German ‘Yes’ offers Merkel scant relief
Greece is just one problem. The bigger picture is that markets seem to have factored in the expectation of a Super-Bazooka once Germany ratifies the EFSF.
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Stock markets around the world drop as indebted Greece says it will miss its deficit reduction target.
Greece is just one problem. The bigger picture is that markets seem to have factored in the expectation of a Super-Bazooka once Germany ratifies the EFSF.
Overnight there were signs of more splits with Brussels, Frankfurt and within Germany’s coalition, as concern mounted for the unthinkable: that these supposed multi-trillion bailouts could lose Germany it’s gold standard credit rating.
As inspectors arrive in Greece to discuss bailing out the country’s economy, the president of the European Commission says the EU is facing the biggest challenge in its history.
Greece is facing travel lockdown as public transport, taxi and airport workers strike in protest against more austerity measures.
These reforms are momentous, and quite elegant – in theory. The lesson of a decade or two of banking dominance in Britain’s political economy is that they will get their way in watering down the detail of this proposal, particularly in the many years it will take for legislation and enforcement
Amid the tumult of re-escalating eurozone crisis, the G7 meets in Marseille on Friday. Just five years ago that would have been seen as a sign for comfort. The finance ministers of the world’s seven most advanced “industrialised” (deindustrialised, surely?) nations meeting to iron out a common cooperative response to the world’s economic problems.
Red lines have filled television screens and newspaper pages as markets plunge around the world but what does this mean for us?
London’s leading shares index fell 4.5 per cent today, the 9th biggest fall in its history, amid fears the world is sliding into a double dip recession.
So it has come to this. America’s trading reassured by a few tens of thousands of payrolls and the presence of Super-Silvio at an urgently convened press conference in Rome.
The bigger picture here: that the speculators piling in against Italy do not believe that Germany will want or can afford to write a cheque for an economy as big as Italy. It is a test of wills. The end game could well require that the eurozone bailout facility be extended to a trillion or two euros.
George Osborne’s new communications mantra is that Britain is a “safe haven in a storm”, that Britain is “stable”. To my occasionally cynical mind this seems to be a tacit admission that the Treasury recognises it has little to boast about so far as regards the economic numbers. The best that can be hoped for is stability. Stability is better than chaos. And if stability means austerity and that means low growth, than for the moment, so be it.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is “absolutely not for turning”. He did actually say the words to me, fully conscious of their historical resonance.
European leaders are holding emergency talks in Brussels to deal with the unfolding financial crisis. Chancellor George Osborne says the consequences could be dire if leaders fail to “get a grip”.
Chancellor George Osborne backs plans to ring-fence banks’ retail arms and says he will sell Northern Rock. Gary Gibbon says he is trying to signal the beginning of the end of the financial crisis.