The Empty Vessel That Is The ESM

In case you didn't realise it, today is the official launch of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), allegedly this is the permanent bailout fund which offers a pot of cash that can be used to bailout troubled nations.

Eurozone finance ministers, who form the ESM's board of governors, will hold the inaugural meeting in Luxembourg today, two years after the idea of setting up such a fund was endorsed.

Who says that EU politicians don't move "quickly" when there is a crisis?

Reuters reports that the fund's lending capacity will be:

"based on 80 billion euros of paid-in capital and 620 billion of callable capital, against which the ESM will borrow money on the market to lend it on to governments cut off from sustainable market funding".

Oh, and it won't reach its full capacity gradually by 2014.

What does that mean?

It means that even "fully funded" at Euro620BN it hasn't enough money to staunch the tsunami ripping through the Eurozone's finances.

Oh, but as already noted, it hasn't got Euro620BN anyway; ie it is an empty vessel!