Banks Austria Exposure to Eastern Europe

The eastern euope exposure of austrian banks.
Picture from BIS, report march 09, see page 23.
http://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt0903.pdf

"- it`s quite interesting, that the tremendous increase in loans started 2005 beginning at a very low level (20-30 bill euro) and reached an amount of almost 300 bill in 2008 !
- in austria the “responsible bank-managers” are protected by the political elite, in order to keep the tax payers (who will have to pay the bill) calm and simply un-informed - the media is supporting them in their attemps,
- the risk for the whole country is very high - no doubt :
- an institutional source estimated a total loss of approx. 15-20 %. this will amount to 45 - 60 bill euro and 18-25 % of GDP !

Last autumn the new government passed a law of guarantees & subentions for banks of 100 bill = 40 % of GDP.
This confirms, that they were fully aware of the risk month`s ago ..." Comment at http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/austria/