“Borrow as much as you like – the ECB will bail you out” – that was arguably the implicit message of European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet last week as he announced that the ECB would continue to accept Greek sovereign bonds. The statement came after fears that Greek government bonds would be further downgraded and would therefore lose their status as collateral for ECB open market operations. In addition, a current relaxation of collateral quality requirements to BBB- is supposed to be extended.