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Greece And The Eu


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We are about to have a glimpse into the money supply situation within EMU members. What seems to be happening is that the PIIGS have seen a complete lock up of interbank landing and the ECB stepped into that role. The question is how long can the ECB maintain that position, never mind how much has it cost. We should be able to see that better tomorrow!

How many times have we heard politicians talk about Global Markets, either blaming them for a loss of jobs or the need for domestic cuts. What they seem not to have taken onboard is that if there is a global market then there has to be global terms and conditions for it to run under. Even the countries which on the face of it look to be profiting from this type of market are under the cosh because they don't understand the principles either!

For instance we see Obama increasing the American fiscal stimulus whilst us Europeans are tying ourselves into austerity programmes and both are members of the G20 group which provides a platform of consensus for international fiscal agreement.

There is an interesting vote in Germany today as we might see Merkle's coalition loose what should have been a normal business vote. If the German people are not happy playing paymaster to the EMU under performing members this might well be a litmus test!

So the ONS have admitted they have been using and issuing wrong figures! Seems to justify my disbelief of most of them for a while! They seem to have been used for political advantage for some time and justify political moves rather than provide independent information with which the politicians could make informed decisions! I will be interested in seeing exactly where the discrepancies have been!

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Well it would seem on the face of it the figures released by the ECB yesterday were much better than expected. However on closer inspection a slightly different picture emerges. The ECB is in fact lending nearly E900B to banks within the Eurozone. This is an all time high. The E132B figure comes in when we look at the 1 in 7 banks who need to take up the roll over 3 month notes at the 1% over rate. That's quite a few banks! It is worth noting here that there is a figure of E163B held not in 3 month paper but 7 day paper! Course these are not part of the E132B! Banks with 1, 4 & 6 month paper needing refinancing is worth something over E100B so we are really looking at around E400B of medium term refinancing. If we then add the medium term to the long term paper we see a figure of around E550B and an easy subtraction from the headline would suggest a 'hidden' figure of E350B at least! The ECB response to this question……….

"Well, now you are straying into those areas where we prefer for other observers to make their own judgements".

Ok then I would hazard a guess someone somewhere needs more support than we have been told and releasing the information would damage markets further! If an organisation can 'hide' E350B can we really take them seriously?

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With equity markets worldwide experiencing triple digit moves, up and down, we have been focussing on the European levers at play but it might be worth looking at what the Chinese politburo are doing which is rattling Asian markets. China's central bank has just announced a £7 billion bond sale. Because we are not privy to the reasons behind this move we can only speculate. On the face of it China would seem to be doing quite nicely given her balance of payments but there are just as many problems being a wholesale exporter, just ask Japan, as there are in being a net importer. This is somewhat of a surprise to the markets as the bank has only just got through a recent bond sale.

The offering would add to the $45.6 billion in fundraising already announced by China's biggest banks, and come amid the longest losing Hang Seng streak in over a decade. China's largest lender by customers, China Agricultural Bank, is also in the midst of a $20.1 billion initial public offering in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Fears are growing that, in the light of China's sudden government-imposed credit squeeze, the BoC may have either over lent or be holding subprime debt on a grand scale - or both. In 2009, Bank of China granted more loans than any local rival.

We also have to consider the possibility that this is only a measure trying to keep up with demand as two of the largest banks there face a capital shortfall of about $70 billion as they seek to comply with regulatory requirements and meet loan demand. Murky waters indeed and without any sort of explanations there is only one possible result. We do have to add into the mix that the Chinese authorities are really quite new to the world of consumer capitalism and considering the heady mix of floating currencies, asset bubbles, demand curves, economic slowdown, a rising Yuan, industrial unrest, property boom and a credit squeeze, all of which are taxing the most versatile and proficient western economists, we have to ask if they are up to the job and we have to be fearful of the answer!

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There is a clear message coming from politicians wherever they are………we are in a fragile recovery stage and we should proceed with care. The Europeans seem intent on austerity programmes to try and rebalance national accounts; the Yanks seem to want more fiscal stimulus measures. These would seem at a dichotomy with each other and as already mentioned strange as both are members of an organisation supposed to harmonise world fiscal/economic measures?

Looking at the data which is supposed to support both views there would seem an extra problem, I think we are still in and have never really left recession. We have used so much by way of QE etc. measures to support our delusion of being back on tract that is now weighing down on economies. The QE dosh has been used to protect an equities bubble, notably the banking sector, and ultra-low interest rates are being used to prolong a housing bubble, good for our GDP figures. Best case would be to deflate these two bubbles slowly by increasing our output and paying our way out. That is being compromised by the very austerity measures needed to reign in the debt figures. We have seen a 30% depreciation in our currency against our nearest trading partners to give our exporters a helping hand. The result, we are 30% poorer by comparison with no real benefits economically!

We, the UK, have switched from a supposedly Keynesian approach to full blown neoliberalism, it might be worth examining what this means in terms of economic recession. Essentially, Keynes says in times of recession governments have a right to increase debt to stabilise and mitigate the worst effects of recession out of the economy and so provide populations with work, jobs incomes etc. The neoliberalists say that only private business should be providing those jobs and governments have to reign in their spending. There are many facets to each theory which have merit but shouldn't there be some common ground. It was this common ground NuLab said it had camped on but it now looks likely it was only paying lip service to each and therefore drifting on the current of an upturn in the economic cycle fuelled by a destructive increase in debt.

What seem to be beyond doubt now is that governments are manipulating figures to provide statistics which suit them. Inflation figures have been compromised for the last 30+years, now it's been turned into an art form! In the same way GDP figures are manipulated to advantage so both sides of the sheet are out of sync with the real world. Other figures, like unemployment, are being massaged to provide politically expedient results, no question about it! We are living in La La Land with government departments providing the fairy dust! Listen for people talking about a double dip recession, it's not recession we will be dipping down into its depression!

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Well there seems some good news coming out for a change and the markets have reacted accordingly. Instead of looking at where the punters are putting their dosh let's take a sneak at where the smart money is going, and for smart money I'm talking about the hedge funds. By Thursday, not the top end of the markets by any means, they were actively dumping equities and holding cash. In fact the $34B which went into cash markets last week was the highest amount since Jan 2009! Some hedge fund managers hold 2/5ths of their available funds in cash now. These people are expecting a market correction and want to hold enough reserves to get into the action once they think it has bottomed out! Anyone reading this thread, I suppose it has turned into a blog, will know that I think we haven't even begun the needed correction so fundamentals are rebalanced. In the UK, QE money has kept the footsie up and artificially low interest rates have kept the housing market up, we are now entering an austerity programme which will inevitably result in our economic progress stifled. Looking outside the UK we see Europe in what can only be described as a financial meltdown by certain member states, China with her own financial problems and the good old USA attracting investment money because it is being perceived as a safe haven yet at the same time starting her debt fires up again. And all the while everyone has taken their eye off the inflation ball never mind the deflation one! To paraphrase an American President……if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck………

Speaking of the UK economy, the new ONS statistics came out and before taking into account the costs of debt management and EU membership, UK plc. lost £46B during 2009. On the same basis during May 2010 UK plc. lost £4.6B. Taken forward for 2010 as a whole, that would project to an annual loss of £55B. Thanks to EU membership alone, that loss would double to £110B. Is that another £110B we have to add to our debt pile, I can hear the printing presses gearing up already! With losses and costs like this we need much more than the politically expedient 0.1% growth figures which seemed to get us out of recession! Even the newly revised down projected growth figures going forward will be compromised by our trading partners being in recession, can we really rely on our kids flipping burgers to add additional value? I agree we need cuts to rebalance our economy and we need to promote entrepreneurial flair but we need a higher skilled workforce and cutting that budget in a unilateral manner is not the way to achieve it.

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Remember that RPI/CPI change in the budget which I already commented on, it's about to affect every pensioner now as well as those on benefits it was primarily aimed at. The Gov are changing the pensions indexing from RPI to CPI. This also affects private pensions as companies can use the CPI figures to measure inflation and therefore work out their value.

Does this stuff really matter………look at the differences over the last 8 years:

CPI: 1.3%; 1.4%; 1.3%; 2.1%; 2.3%; 2.3%; 3.6%; 2.2%

RPI: 1.7%; 2.9%; 3.0%; 2.8%; 3.2%; 4.3% 4.0%; -0.5%

Can anyone now see a difference? At a time when inflation could easily get out of hand effectively reducing incomes can only mean less disposable incomes and in a consumer driven economy that only leads to one thing, the opposite of what is needed!

Interesting piece by Roger Bootle of Capital economics, his conclusion, the EMU should break up and revert back to their national currencies. This would let the likes of the PIIGS devalue and stimulate their economies and the likes of Germany although the DM would increase initially they would see domestic demand increase to compensate. Personally I still think a northern Euro and a southern one would make more sense.

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Quote.........

'There is no more positive, or subtle or surer means of destroying the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of the citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily, and while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The process engages all of the hidden forces of economics on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner that not one man in a million can diagnose.'

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Did anyone else see Trichet's speech last week? His conclusion now is that "There has been a tendency for outsiders to be excessively pessimistic". He goes on to justify ECB actions because of a fall in joblessness and a rise in exports. The rise in exports was almost certainly down to German efforts as they have seen an exponential rise in their figures with the Euro heading towards parity with the dollar. The other member states believe this to be a problem not something to be applauded; Germany is so far out of whack with them it is untrue!

As for the joblessness figures, again Germany is the only leading contender, the figures in the majority of EMU members is heading in the opposite direction. Looking at France, the biggest government employer in the union, where their deficit figure is rising by E3B a month, not one single redundancy has so far been enacted!

Mr Trichet, delude yourself if you want but leave the rest of us to try and make sense out of the carnage you have overseen! In the near future Trichet will be pensioned off on a nice fat EU pension. It would seem a pity a great many people will not have the same choice due to the laissez-faire attitude apparent under his fiscal authority tenureship!

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Change is coming to the NHS, yippee, we can expect our elderly nearest and dearest to get those operations they need to stay alive in their lifetimes now, instead of being top of the list just after it doesn't matter anymore. Mr Lansley has come up with a scheme which will revolutionise our heath provision. With the Thatcherite mantra of 'more choice' above all else ringing in his ears he is going to give the docs more budgetary control and form an new independent body to oversee the NHS. Just what we need, doctors with no financial training given more financial responsibilities and more jobs for the boys! I would have thought doctors and their specialist skill set should be left to their own area of expertise to the exclusion of all else, isn't that best for the population? As for more managers…….words fail me!

It's about time the great and good realised health provision is not a market, it can't be manipulated in the same way as a run of the mill business. It may well end up we need to pay more into the system for heath provision and that's fine as long as we get a first class system and one we can trust. Look out for the first million pound a year GP!

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Back with the good old EU………

In 2009, the EU spent £400 million on projects marked 'Confidential'. There's no graft involved - just stupidity at a time of fiscal austerity! One of these outlays involved a circus troupe performing "spectacular belching" and "smelly foot" jigs. An official in Brussels commented, "This is a very small amount of money and I am sure there are reasons why this is confidential." Yeah, maybe someone might like to explain them then! :blink:

Also the EU will this year spend almost £1 billion on pensions, giving the average retired official an income of almost £60,000. The UK's contribution will be £135 million. A British diplomat said: "Pay and pensions in EU institutions must reflect the very difficult decisions which are being made right across Europe." Well it certainly looks that way to me, these guys must be really tightening their belts!!!!!!!!!!!! :angry:

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Speaking of the EU, these banking stress tests we are all eagerly awaiting…..is there anyone who is going to believe whatever they come out with? It seems the banks are themselves actively seeking a watering down of some of the tests involved. If Trichet comes out with anything like a watered down version the markets will see there is more really bad news behind the headlines and act accordingly. What a stupid position to put yourself in! One thing is clear the politicians are running scared and that leaves us mere mortals only left to speculate!

The games afoot Watson………..

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There are some complicated moves afoot within the Greek financial debacle at the moment. She has just gone to the market with 6 month bonds and her finance minister has been talking up her reaction to the imposed austerity measures. So Greece is willing to pay around 4%+ on this paper yet she is supposed to have access to the EMU bailout dosh costing 5% pa or nearly half the cost? If we then look at the total issued we see a paltry E1.25B, this will not even repay the rollover debts (E2.16B) she has! Next week she is supposed to offer 13 week bills and again we see a rollover figure of E2.4B. It very much looks like she is paying what she can off her mortgage with her credit card and allowing the capital debt to increase. Maybe Greek financiers can see something I can't? If she issued 12 month paper, currently 7% but she can use EMU money at 5%, to cover costs and repayment then markets would at least be sure of no defaults for that duration. The sad truth about her finances according to people living there is that she is trying to pay international national debts but issuing IOU's for domestic local and regional debts! If you worked for Northumberland County Council how many IOU's would it take to feed your family and pay your mortgage? The fat lady is a long way off singing here!

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So Moody's has downgraded Portugal to A1 status and cited debt to GDP and debt to revenue as the main reasons. Portugal didn't really have the growth others in EMU had and so it's not hard to see her economic growth now as something almost impossible to attain. Like the rest of the PIIGS implementing harsh austerity measures ends up being counterproductive as by their very nature they tend to depress economic growth and if you rely on growth to pay your way out of the do do then there would seem an obvious conclusion? With her banks now probably only able to borrow from the ECB and her nearest neighbour in a similar mess there doesn't seem much hope for an economic boom!

Speaking of ratings agencies, China has come out and said they are all tainted with bias towards western economies and unreliable therefore her agency, the Dagong Global Credit Rating Company, has rerated economies and surprise surprise China had edged upwards and the western economies have all been taken down a notch or two, the UK is now AA- not AAA! Seems China is learning the tricks of international finance quickly!

The Greek bond issues currently gone and going through do have an intrinsic question, how much did the ECB take? (European Central Bank's Securities Market Programme.) We are not supposed to know this of course but isn't this pubic money overseen by publicly accountable officials? This is the ECB's version of QE, something verboten in various pan European treaties so even more smoke and mirrors is required! Trichet actually said this would not happen only to see the next day the Spanish finance minister saying it had started! It might be worth mentioning here that the Greek companies running her public transport network are currently running in the red to the tune of around E13B which is supposed to at some point be added to her national debt figure. Unable to meet payroll obligations and with a national strike the Gov. stepped in and lent more money to keep the busses and trains going! Almost 20,000 retired public sector workers are waiting to receive their full pensions, 20 months and counting, at a cost of around E900M. The E1.6B bond issues should be regarded in that light! The utterings by her finance minister also need closer inspection as the debt decrease mentioned of around E5B should be viewed in relation to the unpaid obligations of the Gov. which amounted to E10B! Can this just be 'spin'; heavens forbid a politician being economical with the truth, never heard of such a thing! The whole economic structure of Greece looks to be under threat with more and more private sector jobs and companies being lost. With austerity measures in her public sector being implemented not hard to see the double whammy.

At some point the people will make the decisions the Eurocrats, politicians and financiers are unwilling to make. The problem is that the longer their, and any other, domestic politicians cling to the forlorn hope of EMU stability as a scapegoat the more extreme the correction could to be. We might well see Madam La Guillotine back on the streets in Europe!

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Basel 111.

For anyone who doesn't know what is going at the mo, there is a corporate war going on between the banks and governments, who want to punish them for the credit crunch as a means to regain some political credence with their electorates. This is true in the UK as well as Continental Europe and the States. This has taken a turn and we now see 'bank stress tests' being talked about. One item on the agenda is supposed to examine how capitalised the banks are, in other words a bit like us mere mortals going along to our bank manager asking for a loan and him asking what resources we have to repay the debt! The banks have immediately bogged the politicians down in the minutia of the question, 'how to define capital'. This is predominantly about valuing minority stakes banks hold in each other. At the moment they can list these stakes as assets but in reality they could be liabilities, especially in this time of financial turmoil. This looks likely to take several months to resolve but we are supposed to see these stress tests in several days! Looks very much like yet more political fudge to me……….

We have a slim chance to make the banking sector responsible I hope our political class are up to the game!

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It would seem the Vampire Squid (Goldman Sachs) has been let off the hook……bah! In an American court style plea bargain they have paid the biggest fine in history, £360M, had the charges dropped and effectively had that paid by '1 days increase in their share price!' This is financial tomfoolery par excellence! RBS, yes our bank, will get £80M as they were one of the major players Sachs 'misdirected', even though the total RBS lost for us in its dealings with Sachs is about £800M! This would seem a 1 in 10 return; for every 10 invested 1 is coming back. Now let's apply that to another UK institution currently going through the American courts, BP! I wonder why there is a difference, the Vampire Squid haemorrhaged an inky black cloud over the financial markets and I would charge it with being an instigator of the financial crisis affecting a whole lot more people!

Speaking of black inky stuff anyone else queasy at the latest offering off Lord Voldemort? What a complicitous two faced bar steward that man is!

post-23-097314000 1279266515_thumb.jpg

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It would seem Greece has not enamoured itself within the EU membership as Slovakia has refused to take part in the ECB bailout package aimed at Greece. Slovakia has graciously voted to allow other members to use their cash in this manner but not her own! Looking a bit closer it would seem what they really don't want to do is support failed EU banks! Are the veils beginning to lift?

Speaking of Greece the union charged with negotiating the minimum wage has come to an agreement with the employers' confederation. This is complicated but in essence they agreed to extend the normal 13/14th salaries PA but not roll them into a more normalised 12. Wage increases this year, 0%, next two years, 1.2%-1.5%. With Greek inflation at 5% we are talking about a reduction in domestic incomes and therefore reduced domestic spending. This is basket case economics if they hope to grow their way out of their financial black hole!

As already mentioned public services, transport, post, etc, are in dire straits and in some areas of Athens you have to go to the local post office to see if you have any mail! It would seem the basic infrastructure of the county is grinding to a halt and things like VAT payments and other tax payments as well as any repayments are put off as long as possible. This is contrary to the public uttering of the Greek Finance Minster just last week! If we look at the rules for registering as unemployed you have to be a master contortionist to actually sign on so I guess we can discount any Gov. talk about any reduction in unemployment! This is so serious it is being reported that hospitals are putting off operations and other treatments because they cannot get supplies. The reason……they haven't paid their bills to suppliers! All of the above was supposed to be averted by Monsieur Trichet and his interventions! Very soon it will dawn on the Greek people that maybe monetary union isn't all that it was cracked up to be!

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Bit more news about Goldman Sachs, or the current debacle surrounding it. The man who has the job of prosecuting offenders for the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Mr Storch, anyone guess who was his last employer? The same Goldman Sachs he has, to all effects, let off the hook! Flipping heck…………. Mr Stroch is only in his early 30s' with a career stretching ahead of him, I wonder which institutions might reasonably be expected to appear in his CV in the years ahead!

This sort of thing perfectly illustrates the nebulous and amoral standards applied throughout and can be applied to both Governments and private sector institutions and especially in their dealing with each other

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It seems someone has done a 'Brown' in the gold market and sent the price downwards. The Bank of International Settlements has just done a deal with …………. (Fill in your own guess here!) and taken in 380 tonnes of gold in exchange for $14B worth of foreign currency. This is a huge amount and represents about 20% of annual gold production. Without the full details we can only speculate and there has been heavy speculation but one clue is that the BIS have said it dealt with commercial banks. So it would appear it wasn't central banks such as Spain or Portugal or even a partnership between them or other Eurozone central banks. The IMF has been mentioned but again the description doesn't fit notwithstanding the fact that the IMF doesn't really work like that. Could a single bank hold or dispose of that much gold without being noticed? If we look closer to home I think we might well see a French connection! On the other hand Dubai would also fit the bill? If it does emerge that this is some sort of covert European bailout that a single country wants to keep quiet about I would look at the 'stable' players such as France and not the obvious candidates like Spain, Greece or Portugal. Collectively Spain Greece and Portugal hold about 760 tons of the stuff but that trade for any of them individually would wipe out their entire holdings with Greece and Spain still left short. Has Portugal really done a Brown?

Speaking of Brown might be worth mentioning that his sell off of around 395 tonnes of our gold reserves produced about $3.5B, anyone else feeling short-changed!

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In the best traditions of that late Max Bygraves, 'I wanna tell you a story'.

If anyone is wondering why interest rates are being held at zero percent penalising savers and you still cannot get a loan or sensible mortgage the answer is somewhat shocking. We have to look across the Pond and peer into the murky world of American finance and Government. First up we saw American banks, and some UK ones, begin unqualified lending practices then packaging these debts up into units which took quantum physics mathematicians to value and selling them on. These were made up of, or at least large parts of them were, what became known as toxic debts, so radioactive they could burn through titanium! As more and more banks jumped onto the bandwagon the appetite for these debts started waning and they were now being passed around in something resembling pass the parcel. Bit like the old Lloyd's asbestos insurance scam and where they stopped no one knew! The big players then just stopped all and any activities and in so doing brought the while rotten house of cards down. Did the big boys suffer, not really because they invested in government bonds instead. While the politicos were running around with their heads up their arses the banks sat back, did nothing and made a good return! What an obnoxious relationship! Before anyone is taken in by utterings about bashing the banks just remember who is bankrolling a lot of governments at the moment!

Could our political class not see what was happening? Again looking across the Atlantic let's see what happened to all that $700B Hank Paulson bailout money. It was supposed to buy up these bad debts and save homeowners etc. As soon as Congress authorised it Paulson used it to buy banking equity. Now why should they take this approach? Because it immediately came back as punters for government bonds! The banks cannot foreclose on the government, they would lose everything but they can foreclose on Joe Soap and his overdue mortgage, they can offer punitive loan rates to small businesses and they can load up credit cards and other small loans for us mere mortals! Ah, but that's America, well no the same sort of thing happened here!

Conspiracy theory? I don't think it is……………

Anyone wanting the full SP try reading John R. Talbott.

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Whoever is still reading this stuff might like to see one of the latest ECB documents about imbalances and sustainability within the Eurozone.

http://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2010/html/sp100709_2.en.pdf?d4726975fcbf52956e1d112928b71dcb

There are several observations I would make but perhaps the issues regarding currency devaluations by way of increasing exports, AKA the UK solution, would seem worthy of mention. It would seem quite clear the required result in terms of export driven sales and increased employment is anything but certain. In fact letting a currency devalue will have a less than desired effect on factory gate prices because costing's will go up. If a company maintains it's 'spreads' it can easily run the risk of losing out on any benefits from a currency devaluation. Not quite the easy fix the politicos thought!

If we look at the reasons behind the current rise in euro value what can be seen? Err, nowt really! It looks more likely we will see this sort of thing applied to all 'world' currencies in a sort of 'your turn next' scenario. It is bad news for Eurozone exporters though as looking at one of the graphs above we see the need for Eurozone 'external' export growth. No doubt the safe haven of the Dollar will come under pressure soon and a reversal of the Euro/Dollar value ensue!

Hungary has booted the IMF into touch, well almost; they have walked away from the table just as they were negotiating a new loan package. Hungary has implemented its own austerity package since about 2005 and now realises just what a drag on its economy that has been. With no realistic hopes of economic growth allowing the (now cash strapped) IMF to demand further cuts is a bridge too far!

Worth watching the Canadians at the moment. Having already 'fixed' their domestic economy before the world went mad they now seem intent on picking up foreign cash generative safe companies who are somewhat insulated from the worst effects of recession.

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Whilst i love the enthusiasm your putting into keeping us updated, i for one lost track ages ago.

Perhaps if you were to use shorter sentences, and terminology us common folk could keep track of, i might have taken an interest, but put simply... i just don't understand enough to have an opinion. its just too big a block of text to take in in my case.

Sorry!

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