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Ronan McGovern's avatar

1) For readers like me, when you say:

"Crucially, individual member states' debt would lose the (empirically false, but so far regulatorily established) risk-free status, which only the senior ESBies tranche would receive.",

is it worth adding a sentence stating the implication that national bonds would no longer be given a 0% risk weighting on bank balance sheets (only the senior trance of the ESBies would). This is what would prevent governments from having their banks buy their own sovereign bonds - as is currently done, right?

2) Tranches always remind me of the MBSs in the financial crises, but I can see the rationale of the approach here.

3) Seems like the right solution, but - like with rent control - since all European sovereign debt spreads are compressed, I don't see - politically - how any government with a compressed spread would agree to this kind of a change.

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gideon magnus's avatar

The Blanchard-Ubide proposal reminds me of my proposal from last year to issue consumption-linked perpetuities:

https://gideonmagnus.medium.com/the-case-for-consumption-linked-perpetuities-in-the-eurozone-557779ece710

But I doubt they got the idea from me...

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