LATEST POSTS Mario Draghi, the ECB's Santa Claus (Photo: AFP) The ECB’s back-door bail-out for Italy, Spain, Belgium, and… France? …is €489bn. Roughly €300bn of today’s eagerly awaited LTRO tender is recycled old money from earlier support operations. The new money is €200bn. This alone is not going to shore up the sovereign states of southern Europe as they grind deeper into recession/depression. Enjoy Mario Draghi's Santa Rally while it lasts. The euphoria is likely to dissipate once markets remember the sheer scale of the task at hand. The banks are under massive pressure to raise their core Tier 1 capital ratios to 9pc by next June. This requires a €2.5 trillion adjustment according to the BIS’s Global Stability Board. Most of that is going to be done by slashing loan books – deleveraging in the jargon – since they cannot raise fresh… Read More 'Get on with it and stop begging' (Photo: AP) Euro rage is reaching new heights over Britain's latest outrage. Our refusal to pony up a further €31bn we cannot afford, to prop up a monetary union that was created against our wishes and better judgment, and launched with the malevolent purpose of accelerating the great leap forward to a European state that is inherently undemocratic. It is being presented as treachery, Anglo-Saxon perfidy, and the naked pursuit of national self-interest. Let me just point out: 1) The UK never agreed to such a commitment in the first place. The line was written into the December 9 summit communiqué in an attempt to bounce Britain into handing over the money. 2) The UK does not consider the rescue machinery to be remotely credible as constructed. 3) The eurozone has the means to tackle its own debt… Read More Allez Les Bleus. If you comb through the French blogosphere and the comment threads of Le Figaro and Le Monde, you will be struck by how many posters are disgusted with their own government for lobbing a hand-grenade across the Channel. Hatred of Britain is not much in evidence. On the contrary. Enough has already been said about the conduct of the Governor of the Banque de France, and about the young man who – for mystifying reasons – is now French finance minister. I will only add that Mr Noyer is very confused if he thinks that Britain should be downgraded because of its higher inflation rate. The rating agencies evaluate default risk consisting of contractual non-payment. Countries that pursue stealth default through inflation devalue the real burden of their debt and therefore reduce the risk of technical default. This is well understood by the markets. They actually improve their rating potential – so…Read More Merkozy has bulldozed Britain out of the EU (Photo: AFP) What remarkable petulance and stupidity. The leaders of France and Germany have more or less bulldozed Britain out of the European Union for the sake of a treaty that offers absolutely no solution to the crisis at hand, or indeed any future crisis. It is EU institutional chair shuffling at its worst, with venom for good measure. It is risky to reach instant conclusions on a fast-moving story but it looks as if the EU may soon be reduced to a shell, with a new union forming among the core. Much has been said about whether David Cameron handled this well or badly. I leave that debate to my colleagues. What strikes me as a former EU correspondent is how threatening this is to the EU Project itself. A country – and a… Read More
Herr Draghi or Signor Draghi, and the ECB's Santa Rally (technical)
Britain, the IMF, and the world's richest beggar
In defence of the French
Europe's blithering idiots and their flim-flam treaty
Sunday, 25 December 2011
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