George Soros was wasting his time in going to Frankfurt to persuade Germans of the merits of eurobonds.
This scheme would be smaller than Bruegel's, covering around €2.3 trillion, and since its purpose is to redeem debt above the 60% threshold, the fund issuing the Eurobonds would eventually wind up though that would take 25 years.
Eurobonds would replace national debt above, rather than below, 60% of GDP.
National borrowings below the 60% level could be switched into "blue" Eurobonds, while the remaining "red" debt would remain the responsibility of individual states.
One idea is to confine the maturity of Eurobonds to short-term debt.
Yes, the Greens, in particular, would have liked to go faster and would have been open to Eurobonds (issued separately by each euro-zone government but guaranteed by all), which Mrs Merkel has ruled out.
If interest on Eurobonds—securities issued, mainly in London, to investors overseas were taxed at source, Britain fears that the whole market might move outside the EU, taking City of London jobs with it.
Joint Eurobonds for part of the sovereign debt, called for by Mr Juncker and the Italian finance minister, Giulio Tremonti, might also reassure the markets.
The economics underlying derivative products are so novel and significant that four of their innovators have won Nobel prizes".Derivative product" is to "molecule" in general as each of Mr Drucker's favourite financial products (for example, Eurodollars, Eurobonds and credit cards) is to a specific molecule.
More ambitiously, the credit rating of the entire area might be used to issue Eurobonds, which would be less vulnerable to speculation.
France's opposition presidential candidate, who is leading in the polls, says he would renegotiate the deal to get Eurobonds and a more active ECB.
