here comes Spain proving there is always "something else." Bloomberg reports that the insolvent country which is not really insolvent as long as people keep buying its bonds on hopes it is insolvent, is launching "lottery bonds". To wit: Spain to sell bonds through state-run lottery operator to fund regional bailouts, two people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg’s Esteban Duarte and Ben Sills. The issue is part of €6 billion financing through Sociedad Estatal Loterias & Apuestas del Estado which is raising syndicated loan. Loterias official said financing details haven’t been completed. In other words, the national lottery, which as in Spain so everywhere else, is nothing but an added tax on a country's poor population but one which provides at least a tiny hope of a substantial repayment (which never happens for the vast, vast majority of players) so few actually complain about paying it, is about to shift the bailout cost to the nation's poorest. Who benefits? Why Spiderman towel makers of course. And insolvent banks.
In retrospect, it appears this is not exactly a new idea. From Businessweek two months ago:
Spain will use its national lottery, the operator with the biggest jackpot in the world, to provide aid to regional governments as the nation struggles to avoid a second bailout itself.
The state-owned lottery will contribute 6 billion euros ($7.3 billion), taking out a loan against future revenue, to a fund of as much as 18 billion euros to fund redemptions and deficits for regions that request it.
Regions, many of which have been shut out of debt markets for more than a year, will pay a “small spread” above the central government’s yields to borrow from the fund, de Guindos said. The government will demand budget cuts in return from the regions that choose to use the fund, he said.
...
Loterias & Apuestas del Estado, a debt-free company the government
tried to list on the stock market last year, has
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-09-24/spains-latest-bailout-plan-lottery-bonds?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+%28zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate+for+everyone+drops+to+zero%29
Realist - Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same -- hardihood. Give them raw truth.
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