Should not EU cut its grand bargain with all its over-indebted sovereigns before any Brexit vs. Remain voting took place?

David Folkerts-Landau, the chief economist at Deutsche Bank writes, “An Italian debt crisis poses an existential risk to the eurozone. The current game of chicken is irresponsible. It also ignores the dangers inherent in any financial crisis, the costs of which would dwarf those of having the ESM step in”, “Europe must cut a grand bargain with Italy” November13.

Of course Italy cannot be expected to pay €2.450 billion, meaning over €40.000 per citizen, denominated in a currency that is de facto not Italy’s real domestic (printable) currency. Be sure Sir, Italy will not walk the plank, as Greece had to do.

But of course what Folkerts-Landau writes, “The option of a debt write-down with private sector involvement is also unfeasible”, is not possible either.

One way to solve Italy’s (and Europe’s) sovereign debt crisis as painless as possible could be by using a Brady bond/zero coupon mechanism as used creatively by the US in 1989 during the Latin American debt crisis. I mentioned the use of those bonds to FT in a letter of 2008, “"Après us, le déluge", as did William R. Rhodes in 2012 with “Time to end the Eurozone's ad hoc fixes”.

A complementary tool to help fix Italy’s (Europe’s) banks, as I wrote to FT in 2012, would be to do what Chile did during its mega bank crisis in 1982 namely: a. having central banks issue bonds in order to buy “risky” loans not allowing banks to pay dividends until those notes had been repurchased; b. forcing banks to hold more capital with central banks subscribing shares not wanted by the market with these shares resold over a determined number of years and c. generous financing plans to allow small investors to purchase equity of the banks.

Obviously, for Italy’s (and Europe’s) banks to be really helpful to the real Italian economy, it would be imperative to get rid of the credit risk weighted equity requirements for banks, those which erode the incentives for banks to give credit to those who most could do good by receiving it, like SMEs and entrepreneurs.

What is absolutely true though is that to solve Italy’s (Europe’s) problems, more zero risk weighted loans to the sovereigns, in order for government bureaucrats to allocate the resources derived from bank credit, will just not cut it… no matter how much haircut on Italy’s (or other European sovereign’s) debt you accept.

Europe would need to start the process of helping Italy (and Europe) by getting rid of all current high-shot regulators. Not only would they be too busy, as until now, covering up their mistakes, but also, as Einstein said, “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we createdthem.”

Sir, I suspect all in FT would vote for a Remain if given a chance, but before doing so, would you not prefer EU authorities to clearly explain to you how they intend to fix the European sovereign debts overhang. That which if not fixed will crash the Euro and thereby most probably also crash the European Union? Sir, would it not look truly silly Remaining in something gone?

PS. It is clear that without the help of those wanting immensely more to save the European Union than to save some cushy jobs, the future of the EU very sadly looks very bleak.

@PerKurowski