A crisis of leadership

Bankers are impatient souls. I know, I worked for what was then a very conservative bank for a decade, and we liked things decided - plenty of caution and deliberation in the decision, of course - but decided, so we knew how to act.

As I have remarked before, the markets are tolerant of the Eurozone, believing it will all come out OK in the end, but this tolerance is beginning to fade.

There was a meeting, if you remember, on July 21st, where the whole damn thing was going to be settled. Now two months later, it still isn't. A greatly delayed decision to give the Greeks another €8bn has still not been approved. Just to put things in perspective, Greece's funding needs over the next three years were forecast at the time of the July meeting to be €172bn (yes, that's a bit more than an eighth of the British economy) over the next three years. Now it would seem to be more. How much more? They haven't a clue.

I seem to remember writing recently that the only people who don't understand that Greece is going to default are the people who matter.

So in the next couple of weeks (no hurry, chaps, don't shorten your lunch) someone will put a figure on how much Greece needs. Clue: it won't be less than the €172 bn thought of before. And then they will start the decision making about what to do. I know, it seems scarcely credible, but that's how it works.

Rumours were pretty heavily spread that the bailout fund would be increased to €2 trillion, but the Spanish finance minister (a possible beneficiary) has said no one has suggested that.

Er..just a tip chaps, if I'm not interrupting lunch or dinner, but the markets were hoping for a bit of leadership. No? OK, then, no. Fair enough, we don't want the political elite to panic.