The final sentence of the article hits the nail ón the head.

Apart from an avalanche of cdo’s falling due in the event of Greece defaulting, consider the effect ón Targets 2 … What is the effect ón the ECB’s balance sheet?

Perhaps such considerations explain the reluctance of China and the BRICS to step up to the plate ….

I don’t blame Them

Most of the Greeks on the street would prefer a default over austerity. Clearly, Papandreou agrees which is why he asked for a national referendum on the bailouts. He knew the people wanted to hand over the keys and has no interest in stopping them. Remember…Politics is about dispensing goodies, not taking them away! Greece is now one step closer to it’s inevitable default!

Growth will NEVER make up for the global insolvency. Personal and corporate bankruptcy is something like the end of the world for the person and the company. What, then, about the globe?

It seems to me now just a problem of PERSONAL survival, and I don’t see how that can be done in an insolvent world without the ownership of physical gold and silver.

I read a scary article about Italy that said default is a virtual certainty within 3 years because of the low growth that no policy change can reverse before population shrinkage, and medical costs, overwhelm them. The Italians live too long and have had far too few children for decades. The population is projected to fall to 40 million by 2050. And many of the survivors will be over 70 ! The author argued that an Italian default, which he couldn’t say would occur next year, or in three years, would be ‘cataclysmic’ for the world economy. He neglected to discuss whether immigration could prevent the collapse, but I doubt it would be able to have any impact within a time frame short enough to prevent a bond default.
I wonder if a collection of silver coins might be safer than gold after a collapse. Wouldn’t the Government confiscate gold a lot faster than silver? If the Government forbid sale of gold, so as to make people exchange it for their new junk paper money, would it still be possible to slowly sell your silver coins for paper money, with which to use to buy stuff? It is something to think about. Little, cheaper silver coins might not be viewed as big enough for a repressive Government (like most of them are) to mess with regulating. Gold IS money. Governments hoard it in their vaults. Fort Knox is the most heavily secured site on Earth. It is full of gold, not silver. After a crash, I can see a gold standard adopted and private gold ownership forbidden. Every Government will want to get their corrupt fingers on every ounce of gold that they can. That will include yours. You can have tons of it, but if you can’t gradually convert it to cash that you can spend over time, it will be useless until some new Government rules you. That could take as long as the Soviet Union, or Castro, lasted. So silver coins might not be a bad idea to stay below the radar of a repressive government, and protect some wealth from double digit inflation.
Laws to prevent black market trading in gold will probably be far more severe than any concerning silver. Kind of like the laws targeting crack cocaine, versus marijuana. Until recently, you get caught with more than a few rocks of crack, and you could spend 20 years in a Federal prison. A few joints, and you were looking at probation in most cases. (No, I don’t.) The same thing might happen to the laws concerning illegal trading in gold and silver. Hopefully, none of us will ever have the occasion to find out.