I Pasticci con i derivati di Prodi - Gzibordi

Confermo in pieno la visione di Giovanni .Un amico che lavora all' interno del sistema conferma che le banche italiane sono "farcite" di queste porcate. D' altronde il grande risanatore oggi nostro presidente della repubblica era il governatore della Banca d'Italia quindi il "tana liberi tutti" è arrivato dall' alto. Tremonti definì Visco un "gangster contabile" e francamente non trovo una definizione che sinteticamente riassuma meglio le qualità dell'uomo.Un vero bolscevico dalla doppia morale : una pubblica con cui si ergeva a uomo di stato chiedendo sacrifici ai sudditi e una privata che gli consentiva gli abusi edilizi nella sua "dacia" di Pantelleria . D'altronde l' entità stessa della manovra sull' eurotassa la fa apparire nulla più che uno specchietto per le allodole.La metà di quanto ha speso Tatò per comprare l' Infostrada .Ma anche i nuovi arrivati hanno capito che è meglio stare zitti e ciò dovrebbe fare riflettere : evidentemente i conti sono marci oltre le più pessimistiche previsioni e soprattutto oltre le possibilità di rimedio con strumenti ordinari.Il vero risanamento era la riforma pensionistica Dini prima versione .Prima che gli venisse offerto il posto di Berlusconi .Avrebbe assicurato un futuro equo alle generazioni che in questi anni entrano mnel mondo del lavoro.Ma per impedirla si è fatto un colpo di stato.E dopo dieci anni il Berlusconi di oggi non è più quello incosciente di allora .Ha capito il messaggio .In questo paese è inutile elaborare una strategia ma è indispensabile avere una tattica .

questa storia è molto importante e mostra come funzionano gli "swap" e in generale i derivati se il governo Prodi come si vede qua sotto li ha usati per nascondere il deficit nel 1997-1998 (ma accumulando però in questo modo poi delle perdite successive) figurarsi quello che possono aver fatto le banche italiane con questi derivati essendo cose complesse si possono giocare come vogliono ma alla fine comunque il debito viene spostato solo nel tempo e anzi c'è un aggravio complessivo ne verranno fuori degli altri e specialmente su grosse banche ---------------------------------- By Wall Street Journal staff reporters Silvia Ascarelli in London and Deborah Ball in Milan LONDON -- A report that suggested the Italian government had used swaps contracts to hide the extent of its budget deficit has sparked controversy amid fresh doubts over the reliability of such deficit figures. The report, by Gustavo Piga, a professor at the University of Macerata in central Italy and an expert in the field of public-debt management, doesn't explicitly name Italy. But individuals familiar with the matter say the unusual swaps contract described in the report involves that country, which succeeded in slashing its deficit to 2.7% of its 1997 gross domestic product, below the 3% ceiling allowed to qualify for European monetary union, from 6.7% in 1996. Italian officials said yesterday that they hadn't done anything wrong by using unusually complex swaps contracts to bring forward cash flows into 1997. They said the accounting procedures used to classify derivative transactions are always checked with Eurostat, the European statistics office. Foreign-exchange traders cited the report, and questions it raised on the reliability of deficit figures, as one reason behind the euro's slide to as low as 89.45 cents yesterday. The European currency traded late yesterday in New York at 89.80 cents, down from 90.29 cents Friday. The report explains how one European country used a swaps contract to lock in paper gains on a foreign-currency bond issue -- but used a combination of exchange rates and interest rates that effectively meant it received more cash than it otherwise would have during the lifetime of the contract. It paid back the excess amount when the swap contract matured in 1998, after countries had been selected for the first wave of monetary union. Mr. Piga said he was shown one contract that would have reduced that country's deficit ratio by just 0.02 percentage points but said the same process could have been used repeatedly. By using a swap contract, an increasingly common behind-the-scenes transaction, an issuer can trade its obligation to pay a fixed rate of interest for a variable rate of interest, or vice versa. It can also trade its obligation to make payments in one currency for payments in another. Interest-rate swaps account for more than half of the rapidly growing market for over-the-counter derivatives, according to the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland. Mr. Piga's study "exposes loopholes that currently allow governments to exploit swaps contracts and conceal the scale of their budget deficit from public scrutiny," said the International Securities Market Association, which published the report in cooperation with the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York think tank. The report caused embarrassment for top Italian officials, most notably Romano Prodi, who was Italy's premier when the country was straining to meet the euro requirements and who is credited with saving the country from the humiliation of failing to participate in monetary union. Mr. Prodi is now president of the European Union. Asked if Italy had cheated, Mr. Prodi replied: "No," and noted that Italy wasn't mentioned in the report. In Brussels, a spokesman for EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner Pedro Solbes said the EU had no problem in principle with the 12 euro-zone members using interest-rate swaps as a way of managing public debt. Eurostat's director general, Yves Franchet, yesterday told Reuters news agency that the agency had known about the the use of the accounting procedures. An ISMA spokesman confirmed that the report was "presently unavailable" on the association's Web site but declined to comment on the reasons. Benn Steil, a senior fellow at the New York-based Council on Foreign Affairs who edited the report, said the report didn't suggest that Eurostat, which had to approve the transactions for budgetary accounting reasons, had done anything illegal. But it underscored the need to close the accounting loophole. "This particular transaction was clearly intended to mislead," he said. "It was absolutely, positively not for hedging. If the purpose of the transaction had been to hedge the foreign-exchange risk, the exchange rate applied would have been the exchange rate in the date that the swap contract was entered into." The report also highlights the contradiction between longstanding government warnings that companies should be transparent and prudent in their use of derivatives, and the governments' own behavior. Governments generally don't disclose how they use such contracts, which Mr. Piga says can effectively alter when interest payments are due, temporarily reducing government spending. In the report, Mr. Piga suggested Italy isn't the only country using derivatives for so-called window-dressing purposes and warned that the success of EMU is threatened by a lack of transparency in the way governments reduce their budget deficits. He called for clear and simple accounting rules governing derivatives and greater public disclosure of their use. Many governments use swaps to reduce the cost of borrowing, and they have become more popular as debt-management offices have become more professional. -------------------------

ecco come l'Italia è riuscita a restare dentro i parametri di Maastricht facendo un giochetto coi derivati su un prestito in yen che quell'anno ha mostrato un utile di cassa e che poi negli anni successivi crea delle perdite ------------ da breakingviews -------- Because the famous 3%-of-GDP deficit target was a cash measure, it made sense for Italy to reduce its cash interest bill in 1997, whether or not that was good value in the long run. Exchange rate movements gave the Italian government the chance to lock in a big gain on a bond it had issued in yen. The sensible way to do that was with a swap that would leave it paying slightly higher interest until the bond matured, but able to redeem the bond at much less than its original face value in lire. That would have reduced the national debt, yielding lower interest payments in the long term. Instead, Italy’s swap deal turned its exchange rate gains into upfront cash during the remaining life of the bonds, leaving the long-term national debt and interest bill unchanged. The deal was rotten value for the taxpayer – but it helped Italy’s interest bill and government deficit in 1997. Does cheating in the exam raise questions about Italy’s membership of EMU? No. For a start, it wasn’t cheating. There was nothing in the accounting rules to stop Italy using swaps – even bad-value ones - to massage its deficit down. The many loopholes in the rules were exhaustively discussed in Brussels before the EMU verdict was delivered. Secondly, the amounts at stake – even if the swap in this story was only one of several – are negligible, at one or two tenths of a percent of GDP. Thirdly, it is hardly as if Italy was the only country to cheat in 1997: France only hit its Maastricht deficit target thanks to a massive one-off payment from newly-privatised France Telecom. And fourthly, Commission President Romano Prodi would be slapping his own wrist if he told Italy off: he was Prime Minister of the country when the dodgy deal was done. In any case, the Maastricht deficit hurdle is a stupid target to start with. Quite apart from its fundamental economic flaws, measuring the annual cash deficit tells you little about the health of a country’s public finances. At a micro level, governments clearly don’t account well for their derivatives deals. Not only do they score swaps payments as cash flows; there is no reflection of the counterparty risk that makes swaps very different from traditional public debt. But at a macro level, marginal debt management changes are neither here nor there. Until national accounts tell us something about the massive hidden future liabilities these states are running in their social security systems, they are a mere historic profit-and-loss. Real government balance sheets are long overdue. Author: Paul Raynes