‘Sinister’ German Plan Aimed at Funds, Analysts Say (Update1)
March 18, 2010, 5:44 AM EDT

By Andrew MacAskill and Tony Czuczka
March 18 (Bloomberg) -- Germany’s suggestion that it may order spies to track speculators targeting currencies is “sinister and silly,” according to analysts, who said hedge funds in London and New York would be the targets.
Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told the Bundestag on March 16 that the country may have to consider ordering “intelligence agencies to set up surveillance of who is getting together with whom for which kinds of speculative processes, and where” to protect the euro.

“I find it sinister and silly, it is a complete overreaction,” said Philip Whyte of the Centre for European Reform, a pro-European Union research institute in London. “There is a certain school of thought in continental Europe that everything is always the fault of hedge funds.” Schaeuble’s comments reflected “a longstanding paranoia about the Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism.”

European politicians blamed speculators after the euro tumbled against the dollar and the cost of insuring Greek government debt rose by a third this year, causing budget cuts that triggered street protests in Athens. Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that trading in credit default swaps exacerbated the crisis.

Schaeuble said that “speculation is increasingly targeting currencies and countries.” His comments followed a report in Spain’s El Pais newspaper last month that the secret service was investigating “attacks” on the country by unnamed investors.

‘Nice Targets’
Politicians are concerned about the collusion of hedge funds in making bets on currencies and trading in so-called naked credit-default swaps, where they buy protection without owning the underlying debt, according to Jacob Schmidt, founder of Schmidt Research Partners Ltd., a London-based hedge fund advisory firm.

“Hedge funds are very nice targets because they are particularly based in London and New York,” Schmidt said. “He is not going to say this about the German banks. I think hedge funds can live with that. It’s part of their role to be a scapegoat.”

Last week, German financial regulators said market data didn’t show evidence that credit default swaps were used to speculate against Greek bonds, contradicting claims that derivatives trading exacerbated the Greek debt crisis. The country’s budget deficit is four times the EU limit.

‘Disruptive’ Swaps
Intelligence agencies could use techniques honed in the fight against money laundering and terrorist funding if they wanted, said Vanessa Rossi, a senior research fellow in the international economics program at London’s Chatham House.

“Within continental Europe there are those that do think that financial speculators are sort of terrorists,” said Rossi. “In their lexicon it is economic terrorism, so they may view this as more serious than the U.S. or U.K.” The German Finance Ministry didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.

Greece’s Papandreou has said credit-default swaps are disruptive and that their use to protect against a Greek default was the equivalent of allowing someone to buy fire insurance on a neighbor’s house and then burning it down.
The yield on Greek 10-year government bonds rose to 396 basis points above benchmark German bunds on Jan. 28, the most since November 1998.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Sarkozy have proposed limits to speculating on government creditworthiness in the derivatives market, saying this month that sovereign borrowing costs risk being driven to an “unjustifiable high level.”

‘Half as Sensible’

The French and German governments support an EU draft directive that would step up regulation of hedge and private equity funds. The directive calls for limits on hedge fund borrowing, requires registration of funds with more than 100 million euros ($137 million) under management and imposes compensation restrictions.

Merkel yesterday took aim at Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown, following an EU decision on March 16 to postpone a decision on the directive.

“I work well with Mr. Brown, but his one-time tax on bonuses was only half as sensible as it would be if Great Britain agreed to hedge-fund regulation, as we’ve been negotiating,” she said. “That’s what we need to fight for and we expect support.”

In 2005, the-then German Vice Chancellor Franz Muentefering told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that some financial investors “remain anonymous, have no face and descend on companies like swarms of locusts.”

--With assistance from Matthew Brown in London and Ben Moshinsky in Brussels. Editors: Francis Harris, Edward Evans
To contact the reporters responsible for this story: Andrew MacAskill in London at amacaskill@bloomberg.net Tony Czuczka at aczuczka@bloomberg.net;

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net; Edward Evans at eevans3@bloomberg.net

If they take out Soros, we'll call it even.

its just feel good blah blah balderdash for the ignorant serf mentality masses that populate yurp.

Nanny has an eye on the evil capitalist pigs that are out to rape the world and destroy the euro

all is well

all is well

FrogFryer wrote:

its just feel good blah blah balderdash for the ignorant serf mentality masses that populate yurp.

Nanny has an eye on the evil capitalist pigs that are out to rape the world and destroy the euro

all is well

all is well

What a stupid and useless comment.

It strikes me as a good idea to monitor these financial transactions, where speculators co-operating and so on can wreak havoc - why shouldn`t they do it ?

More sensible than monitoring ordinary citizens talking on their phones and the net, I would have thought.

good idea

What a stupid and useless comment.

It strikes me as a good idea to monitor these financial transactions, where speculators co-operating and so on can wreak havoc - why shouldn`t they do it ?

the meek Yurpeons quiver at the thought of big bad london and new york


I may have mistaken V for a eurotrash monkey but i was just shooting blindly . YOU on the other hand Ive noticed some of your comments before cannabis. wanna touch the article above it or is it just neo con propaganda? not that i agree with everything in it but he does touch some undeniable facts

that some of us mentioned OH i dont know when it first broke
a few months ago. I wonder who that was .

Lord_Haw_Haw wrote:

good idea

and why am i not suprised that the queen of the mice would be all for it

hi alan

ill be loggin in over there sooner or later

They're right. It's a war against whole countries and this is terrorism.

TheFroginator wrote:

If they take out Soros, we'll call it even.

Considering how many good people died, its a shame they missed him the first time.

malbarre wrote:

They're right. It's a war against whole countries and this is terrorism.

you guys are in serious fuckin trouble then

BUY dollars LOL


oh boy

\so let me get this straight
lets take soros for example forget his political leanings
soros and others like him and fund managers are scumbags , its the nature of the beast. they can pretty much do whatever they want . right ? right

when they get a hard on for something they are gonna play it or manipulate, and milk it fucking dry and make a shit load of money. I can so relate to their motives cause ive been there but not on that scale. but this so called Greek crisis has been going a long time it just finally came to a head . now you want the same people WHO fudged the books, LIED to , concealed the truth from the unwashed masses , and let the wolves in to now watch the wolves ?OK then

the euros knew what they were doing why ya wanna scapegoat london and wall st?


why did ya come with your hands out in the first place then to begin with ? someone stick a fuckin gun to the homosexual greasy greeks heads ?

the germans and the fwench laying down some solid ground rules for the euro zone why dont ya blame them instead s. they were the two big players especially when it came to debt way back when . in fact we used to make fun of the fwench for missing thier targets.

oh my its 5 am .

between reading and this site my brains gonna melt

What would you think about an attack like the ones against Greece and €, but against USA and $?

malbarre wrote:

What would you think about an attack like the ones against Greece and €, but against USA and $?

It's not even close to an 'attack'. Here's why.

1. You want an analog Greece versus USA. The Greek economy is roughly the value of Greater Chicago. What would happen to USD if Chicago failed to redeem its debt? Basically nothing. There was zero blip in USD when Orange County, California went belly up. The reason is that there is a legal mechanism here to deal with such things, to liquidate assets and pay off debt holders that is backed by the full faith and credit of the same government that has been paying its debts for 236 years. You don't have that, you have.....

2. A ten year old currency without a country under a loose confederation that relies on the credit rating of one country - Germany. Greeks want the good life, and have ended up paying paying nearly TWICE as much to finance itself as Germany (a 330 basis point spread on Friday to 10 yr. bund). Germans who retire at 67 do not want to pay for Greeks to retire at 47, so they do not want to step up and guarantee Greeks the good life by means of German credit.

Item 1 above is a lot more strength than item 2. Hedge funds DO NOT short into strength, they short into weakness. Their goal is not to lose money, it is to make money. Simple. You want to get rid of short sellers, do something that shows strength, not weakness.

Greece is weak. Rioting, protests, and a taxation system that is basically not functioning right now. So anyone who buys that 10 billion in Greek debt floated two weeks ago, or the next 10 billion needed to redeem Greek bonds coming due on April 20 and May 19 is stupid if they don't see lots of risk.

Greece is now complaining because they're falling into a credit death spiral, which they are. Greater risk causes, higher rates, spiraling upward into even greater risk. Any hedge fund or any other sort of money manager that walks into that mess, and buys Greek bonds, is going to want insurance or protection. They can buy credit default swaps which now cost ~300 basis points, or a net than puts them at right about what a German 10 year would yield. What's the sense in that? More risk, zero reward. So, they do something easier and cheaper, they short Euro. If Greek debt goes down in price/up in yield farther, they will lose money, but they will offset those losses by gains in shorting Euro, which will head farther south if Greece tanks. They have achieved high yield, with a limitation on their risk - the hallmark on any hedge fund.

Now your politicians, knowing that few voters understand markets, get all frothy about this trade. If they start limiting CDS's or currency short positions to offset the risk of Greek debt, probably even you guys can understand what will happen --- Greek debt will become more expensive to float, and Greece's problem will become worse! You can bitch all you want about markets, but they are not stupid, and always smarter than governments - and they will NOT take one for the team. Bottom line, this political crap causes you more problems than it solves.

Somebody who simply glances at the numbers knows that another 10, 20 or 40 billion of hedging caused by Greek debt DOES NOT move the needle on the ~4 Trillion market that is the EUR/USD cross. Damn, you guys must realize that tails do not wag dogs. What moves the needle is the real possibility that your politicians will piss and moan and not solve this problem while Greece implodes.

Add to the above, you now have Merkel talking around the idea that Greece should go to D.C. and borrow money from Japan and the USA. You even have Jan Kees de Jager coming out and saying Greece should go to the IMF. It makes sense. Greece could get financing at about 3.25% on 10 years, about half what they'll be paying for the 10 Billion they need to borrow by May. This gets Sarkozy pissy though, as it makes the euro currency look like a sham. Another sign of weakness that causes the euro currency to decline. More weakness causes more Euro selling, and down it goes. You don't even need to worry about short sellers, who in international trade is going to hold a currency and take a risk when there are safer currencies in which to store wealth.

Assume that there were zero hedgies in London or NYC. Move them all to Tokyo and Hong Kong or Shanghai. The same trade would still happen! Markets would still work that way. They borrow the funds in Japan (lowest rates in the world), they buy high yield Greek junk bonds, and they --- hedge -- their risk by shorting the euro.

You want to fix the problem, re-write your Lisbon treaty, and make the social spending, (e.g. retirement age) perfectly uniform from one country to another. You want to make the problem even worse, piss off the people you need to buy the debt, and cut off your nose to spite your face. Blaming hedge funds or anyone else for wanting to lower their risk is purely stupid, and ultimately ends up screwing the Greek debt or any upcoming PIIGS debt problem even more.

malbarre wrote:

What would you think about an attack like the ones against Greece and €, but against USA and $?

I would think its the market. Currencies fluctuate. Its what they do. There are advantages and disadvantages to having a strong or weak currency. IF the US government didn't spend way more than it takes in, there would be no basis upon which speculators could short sell the currency. How can you blame the speculators for this? The real fault lies with the government for not getting its financial house in order and with the people who just want ever more handouts but don't want to pay for it.

Speculators are only the symptom. Socialism is the disease.

jagerdr wrote:

malbarre wrote:

What would you think about an attack like the ones against Greece and €, but against USA and $?

It's not even close to an 'attack'. Here's why.

1. You want an analog Greece versus USA. The Greek economy is roughly the value of Greater Chicago. What would happen to USD if Chicago failed to redeem its debt? Basically nothing. There was zero blip in USD when Orange County, California went belly up. The reason is that there is a legal mechanism here to deal with such things, to liquidate assets and pay off debt holders that is backed by the full faith and credit of the same government that has been paying its debts for 236 years. You don't have that, you have.....

2. A ten year old currency without a country under a loose confederation that relies on the credit rating of one country - Germany. Greeks want the good life, and have ended up paying paying nearly TWICE as much to finance itself as Germany (a 330 basis point spread on Friday to 10 yr. bund). Germans who retire at 67 do not want to pay for Greeks to retire at 47, so they do not want to step up and guarantee Greeks the good life by means of German credit.

Item 1 above is a lot more strength than item 2. Hedge funds DO NOT short into strength, they short into weakness. Their goal is not to lose money, it is to make money. Simple. You want to get rid of short sellers, do something that shows strength, not weakness.

Greece is weak. Rioting, protests, and a taxation system that is basically not functioning right now. So anyone who buys that 10 billion in Greek debt floated two weeks ago, or the next 10 billion needed to redeem Greek bonds coming due on April 20 and May 19 is stupid if they don't see lots of risk.

Greece is now complaining because they're falling into a credit death spiral, which they are. Greater risk causes, higher rates, spiraling upward into even greater risk. Any hedge fund or any other sort of money manager that walks into that mess, and buys Greek bonds, is going to want insurance or protection. They can buy credit default swaps which now cost ~300 basis points, or a net than puts them at right about what a German 10 year would yield. What's the sense in that? More risk, zero reward. So, they do something easier and cheaper, they short Euro. If Greek debt goes down in price/up in yield farther, they will lose money, but they will offset those losses by gains in shorting Euro, which will head farther south if Greece tanks. They have achieved high yield, with a limitation on their risk - the hallmark on any hedge fund.

Now your politicians, knowing that few voters understand markets, get all frothy about this trade. If they start limiting CDS's or currency short positions to offset the risk of Greek debt, probably even you guys can understand what will happen --- Greek debt will become more expensive to float, and Greece's problem will become worse! You can bitch all you want about markets, but they are not stupid, and always smarter than governments - and they will NOT take one for the team. Bottom line, this political crap causes you more problems than it solves.

Somebody who simply glances at the numbers knows that another 10, 20 or 40 billion of hedging caused by Greek debt DOES NOT move the needle on the ~4 Trillion market that is the EUR/USD cross. Damn, you guys must realize that tails do not wag dogs. What moves the needle is the real possibility that your politicians will piss and moan and not solve this problem while Greece implodes.

Add to the above, you now have Merkel talking around the idea that Greece should go to D.C. and borrow money from Japan and the USA. You even have Jan Kees de Jager coming out and saying Greece should go to the IMF. It makes sense. Greece could get financing at about 3.25% on 10 years, about half what they'll be paying for the 10 Billion they need to borrow by May. This gets Sarkozy pissy though, as it makes the euro currency look like a sham. Another sign of weakness that causes the euro currency to decline. More weakness causes more Euro selling, and down it goes. You don't even need to worry about short sellers, who in international trade is going to hold a currency and take a risk when there are safer currencies in which to store wealth.

Assume that there were zero hedgies in London or NYC. Move them all to Tokyo and Hong Kong or Shanghai. The same trade would still happen! Markets would still work that way. They borrow the funds in Japan (lowest rates in the world), they buy high yield Greek junk bonds, and they --- hedge -- their risk by shorting the euro.

You want to fix the problem, re-write your Lisbon treaty, and make the social spending, (e.g. retirement age) perfectly uniform from one country to another. You want to make the problem even worse, piss off the people you need to buy the debt, and cut off your nose to spite your face. Blaming hedge funds or anyone else for wanting to lower their risk is purely stupid, and ultimately ends up screwing the Greek debt or any upcoming PIIGS debt problem even more.

Great explanation. Sound and rational. People are only going to lend money to risky borrowers if they get more interest payments in return for taking a bigger risk to lend to them. When your debts exceed your revenues, you are a risky borrower. Makes perfect sense.

Will the Yurps understand? Of course not! [yurp/moonbat mode] Its UNFAAAAAAAIR! Its all "brutal capitalism"!!! WAAAA HHHHH!!!!!! We should be able to go on forever borrowing other people's money so that we can lead a cushy life and we should never have to pay any of it back-just go on borrowing ever more and more. We want all the gravy but we don't want to work for it! Other people are just mean, nasty and evil if they do not agree to give us their money so that we can live higher on the hog than our own work and productivity justifies! WAAAAAAAH! [/yurp/moonbat mode]

Its astonishing how willfully economically illiterate some people can be.

You want to fix the problem, re-write your Lisbon treaty,

I knew it was time to close the books and log off when i couldnt remember the lisbon treaty .

A ten year old currency without a country under a loose confederation that relies on the credit rating of one country - Germany

euros dont like to hear that

Item 1 above is a lot more strength than item 2. Hedge funds DO NOT short into strength, they short into weakness. Their goal is not to lose money, it is to make money. Simple. You want to get rid of short sellers, do something that shows strength, not weakness.

bingo

You want to make the problem even worse, piss off the people you need to buy the debt, and cut off your nose to spite your face. Blaming hedge funds or anyone else for wanting to lower their risk is purely stupid, and ultimately ends up screwing the Greek debt or any upcoming PIIGS debt problem even more.

slam dunked

"Now your politicians, knowing that few voters understand markets, get all frothy about this trade. If they start limiting CDS's or currency short positions to offset the risk of Greek debt, probably even you guys can understand what will happen --- Greek debt will become more expensive to float, and Greece's problem will become worse! You can bitch all you want about markets, but they are not stupid, and always smarter than governments - and they will NOT take one for the team. Bottom line, this political crap causes you more problems than it solves. "





You have still to explain nevertheless why Goldman Sachs helped Greece to dissimulate its debt in order they enter in the EU (with their agreement obviously).

About CDs speculation,i don't understand all but Brits just created a new index on CDS. Which gives the variations of cds. And there is speculation in this index. Said differently, it seems there is an artificial increase to get insured. So Greece debt increases abnormally.

Here,i'm not shocked. These sharks should be monitored to understand who they are. Like that,an appropriate answer can be found.

simplefrench wrote:

"Now your politicians, knowing that few voters understand markets, get all frothy about this trade. If they start limiting CDS's or currency short positions to offset the risk of Greek debt, probably even you guys can understand what will happen --- Greek debt will become more expensive to float, and Greece's problem will become worse! You can bitch all you want about markets, but they are not stupid, and always smarter than governments - and they will NOT take one for the team. Bottom line, this political crap causes you more problems than it solves. "





You have still to explain nevertheless why Goldman Sachs helped Greece to dissimulate its debt in order they enter in the EU (with their agreement obviously).

About CDs speculation,i don't understand all but Brits just created a new index on CDS. Which gives the variations of cds. And there is speculation in this index. Said differently, it seems there is an artificial increase to get insured. So Greece debt increases abnormally.

Here,i'm not shocked. These sharks should be monitored to understand who they are. Like that,an appropriate answer can be found.

I agree.

FrogFryer wrote:

What a stupid and useless comment.

It strikes me as a good idea to monitor these financial transactions, where speculators co-operating and so on can wreak havoc - why shouldn`t they do it ?

the meek Yurpeons quiver at the thought of big bad london and new york


I may have mistaken V for a eurotrash monkey but i was just shooting blindly . YOU on the other hand Ive noticed some of your comments before cannabis. wanna touch the article above it or is it just neo con propaganda? not that i agree with everything in it but he does touch some undeniable facts

that some of us mentioned OH i dont know when it first broke
a few months ago. I wonder who that was .

Lord_Haw_Haw wrote:

good idea

and why am i not suprised that the queen of the mice would be all for it

hi alan

ill be loggin in over there sooner or later

OK FF, remember, nationalise the banks and heavily regulate the finance industry

You have still to explain nevertheless why Goldman Sachs helped Greece to dissimulate its debt in order they enter in the EU (with their agreement obviously).

About CDs speculation,i don't understand all but Brits just created a new index on CDS. Which gives the variations of cds. And there is speculation in this index. Said differently, it seems there is an artificial increase to get insured. So Greece debt increases abnormally.

Here,i'm not shocked. These sharks should be monitored to understand who they are. Like that,an appropriate answer can be found.

to destroy you and the euro all they needed was to create the incentive to buy the protection and then seek to destroy you.

the Brits are the ol masters btw in the 1700's speculators used to do that with shipping .The joos ain't got nothing on the Brits

anyway this worked out well for Goldman Sachs & others. HOW you guys doing ?

cant retire at age 40 and suck on grape leaves anymore LOL thats a fucking shame .
I'm pretty much in a retirement myself and I'm slightly over 40 life is good , but i didn't depend on the nanny state I roll with the evil ones



why do people sometimes hide income on their taxes ?

not necessarily lie but just not mention tight or hide and cover cash flow or money problems when they are facing a banker for a loan or potential investors for working capital ?
why do they do that ?

welcome to the real world sheep


don't panic simple europe can either come out of this stronger or weaker Its really up to europe

although observing the people ya have running the joint and the sheep that populate it for a very long time i wouldn't get my hopes up on stronger anytime soon

Lord_Haw_Haw wrote:

FrogFryer wrote:

What a stupid and useless comment.

It strikes me as a good idea to monitor these financial transactions, where speculators co-operating and so on can wreak havoc - why shouldn`t they do it ?

the meek Yurpeons quiver at the thought of big bad london and new york


I may have mistaken V for a eurotrash monkey but i was just shooting blindly . YOU on the other hand Ive noticed some of your comments before cannabis. wanna touch the article above it or is it just neo con propaganda? not that i agree with everything in it but he does touch some undeniable facts

that some of us mentioned OH i dont know when it first broke
a few months ago. I wonder who that was .

Lord_Haw_Haw wrote:

good idea

and why am i not suprised that the queen of the mice would be all for it

hi alan

ill be loggin in over there sooner or later

OK FF, remember, nationalise the banks and heavily regulate the finance industry

yes i do thats why i wasnt suprised at all .

all over the news and they are right germany has been swinging that fucking hammer lol

the Germans cant wait till that idiot trichets terms up. since day one Ive been saying not only does he eat snails he moves and reacts like one.


the Germans didn't like him very much and cant wait to get their man in . this most certainly strengthens the German hand and they will get thier man in axel something or another whatever his name was. i cant remember his name

"welcome to the real world sheep"

Europe is in the real world. It is rather you who doesn't understand the situation :


"Call for ban on CDS speculation

By FT reporters

Published: March 10 2010 19:49 | Last updated: March 10 2010 22:26

Germany and France on Wednesday called on the European Union to consider banning speculative trading in credit default swaps and set up a compulsory register of derivatives trading.

The move came as Angela Merkel, German chancellor, called for EU institutions to be given “more teeth” both to control speculation and to police the deficit spending of member states. François Fillon, French prime minister, said after talks in Berlin that both governments were “very much in agreement in tackling extreme speculation”.



The two leading economies in the eurozone are asking for an immediate investigation of the role and effect of speculative trading in CDSs in the sovereign bonds of European Union member states. Their request came in a letter sent on Wednesday to José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, and José Luis Rodríquez Zapatero, Spanish prime minister and current chairman of the EU ministerial council.



Article from the Financial times.It is possible that measures have already been taken.

Simple Simple Simple......it is you who are living in fantasyland. You cannot ban people from freely trading things on the whole planet. It is going to happen whether you like it or not. Whenever anybody gets into a jam they are going to go wherever it is that the money is loaned. If it looks like they can't pay their debts or that they are a serious risk to not repay their debts, they will be charged more money to borrow. There's nothing you can do about it. Even if you could get your way and ban it worldwide the result would be that nobody would be willing to lend their money to risky borrowers so they would be assfucked far worse than they are now however bad you think it is.

You cannot get around the market no matter how hard you try. It is not a matter of political will. Rather than impotently shaking your fist at the heavens, why don't you instead focus on dealing with the problems that get you into such a bad position to begin with? Then you won't need to borrow money and won't be charged more one way or another to do it.

The move came as Angela Merkel, German chancellor, called for EU institutions to be given “more teeth” both to control speculation

balderdash for the masses

and to police the deficit spending of member states.

swinging the fuckin hammer

you're next simple the Germans got their eye on you yet again .
franco Prussian war parade.
ww2 parade .
german 2010 parade through paris comin soon

A lot of things can be done. You are not aware that biggest american banks can't buy european bonds anymore in europe ?

After,a bailout can be done but it is better than Greece cut spending drastically. It is what did Ireland.

Before the European union,if Greece collapsed,the consequences were small. They are "only" 11 millions but not nowadays(probably the biggest default of the €/EU)

simplefrench wrote:

A lot of things can be done. You are not aware that biggest american banks can't buy european bonds anymore in europe ?

You are aware that it doesn't matter? If the Yurps want to float some bonds they will go on the market worldwide.

After,a bailout can be done but it is better than Greece cut spending drastically. It is what did Ireland.

Before the European union,if Greece collapsed,the consequences were small. They are "only" 11 millions but not nowadays(probably the biggest default of the €/EU)

Pushing through the Euro was a huge mistake given that we are talking about a lot of different countries with different cultures, different business practices, no central authority to control fiscal policy, extremely limited worker mobility, etc. It did not make economic sense right from the start....but Yurp elites being Yurps thought they could get around the laws of economics if they just had enough political will-as usual. It will blow up in their faces-as usual.