Debt-Sale Hype Under Fire in EU

This article is absolutely fascinating to me and confirms what a lot of so called conspiracy theorists have wondered for a long time. "Who is buying all this debt?" With record issuance throughout the developed world, one has to wonder who is buying this crap...the answer, NO ONE IS!

LONDON—It is one of Wall Street's few certainties. Ask a banker selling bonds or shares how their deals are doing and the answer is invariably: "Lots of interest from investors."
Now a European self-regulatory body is looking at whether that perennial optimism might have at times been misleading for investors in the European debt markets, according to people familiar with the matter.

Zero Hedge Article (www.zerohedge.com/):

A year ago we discovered that several European countries only managed to squeeze into the Eurozone by misrepresenting their total debt courtesy of Goldman Sachs facilitated currency swaps which misrepresented the true state of said countries’ finances. Yesterday it was revealed that at least one Spanish region had been openly lying about its economic performance and underrepresented its budget deficit by about 50%. Today we go deeper into the rabbit hole, after a WSJ report discloses that European banks ‘may’ have been openly and frequently lying by misrepresenting to others about the amount of third party demand at any given bond auction. Think of it as the same BS that a bulge bracket bank in the US will use to sucker retail momo investors into a hot IPO. “A European self-regulatory body is looking at whether that perennial optimism might have at times been misleading for investors in the European debt markets, according to people familiar with the matter. The International Capital Market Association, or ICMA, is examining whether banks have been improperly exaggerating the amounts of investor demand they are seeing in certain bond sales, including for debt issued by European governments, these people say.” Where does the rabbit hole lead next: someone discovers that the Bid To Cover ratio in all US bond auctions over the past several years have really been 50% lower than represented publicly? As for Europe: does anyone believe anything coming out of that continent anymore following the whole Jean-Claude Juncker fiasco? The Eurozone and the euro are both doomed and everyone knows it. But all is fair in love and perpetuating doomed ponzi pyramids (which is not to say that the US is any better).

The International Capital Market Association, or ICMA, is examining whether banks have been improperly exaggerating the amounts of investor demand they are seeing in certain bond sales, including for debt issued by European governments, these people say.