En av Tysklands ledende økonomer, Stefan Homburg, har gitt et brutalt ærlig intervju til der Spiegel: Bankene hausser opp krisen for å legge press på regjeringene slik at de legger pengene på bordet for Hellas nok en gang. I mellomtiden kjøper de greske statsobligsjoner, vel vitende om at de vil få tilbake av skattebetalernes penger.

Slik vinner bankene dobbelt opp. Så skittent er dette spillet.

Politikerne lar seg presse. Angela Merkel kommer til å redde grekerne enda en gang. Tror Homburg, som har kjøpt greske statsobligasjoner.

Hva burde ha skjedd? Hellas skulle få gå konkurs. Det er det sunneste. Alt som nå skjer er å utsette smerten og sørge for at den rammer flere.

Det viktigste Homburg sier er at en markedsøkonomi kan ikke fungere uten at låner og utlåner tar konsekvensene og blør. Hvis man opphever denne tyngdeloven, har man avskaffet det frie marked, og det er oksygenet i et fritt samfunn.

Men hva med argumentet om «for stor til å gå nedenom»? Bare tull, sier Homburg, for det er aktører der ute som spekulerer i en slik redningsplanke og profiterer på den. Det er umoralsk, men de gjør det, og dette er store aktører, banker og hedgefond. De gjør at det er skattebetalerne som hele tiden taper og pengemaktene som vinner.

Når dette går opp for folk, kan det få store konsekvener. Vanlige folk vil ikke finne seg i å bli svindlet. Man ser tendensen i Hellas, den er merkbar i Spania. Derfor undervurderer Homburg den politiske siden.

Merkel ville at bankene og utlånerne skulle ta en del av kostnaden ved å restrukturere gjelden. Men ingen gjør dette frivillig, det er tåpelig av Merkel å forvente at banker skal avskrive gjeld av altruistiske grunner. Det er ikke slik markedet fungerer.

Ved å late som om banker er noe annet enn økonomiske cost-benefit-maskiner, lurer politikerne seg selv.

In a market economy, even in the case of a plumber whose customers don’t pay their bills, it’s never a question of getting creditors «involved» (in helping to deal with a bankruptcy). Instead, when push comes to shove, it is creditors, and creditors alone, who have to write off their loans. Only then do they have an incentive to carefully choose who they lend money to. A market economy with no personal liability cannot function. The government bailout initiatives create misdirected incentives that continuously exacerbate the problems on the financial markets.

SPIEGEL: But the plumber is not, as they say, too big to fail — his or her bankruptcy wouldn’t cause entire banks to collapse. The European Central Bank has warned of a massive new financial crisis if it comes to the compulsory involvement of private creditors or even a restructuring of Greece’s debt.

Homburg: The alleged risk of contagion is a myth that doesn’t stand up to closer scrutiny. If you share my conviction that all this talk of Greece being too big to fail is simply nonsense, then there is no reason for bailouts …

SPIEGEL: … yes, but only if you’re right.

Homburg: No, it also holds true in the reverse situation. If the bankruptcy of little Greece were actually to trigger a global financial crisis, new bailout programs couldn’t solve the problem: They would actually exacerbate it. If no more states or banks are allowed to go bankrupt because this might precipitate a financial crisis, then we’re finished. Then the problem continuously escalates and leads to a much greater crisis.

SPIEGEL: In a monetary union, isn’t there a much greater danger that the crisis will spread from one weak member country to another?

Homburg: No. The contagion spreads in precisely the opposite direction, because many banks and hedge funds benefit from the following business model. Step one: They sell the bonds of the country concerned. Step two: They spread negative rumors about the country. Step three: After bond prices have fallen, they buy them back cheaply. And, finally, they take governments for a ride with this nonsense that a default would have devastating consequences. In a zero-sum game, there are not only losers, like us taxpayers, but also winners.

SPIEGEL: And what is the risk of contagion now?

Homburg: After the Greek bonds have been paid back at full value, the gamblers will turn to the next candidate, such as Portugal. If creditors suffered losses in Greece, however, they would renounce this business model. In this sense, the rescue measures are exacerbating the problem.

Til slutt er det payback time, regningen kommer på bordet. Homburg tror hele EU kan bli sprengt.

SPIEGEL: And what will happen next?

Homburg: Many politicians have also come to the realization that the path that we are on ultimately leads to national defaults and currency reforms. This process is already irreversible, but nobody wants to say it out loud and go down in history as the one who triggered the explosion. So we leave the bankruptcy to subsequent German governments and, in the meantime, throw good money after bad. Sooner or later, this much is certain, the system will be blown apart by political and economic factors. And, unfortunately, there is a great danger that, when this happens, it is not only the euro that will fall apart, but also the entire EU.

‘The German Government Will Pay Up’