Wednesday, September 21, 2011

"The Eurozone will survive" says Fitch..."The issue was never in doubt" . Never in the history of propaganda have so many words been wasted to so little effect.

Why not just abandon the mistake and revert to national currencies. If managed properly it should not be disastrous, but just a money changing exercise, which puts right the daft notion of a common currency in the current situation. They changed to the euro quite simply so change back quite simply and let the drachma etc. float. Debts will still remain but national economies will adjust. The E.U. dinosaur will not like it, but when you make a mistake instead of trying to fudge a solution it is better in the long run to face reality.
The next step is to revert the E.U. to the common market and the ECU and forget federalization and the human rights act, both of which hinder progress and national ambitions. I believe the above would receive the whole-hearted support of the European nations.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Of course Fitch give good ratings - first they are pretty French and secondly France has cheated on PIG exposure data by only declaring holdings in French banks in FRANCE, whilst making sure a good portion was in les départements d'Outre-Mer or other. Débit Agricole Geneva had a good wad of paper along with BNP St.Pierre et Miquelon.
You may have remarked that in the beginning Germany had a bigger exposure than France and since end Q1 French exposure has marched from about 60 billion € to 100 billion €.

Anonymous said...

The EU is not and never has been a democrazy. It is a dictatorship of the elite -- which pays itself jolly well.

Whenever a referendum was voted down -- like Maastricht and Denmark, the constitution and NL and France (!!!), or the Lisbon accord (the constitution rehashed and rewarmed) and Ireland -- the outcome was that the countries were forced to vote again so that the correct result was obtained!!!

At least Stalin were and North Korea are more efficient and ensure that the expected verdict is obtained at the first time of asking. It saves time and is cheaper also.

Anonymous said...

Joaquin Almunia, the European Union's competition commissioner, said the intensification of the debt crisis since July has left banks in several countries dangerously indebted.

Mr Alumnia, who is the first EU official to admit some banks need a cash injection, said that while July's stress tests were "serious operations" the deepening crisis means that the situation has "now changed". He said: "Sadly, as the sovereign debt crisis worsens, more banks may need to be recapitalised - on top of the nine signalled in the stress tests."

Nine banks failed July's stress tests while 16 others only just passed. The failed banks have to submit their plans for raising money to the EU's bank regulator by October.

Christine Lagarde, the new boss of the International Monetary Fund recently called for the forced recapitalisations of weak banks. She was roundly criticised by politicians in several different countries, who claimed the stress tests had done enough to prove the safety of the system.

Mr Alumnia, who is in charge of the EU's state-aid rules, suggested that these may be relaxed again if the crisis worsens. The rules were eased in 2008 to make bank rescues easier. Mr Alumnia added: "The situation we are facing these days calls for an extension of the existing state aid crisis regime."

Anonymous said...

The latest blizzard of statistics blew in yesterday from the International Monetary Fund, which knocked a quarter off the fragile growth forecast pencilled in for the rich economies In June. The UK fared slightly worse than this average, with a downgrade nearer a third. The IMF came closer than ever to warning the chancellor to change course on the cuts. Let's hope last night's reports about £5bn in new capital spending indicate a new willingness to listen. But Britain is a small fish in global waters: it may have ruled the waves; it does not make them now. The horrific twist concerns the two economies that do, the US and the eurozone. The projections assume that compromise triumphs in Washington, and that the eurozone crisis gets "resolved". Without these heroic assumptions, a dank grey outlook turns unremitting black. Already nations like Britain are experiencing a second spike in unemployment, and the IMF was explicit: we could soon be looking at the long-mooted double dip in output too.

Sadly, world leaders still seem more interested in polite fictions than grim realities, especially in Berlin. Of the reparations imposed on Germany at Versailles, Keynes stated that the one thing that could be said with certainty was that these were debts that would not be repaid. If Germany itself could only grasp that insight now, it would cease to pretend that Greek bonds will be honoured. That claim survives even though the last rescue deal saw bondholders accept "voluntary" reductions; they were voluntary in the give-me-some-money-or-I-will-mug-you sort of sense. Amid the scramble to apply another sticking plaster last night, the distortion of truth was worsening the prognosis. The lie that Athens remains solvent blurs the line between merely cash-strapped and outright bankrupt, thereby tainting other treasuries. All sorts of objective differences between Italy and Greece should make it easier for the former to foot its bills, and yet – ahead of S&P's downgrading of Rome's debt yesterday – the great fear was contagion.