The Greek Situation

If you watch the NYSE TICK chart you can virtually see events unfold in the EU regarding Greece.

This is the NYSE TICK (1 min) chart for today. Firdst Greece reinstated the jobs of thousands of public civil servants, the 20 month "Cleaners" protest. These cleaners of Greek government buildings were fired under the Austerity demands of the Troika almost 2 years ago and have held a constant protest since, today the Greek government rehired them as the final EuroGroup meeting with Greece and the Troika or EU Finance Ministers took place which no one held out any hope for a resolution and disbursement of $7bn to Greece before tomorrow's massive approx. $750 mn Euro IMF payment due.

The rehiring of the public cleaners did not go over well with the Troika as released in in a statement today,

"This is clearly against the spirit of reform agreements with the troika of the IMF, European Central Bank (ECB) and European Commission."

Then Russia asked Greece to join BRICS development bank...

"Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak spoke with Greek PM Alexis Tsipras today, proposed that Greece become 6th member of New Development Bank set up by Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, a Greek govt official says in e-mail to reporters."

This "seems" to be a pivot toward Russia which will come with a pound of flesh should Russia give Greece aid. I'd guess namely a Russian Naval Port smack dab in the middle of the Mediterranean, which Europe and NATO (including the US) would not be too fond of.

Now as TICK starts to break the small uptrend channel that occurred about the same time as the Russian offer, word is out confirming what everyone already knew going in to the EuroGroup meeting today. It is now official...

The EuroGroup meeting regarding Greece has been concluded with no further funds disbursement, but a lot of "goodwill statements". The bottom line is the same "Comprehensive list of reforms that was due (I can't count how many months ago, over a weekend) is still no closer to being done. In other words, when Greece achieved absolutely nothing from negotiations except to rename the "Troika", "The Institutions" there has been absolutely no progress toward the disbursement of the next $7bn Euro tranche and tomorrow's $750 mn IMF payment is looming...

I want to believe that Greece has a Plan "B". How could they go in to negotiations, push as they did with no leverage and without a plan "B"? Sadly these political amateurs seem to have absolutely no plan "B".