The Great Debate UK
from The Great Debate:
A painful holiday’s end for Europe
Europe's long summer holiday still has a week to run but this year's reentry will bring with it evidence that very little progress has been made on the issues that threaten to rend the currency union and upend the global economy.
Despite waving the stress-test magic wand over its banks in late July the same problems continue to grow unchecked: a euro zone periphery that can't compete, may not be able to pay its debts and so may bring down with them the very banks that have been pronounced healthy.
While the German economy is growing at a rate not seen since the Berlin Wall came down, things are a good bit worse in Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy and especially Greece, all of which face some combination of an austerity-induced recession and debts public and private which which threaten their banking systems, local governments and Treasuries.
Investors have looked at this on the one hand and on the other a $1 trillion bailout, a pliant International Monetary Fund and the results of the stress tests and have voted with their feet: average spreads between German and peripheral country bonds are back in territory last seen in June and heading north. Ten-year Greek bonds now yield 861 basis points more than German issues, or about where they were in May when we were all debating the chances of the euro surviving in its current form.
from FaithWorld:
Strong support to outlaw face veils as France prepares to vote ban
France's plan to ban full face veils, which comes up for a vote in the National Assembly on Tuesday, enjoys 82% popular support in the country, according to a new poll by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project. Its neighbours also approve -- 71% of those polled in Germany, 62% in Britain and 59% in Spain agreed that there should be laws prohibiting the Muslim veils known as niqabs and burqas in public.
(Photo: French woman fined for wearing a niqab while driving outside court in Nantes June 28, 2010/Stephane Mahe)
The poll, conducted from April 7 to May 8, did not range further afield, but reports from other countries show support there as well. The lower house of the Belgian parliament has voted for a ban, which should be approved by the Senate after the summer. In the Netherlands, several bills to ban full veils in certain sectors such as schools and public service are in preparation. Switzerland's justice minister has suggested the cantons there should pass partial bans but make exceptions for visiting Muslim tourists (the wives of rich sheikhs visiting their bankers in Zurich or Geneva?)
False dawn or risk recovery?
-Jane Foley is research director at Forex.com. The opinions expressed are her own.-
What began at the start of the year with an acknowledgement from Greece that it had been living way beyond its means soon turned into a more universal re-appraisal of the risks of sovereign default.
from The Great Debate:
Europe’s speculator full Employment Act
Far from setting a trap for the "wolfpack," Europe's $1 trillion bailout package amounts to a full employment act for speculators, or should that be the reality-based community, for the foreseeable future.
Hoping to tame markets it accused of "wolfpack behavior," the European Union on Monday unveiled a 750 billion euro package intended to avert a rolling sovereign debt crisis that has engulfed Greece and threatens to spread widely among the weaker euro zone countries.
German elections bring forward a possible stalemate situation for EMU
-Jane Foley is research director at Forex.com. The opinions expressed are her own.-
Next month’s UK general election is not the only one of significance in Europe. There is the possibility that the German regional elections in North Rhine-Westphalia on May 9 could result in the end of the CDU/FDP government’s majority in the upper house of parliament.
Subject of Europe set to trip Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg
- Jane Foley is research director at Forex.com. The opinions expressed are her own. -
Over the past week the British electorate has taken a shine to Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg.
from Global News Journal:
EU to tackle gender pay inequality
By Sangeeta Shastry
EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding
Men are still paid more than women in Europe but the European Union is promising to narrow the gap.
The executive European Commission set out its plans to address the pay gap between men and women at a news conference to coincide with International Women's Day, saying women were on average earning only 82 percent of male rates in the EU.
from The Great Debate:
Embrace reality, not fight speculation
Stock up on canned goods, the authorities appear to be opening a new front in the War Against Speculation; this time taking aim at the people who might profit from Greece and its European partners' woes.
Just days after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission voted new limits on short selling, Germany is investigating the credit default swap trading of speculators to try to prevent them from profiting from any bailout of Greece.
from Global News Journal:
Does Greece really deserve such a market pummelling?
So there's no question Greece has work to do to improve its bookkeeping.
Not only must it get spending in check, but it needs to be a bit more honest about where its finances stand in the first place. After all, it's not often an EU country says one month that its budget deficit is a little over three percent of GDP and admits a few weeks later that, oh dear, it's actually nearer 13 percent.
Yet it's hard not to have a little sympathy for Greece at the same time.
Its government bonds have been hammered and the price it has to pay to finance its debt has soared as financial markets have relentlessly taken it to task over the past six weeks for its profligacy.
Obama risks South-American style economic decline
- Richard Wellings is Deputy Editorial Director at the Institute of Economic Affairs. The opinions expressed are his own.-
Argentina should be an object lesson for the U.S.
A century ago, it was one of the richest countries in the world. Today, it has fallen far behind Europe and North America, after a hundred years marked by long periods of recession.
