayto and tomato issue...and so can somebody put some order here, please?

There is more to be gained from a debate, even while speaking different tongues

Sir Jennifer Hughes does a very good and spirited defence for accountancy global unification in her “More to be gained from talking in the same tongue”, September 27 but although she is absolutely right in all what she says she is still wrong.

One of the reasons, or perhaps the only reasons why some of us feel happy about having US GAAP and IFRS living side by side is because that helps to sustain a debate among their respective Standard Boards on matters fraught with such intrinsic difficulties as accountancy. No, let us please hope that we will never have to face one solid cohesive block of standards since who knows what they could contain and there would be no one with sufficient strength to oppose it. For a living example of how much we lose out in benefits from diversity let us just consider all the risks that are beginning to surface as a consequence of having relegated so much of the world’s regulatory power over banks to a single single-minded group in Basel.