Allusions to conflicting interests and the press' willingness to play along, framing the debate thus: Merkel finds Kozy's planned 0.0025 percent tax on all European banks' assets risky and would rather not have taxpayers carry the brunt of the next Greek bailout.
In case fractions aren't your thing: Twenty-five ten-thousandths is two-and-a-half one-hundredths or, twenty-five cents for every hundred euros.
Merkel's pretend implication has to be that the banks would just pass the cost along in the form of an additional fee to their customers, because the argument that it has anything to do with freeing or seizing up credit is by now laid bare: Lenders lend when they wanna, whether or not they have the money. It's one of the perks of being a lender.
So Kozy plays all "We gotta make those darn banks share!" while Merkin counters with "But that would hurt Mom & Pop!" while no one with any decision making authority dares to say that it is all the same money either way: Otto and Else Normalburger, happening along, are not going to be able to pick the shell with the pea under it, even if they get three tries.
So we gotta spare the banks the imposition of investing in their own future. Care to guess how much they're getting in return for the last "rescue package" - Greek Tragedy, part I? Really, just take a guess; because the answer you'd get from a ruling parliamentarian would be "That depends." or "It won't be that bad."
How bad? Let's just say that that quarter-on-every C-Note that was bandied about as a way to achieve half of the capital needed to keep the Greek Isles from going the way of Atlantis - and, as a result, knock the Earth off its axis and send it careening into a big black hole - is forty times less than the pile of profit that'll be divvied up come bonus time - whether the money is actually there or not.
You do the math. As if.
