Studio Guest: Michael Heise, Head Economist with the Allianz Group

Our studio guest this week is Michael Heise, head economist with the Allianz GroupDW-TV: And for more on this story we’re joined now by Michael heise, head economist with the Allianz Group. I don't know about you but I get a funny feeling in my stomach when I hear these reports - looks like we're heading right into a new crisis there? Michael Heise: We're surely heading for some corrections of real estate evaluations in financial balance sheets. There will be write offs, that's for sure, but I don't think it will be a huge second wave of the crisis, because the financial industry has had some time to get prepared and some provisioning has been done by the institutions. DW-TV: It's not exactly the best time to worry about the US real estate market - here in Europe we already have Greece to worry about. Is there any alternative to a bailout? Michael Heise: Well I think we should go for the bailout as the first step. We should force Greece to go for strong reform, for strong consolodation with this very wide aide of the EU and the IMF. I think it can work. Other countries have shown that it works, for example Ireland in the 1980s had a similar situation. It came out quite well. It can work and we should attempt this first and try to convince the financial markets that there will be no default. If we get that right then the risk premia for Greece may go down. DW-TV: Some political parties suggest that Greece should leave the Eurozone given that they had presented false figures to get into the Eurozone in the first place. Is that an option? Michael Heise: Well certainly it would be an option and it is right that Greece did not obey all the rules that are relevant for all the members of the EMU. But I think we have to decide what we want. Do we want to go left and go for the bailout first and maybe in the second stage if it does not work we will have to look for other solutions. If you dilute your message about the bailout by saying maybe we should push Greece out whi...

Channel: sevenload Video Length: 0s Date Found: Fri, Aug 27 2010 12:02 AM Category: News Date Produced: Mon, Aug 23 2010 12:00 AM View Count: 0