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Vigil, protest held for Dreasjon Reed, who was fatally shot by Indianapolis police

Dreasjon Reed, 21, was shot and killed following an Indianapolis police pursuit that was broadcast in part on Facebook Live.

       




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Indianapolis police officers arrested in separate incidents unrelated to this week's shooting

Two Indianapolis police officers have been arrested in separate and unrelated incidents.

       




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March Madness tailor-made for Kamar Baldwin. But his Butler career won't get a final chapter

A member of Butler's travel party told me saying goodbye to Baldwin was one of the hardest things he has ever done. He spoke for all of Butler Nation.

      




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Butler 2010 rewind: Late 3s carry Bulldogs past top-seeded Syracuse

Ronald, not known as a shooter, breaks a long dry spell, and Willie Veasley follows with a 3 to push the Bulldogs over the Orange

      




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Butler lands much-needed shooter with Jair Bolden transfer

Butler has been active in the transfer market this offseason, but had come up empty — until Friday.

       




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Superheroes in Indianapolis send hundreds of kids to see 'Black Panther'

NUVO, others buy tickets for hundreds of Indianapolis youth to see Marvel film with a black superhero

      




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Indianapolis 500: 'Thor' actor Chris Hemsworth will wave green flag

Australian actor Chris Hemsworth will wield green flag, not Thor's hammer, at 2018 Indianapolis 500.

       




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Chris Hemsworth will wave green flag at Indy 500

Australian actor Chris Hemsworth will wield green flag, not Thor's hammer, at 2018 Indianapolis 500.

       




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Fleetwood Mac adds Indianapolis date

Rock band Fleetwood Mac will perform this fall at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.

       




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5 fast facts about the Bollywood adaptation of John Green's 'The Fault in Our Stars'

'Kizie Aur Manny' under way as the Hindi adaptation of John Green's 'The Fault in Our Stars.'

       




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New York City to buy 50,000 coronavirus test kits weekly from Indianapolis lab

New York City will be purchasing 50,000 coronavirus test kits weekly from an Indianapolis lab, Aria Diagnostics, owned by a Carmel resident.

       




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A Fishers church will hold in-person services for small groups this weekend

While Indiana continues to see a rise in coronavirus cases, a Fishers church will resume in-person services.

       




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Roundabout projects to close 3 Carmel intersections this week

Construction projects will temporarily close the intersections to traffic.

       




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6 takeaways from community stakeholders' meeting on how to reopen Carmel safely

"We're trying to walk the delicate balance of how to reopen and help peoples' livelihoods," Mayor Jim Brainard says.

       




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NBC Sports' 'Racing Week in America' features some of IndyCar's best moments last decade

In NBC Sports' 'Racing Week in America', IndyCar fans will get to see some of the most exciting races from the series' last decade.

      




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IndyCar's latest schedule change: three races added, including one at IMS; Detroit canceled

The IndyCar schedule has undergone another massive change, but this time, the series has managed to add a race back onto the slate.

      




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Goodbye to 'that May feeling': Watch an Indy 500 billboard come down after race postponed

John and Tucker Hartung of Lamar Advertising removed an Indianapolis 500 billboard along Lafayette Road, April 7, 2020. The race is delayed to August.

      




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Dale Earnhardt on (virtual) IndyCar debut Saturday: 'Trying to keep myself out of trouble'

Though he's been heavily into iRacing in recent years, Dale Earnhardt Jr. had never ventured into the world of IndyCar. This week, he's gotten a heavy dose.

       




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IndyCar iRacing Challenge audience grows 25% in Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s open-wheel debut

Broadcast on NBC Sports for the second consecutive week, IndyCar's iRacing audience grew 25% from the previous week.

       




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Peek inside IndyCar Graham Rahal's lavish California mansion

The $8,000 square foot, $8 million home sits atop a hill and features windows from floor to ceiling.

       




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For IndyCar's recent champions, iRacing adjustment has been emotional roller coaster

They've piled up more on-track success than any other drivers over the past three years. But adjusting to sim-racing has been another task entirely.

       




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Lando Norris, Colton Herta reunited in this weekend's IndyCar iRacing Challenge

The two young drivers rose to stardom driving for Carlin Racing in Europe's several lower Formula series from 2015-16.

       




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IndyCar needs fans or NASCAR to run at Texas Motor Speedway in 2020, says track president

The president of Texas Motor Speedway is still hoping to run the Genesys 600 with fans in June. But if they're turned away, he'll need NASCAR's help.

       




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Racing veterans reviving careers in the midst of sim-racing boom in Legends series

The series includes 26 drivers ages 40 and up who either made their names in racing decades ago or are still in the cockpit.

       




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'IndyCar Weekly' podcast: What's next for the series?

IndyCar driver Conor Daly and IndyStar's Nathan Brown discuss the iRacing finale, in which Daly finished second, and when real racing might resume

       




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Roger Penske on the coronavirus: 'No matter how bad it seems, everything's an opportunity'

Penske has seen his company's stock price fall by 40%, his new racing series suspended and the Indy 500 scheduled outside of May for the first time

       




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Meet the 2020 IndyCar Series drivers

Here are the IndyCar Series drivers, with their age, experience anticipated schedule for 2020 and Indianapolis 500 results

       




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IndyCar details plans for season-opener at Texas Motor Speedway, including no fans

IndyCar will host its season-opener at Texas Motor Speedway on June 6 as planned, but without fans and in a one-day show.

       




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Larry Curry, who had rollercoaster IndyCar career as team engineer and manager, dies at 68

In a career not without mistakes and disappointments, Larry Curry showed sparks of brilliance during his IndyCar career that spanned five decades.

       




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Kevin Jones performs his song, "I Can See The Stars"

Kevin Jones performs his song, "I Can See The Stars" before the Tom Odell show at the Moroccan Lounge in Los Angeles.

      




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Tully: Eagle Creek Park, a 'jewel tucked into the city'

On the Northwest side of Indianapolis, Eagle Creek serves as a break from the bustle of the city.

      




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Tully: 'The Post,' as seen through the eyes of student journalists

I wondered about what the next generation of journalists thought about the movie's message, and about the tensions between the press and government.

      




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Tully: On guns, we need Todd Young to be Todd Young

Todd Young has a lot of smart things to say about a lot of issues. On one issue, though, he dodges when his leadership is needed.

      




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Tully: The truth is, we need more politicians like Joe Donnelly

Bipartisanship doesn't score you many points in politics these days. But it should, and Sen. Joe Donnelly is a perfect example of why.

       




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Meet Luke, the 2019 Mayberry Cafe Opie look-alike winner

Luke Land, 3, of Danville, Ind., is Mayberry Cafe's 2019 Opie look-alike winner.

      




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Here's how to win free gift cards at Avon's new At Home store

Located off U.S. 36, home decor store At Home will replace what used to be a Gander Mountain in Avon, Indiana.

      




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See what Wild Wednesday is all about: 'We come out to hear the music of the motors.'

Ordinary people in their ordinary cars take to the drag strip to get their need for speed.

      




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Danville baseball coach Pat O'Neil is cancer-free. He's ready to 'start living' again.

Pat O'Neil, an Indiana Baseball Hall of Fame inductee, was declared cancer-free Tuesday.

      




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Avon football finding out about itself — and after 2 games, it likes what it sees

The third-ranked Orioles knocked off Ben Davis 41-17 with strong QB play and a defense that just keeps scoring.

      




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QB Ben Easters has career-night as Brownsburg bounces back against Fishers

The Kansas commit threw five touchdown passes against a defense that entered the game allowing just 6.5 points per game.

      




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'This was a game we needed.' No. 1 Avon pushed again, but passes latest test

Avon, ranked No. 1 in Class 6A, has had to display a high level of resiliency and develop that elusive clutch gene to remain unbeaten at 8-0.

      




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IHSAA basketball: Plainfield spoils Greenwood party as Mid-State title still up for grabs

Plainfield picked up a 59-42 win over Greenwoon on Friday night, and still has eyes on Mid-State title.

      




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This Brownsburg teen saves abandoned potbellied pigs at Oinking Acres

Olivia Head, 17, founded Oinking Acres in Brownsburg and has rescued up to 160 potbellied pigs and some other animals.

       




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'You have to show up for the animals': Brownsburg teen's sanctuary has rescued 150+ pigs

Olivia Head discovered there was a high demand for fostering and adopting potbellied pigs. Thus, Oinking Acres Pig Rescue and Sanctuary was born.

       




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2 found dead in overturned car in Brownsburg creek

Two people have been confirmed dead after they were found in an overturned vehicle in a creek in Brownsburg on Tuesday.

       




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Could Germany afford Irish, Greek and Portuguese default?

The Western world remains where it has been for some time, delicately poised between anaemic recovery and a shock that could tip us back into economic contraction.

Perhaps the most conspicuous manifestation of the instability is that investors can't make up their minds whether the greater risk comes from surging inflation that stems largely from China's irrepressible growth or the deflationary impact of the unsustainable burden of debt on peripheral and not-so-peripheral eurozone (and other) economies.

And whence do investors flee when it all looks scary and uncertain, especially when there's a heightened probability of specie debasement - to gold, of course.

Unsurprisingly, with the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schauble, implying that a writedown of Greece's sovereign obligations is an option, and with consumer inflation in China hitting 5.4% in March, there has been a flight to the putative safety of precious metal: the gold price hit a new record of $1,480.50 per ounce for June delivery yesterday and could well break through $1,500 within days (say the analysts). Silver is hitting 30-year highs.

In a way, if a sovereign borrower were to turn €100bn of debts (for example) into an obligation to repay 70bn euros, that would be a form of inflation - it has the same economic impact, a degradation of value, for the lender. But it is a localised inflation; only the specific creditors suffer directly (though there may be all sorts of spillover damage for others).

And only this morning there was another blow to the perceived value of a chunk of euro-denominated sovereign obligations. Moody's has downgraded Irish government debt to one level above junk - which is the equivalent of a bookmaker lengthening the odds the on that country's ability to avoid controlled or uncontrolled default.

Some would say that the Irish government has made a start in writing down debt, with the disclosure by the Irish finance minister Michael Noonan yesterday that he would want to impose up to 6bn euros of losses on holders of so-called subordinated loans to Irish banks.

But I suppose the big story in the eurozone, following the decision by the European Central Bank to raise interest rates, is that the region's excessive government and bank debts are more likely to be cut down to manageable size by a restructuring - writedowns of the amount owed - than by generalised inflation that erodes the real value of the principal.

The decision of the ECB to raise rates has to be seen as a policy decision that - in a worst case - a sovereign default by an Ireland, or Greece or Portugal would be less harmful than endemic inflation.

But is that right? How much damage would be wreaked if Greece or Ireland or Portugal attempted to reduce the nominal amount they owe to levels they felt they could afford?

Let's push to one side the reputational and economic costs to those countries - which are quite big things to ignore, by the way - and simply look at the damage to external creditors from a debt write down.

And I am also going to ignore the difference between a planned, consensual reduction in sums owed - a restructuring that takes place with the blessing of the rest of the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund - and a unilateral declaration of de facto bankruptcy by a Greece, Ireland or Portugal (although the shock value of the latter could have much graver consequences for the health of the financial system).

So the first question is how much of the impaired debt is held by institutions and investors that could not afford to take the losses.

Now I hope it isn't naive to assume that pension funds, insurance companies, hedge funds and central banks that hold Greek, or Irish or Portuguese debt can cope with losses generated by a debt restructuring.

The reason for mild optimism in that sense is that those who finance investments made by pension funds and insurers - that's you and me by the way - can't get their money out quickly or easily. We simply have to grin and bear the losses to the value of our savings, when the stewards of our savings make lousy investment decisions.

As for hedge funds, when they make bad bets, they can suffer devastating withdrawals of finance by their investors, as and when the returns generated swing from positive to negative. But so long as those hedge funds haven't borrowed too much, so long as they are not too leveraged - and most aren't these days - the impact on the financial system shouldn't be significant.

Finally, if the European Central Bank - for example - ends up incurring big losses on its substantial holdings of Greek, Portuguese and Irish debt, it can always be recapitalised by solvent eurozone nations, notably by Germany and France.

However this is to ignore the node of fragility in the financial system, the faultline - which is the banking industry.

In the financial system's network of interconnecting assets and liabilities, it is the banks as a cluster that always have the potential to amplify the impact of debt writedowns, in a way that can wreak wider havoc.

That's built into their main function, as maturity transformers. Since banks' creditors can always demand their money back at whim, but banks can't retrieve their loans from their creditors (homeowners, businesses, governments), bank losses above the norm can be painful both for banks and for the rest of us.

Any event that undermines confidence in the safety of money lent to banks, will - in a best case - make it more difficult for a bank to borrow and lend, and will, in the worst case, tip the bank into insolvency.


Which, of course, is what we saw on a global systemic scale from the summer of 2007 to the end of 2008. That's when creditors to banks became increasingly anxious about potential losses faced by banks from a great range of loans and investments, starting with US sub-prime.

So what we need to know is whether the banking system could afford losses generated by Greek, Irish and Portuguese defaults.

And to assess this, we need to know how much overseas banks have lent to the governments of these countries and also - probably - to the banks of these countries, in that recent painful experience has told us that bank liabilities become sovereign liabilities, when the going gets tough.

According to the latest published analysis by the Bank for International Settlements (the central bankers'central bank), the total exposure of overseas banks to the governments and banks of Greece, Portugal and Ireland is "just" $362.2bn, or £224bn,

Now let's make the heroic guess that a rational writedown of this debt to a sustainable level would see a third of it written off - which would generate $121bn (£75bn) of losses for banks outside the countries concerned.

If those loans were spread relatively evenly between banks around the world, losses on that scale would be a headache, but nothing worse.

But this tainted cookie doesn't crumble quite like that. Just under a third of the relevant exposure to public sector and banks of the three debt-challenged states, some $118bn, sits on the balance sheets of German banks, according to the BIS.

For all the formidable strength of the German economy, the balance sheets of Germany's banks are by no means the strongest in the world. German banks would not be able to shrug off $39bn or £24bn of potential losses on Portuguese, Irish and Greek loans as a matter of little consequence.

This suggests that it is in the German national interest to help Portugal, Ireland and Greece avoid default.

If you are a Greek, Portuguese or Irish citizen this might bring on something of a wry smile - because you would probably be aware that the more punitive of the bailout terms imposed by the eurozone on these countries (or about to be imposed in Portugal's case) is the expression of a German desire to spank reckless borrowers.

But as I have mentioned here before, reckless lending can be the moral (or immoral) equivalent of reckless borrowing. And German banks were not models of Lutheran prudence in that regard.

If punitive bailout terms make it more likely that Ireland, Greece or Portugal will eventually default, you might wonder whether there has been an element of masochism in the German government's negotiating position.




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What price a Greek haircut?

One of Europe's most influential bankers said to me the other day that he thought it would be a disaster if any of the eurozone's debt-stretched nations imposed a reduction in the value of their respective sovereign borrowings, or - to use the jargon - took a haircut on their debts.

For him, the eurozone approach of muddling through - providing IMF and eurozone loans to those countries that cannot borrow on markets - is the right approach, even if it hasn't actually solved anything for the eurozone in a permanent sense.

It is curious he should take that view, given that the rescues of Greece and Ireland that took place last year are already having to be renegotiated. And the bailout of those countries didn't stop the rot: Portugal is well into the process of obtaining emergency finance from eurozone and IMF.

Wouldn't it be better to cut what Greece - or Portugal or Ireland - owes down to a manageable size, in tandem with the imposed shrinkage of its public sector, to put its public finances back on a basis that is sustainable for the long term?

The markets are saying that's the only way forward. Over the course of a year, the market price of Greek government debt has fallen by more than half, for example. The yield on 10-year Greek government bonds is well over 15%. Which is an unambiguous statement from investors that there is not the faintest chance that they will lend to Greece again, unless and until its debt burden is reduced to a manageable size.

Or to put it another way, markets are presenting a simple choice to eurozone government heads and the IMF: they can continue to lend to Greece for an indefinite period, in the hope that Greece's economic growth will eventually pick up and generate incremental tax revenues, which would allow the Greek government to perhaps start paying down its debts; or they can bite the bullet and put Greece into the equivalent of what the Americans call Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, to restructure and reduce what Greece owes so that it is consistent with the market price of all that debt.

Now as of this instant, option one looks a bit naive, in that what's happened subsequent to the first bailout of Greece a year ago is that its ratio of debt to GDP has been growing in leaps and bounds to more than 150% of GDP (and for more on the heroic challenges faced by Greece, see reports in the next day or two from Stephanie Flanders, who is in Athens).

So you would have expected my influential banker - who knows a thing or two about the markets - to be in favour of what the markets are saying is inevitable. Surely he should be calling for that most humiliating event for any creditor, a formal admission by Greece that it can't pay what it owes, which goes by the moniker of a haircut, or restructuring, or default?

But Mr Big Banker doesn't think that's the right way forward. His reasoning is that he fears a debt restructuring would weaken many of Europe's banks, such that they would be forced to raise new capital - perhaps from their respective governments. And, for reasons that slightly elude me, he sees that as a worse outcome than leaving Greece trapped in an unbreakably vicious cycle of economic decline.

The odd thing, however, is that the official statistics really don't seem to indicate that a haircut on Greek debt would be Armageddon for Europe's banks.

It would be a disaster for Greece's banks, that's certainly true, given that (according to Bank of England figures) a 50% writedown of Greek sovereign debt would wipe out more than 70% of their equity capital. Or to put it another way, they would be bust and would have to be recapitalised.

But, sooner or later, Greece's banks are going to need strengthening in any case. Fixing Greece's public finances won't fix Greece unless its banks are mended too. So any estimate of the costs of rehabilitating that country will include the price of providing new capital to the banks.

The more relevant question, perhaps, is what a Greek haircut would mean for banks outside Greece.

The latest figures from the Bank for International Settlements, published a few days ago, show that at the end of last year banks outside Greece had lent $146bn to Greek banks, companies and the public sector - down from $171bn three months earlier. And, of this, loans to the public sector (largely holdings of Greek government bonds) were $54bn.

To be clear, this doesn't take account of exposure through derivatives, credit commitments or guarantees. So the world's banks probably have a further $100bn exposure to Greece.

The sums at risk therefore look serious though not - on their own - potentially disastrous for the health of the financial system.

Now as luck would have it, the banks most at risk happen to be those of the eurozone's two largest and strongest economies, Germany and France. The exposure of German banks to Greece is $34bn, including perhaps $20bn of loans to the Greek government, while the exposure of French banks is $57bn, of which again around $20bn is probably sovereign lending

Now because of what some would say is the madness of how the global Basel rules - that measure the strength of banks - are applied, there would be a double whammy for eurozone banks if there were a write-off of Greek sovereign debt.

The banks with Greek sovereign exposure would have to reduce their respective stocks of capital by the amount of the loan loss. And they would have to inflate the size of their balance sheets, because the residual exposure to the Greek government would lose its official (and some would say insane) zero risk weighting. So the fall in the capital ratios of banks with exposure to Greece would be magnified in a painful way.

Of the larger listed banks, only one, the Franco-Belgian group Dexia, looks as though it would be seriously hurt by a Greek debt writedown. According to Morgan Stanley, Dexia has 4.9bn euros of exposure to Greek sovereign debt, equivalent to more than half the value of its equity capital. Dexia would be significantly weakened by a 50% Greek haircut.

Next at risk, according to Morgan Stanley, would be Commerzbank of Germany, with €3bn of Greek sovereign debt, equivalent to 15% of its capital. Meanwhile BNP Paribas and Credit Agricole of France, Erste of Austria, KBC of Belgium and Deutsche Bank of Germany all have meaningful though not devastating exposures.

Less visible is the Greek exposure of Germany's state backed landesbanks - which regulators tell me is considerable. But if they were to incur large losses on it, Germany could afford to recapitalise them.

So what is going on? Why are eurozone governments so wary of a restructuring or haircut of Greek sovereign debt, given that banks in the round won't be killed by the consequential hit?

There seem to be three reasons.

First, in Germany, it is apparently politically more acceptable to provide rescue finance to Greece directly than to rescue German banks that foolishly and greedily bought Greek debt for its relatively high yield.

Second, a Greek debt restructuring would be a severe blow to eurozone pride in the strength of the currency union.

Third, a Greek haircut might be the thin end of a large wedge. If it created a precedent for haircuts in Portugal and Ireland, the losses for the eurozone's banks would begin to look serious. But again, if there were just a trio of national debt haircuts, if the rot were to stop with Ireland and Portugal, eurozone governments could afford to shore up and recapitalise their banks.

That said, what the eurozone could not afford - or so regulators fear - would be haircut contagion to the likes of Spain and Italy.

But Spain and Italy are looking in better shape. Spain, for example, is taking steps to strengthen its second tier banks and its banks in general have become less dependent on funding from the European central bank (which is a proxy for their perceived weakness).

So here, I think, will be what will determine whether Greece gets its haircut in the next two or three months: if eurozone governments come to believe that Spain is well past the moment of maximum risk of financial crisis, there will be a bold restructuring of Greek debt.

But, to use that awful footballing expression, if they do go for a Greek debt haircut or writedown, it will be squeaky bum time in government buildings all over Europe.




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IndyCar's Hinchcliffe: Dance practices cause sore feet

Andretti Autosport needs sponsorship to re-sign Indy 500 champion Alexander Rossi

      




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Avon Schools is closing due to coronavirus concerns. Here's what parents need to know.

After a coronavirus update that a second student was showing symptoms, Avon schools decided to close all buildings ahead of spring break.

      




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Schools are closed in Indiana until at least May 1. What parents need to know.

Gov. Eric Holcomb announced that all Indiana schools are closed until May 1, possibly beyond that.