What if the Greece doomsayers are wrong?

by Michael Tarsala

Conventional wisdom says that a Greek return to the drachma is inevitable, and a best-case scenario is a smooth transition from the euro.

But what if all the doomsayers are wrong?

To be honest, the newsflow remains very negative. For two weeks, there has been no government in Greece. If a government cannot be formed by Thursday this week, new elections will be in June. And there is a possibility that there will be no action on the steady stream of Greek debt coming due.

My very unscientific count is that the negative to positive headline ratio for Greece is about 20 to 1.

Yet out of that low ratio of positive headlines, here are some of the best contrarian thoughts:

Greece quitting the euro is no tragedy. We’ve seen this before. (London Evening Standard)

Maybe this is all gamesmanship to get Greece a bigger bailout (Slate)

For Greeks, leaving the euro wouldn’t be so bad (WSJ blog)

Amid the doomsaying headlines, there are market opportunities (Ben Levisohn, Upside column, WSJ)