Friday 19 October 2012

Et Voila. Summit Done. Dave's Out To Lunch..











That's it, it's over, done, dusted, almost, almost. There wasn't much dust to settle, there wasn't much of a mariachi band kicking about this time, it was almost beer and sandwiches, with a spot of brie for Dave Camembert, the big cheese from across the canal. Europe isn't as big a place as it used to be. 

As Dave said, bouncing off the podium, like Tigger, though Tigger would deny it: "There's another one [summit] in November and then December, we wont have time to miss each other..." And there's the truth of it before lunch, Dave is part of the team. He's playing goal keeper at the moment, the bit-part nobody else wants unless they're feeling a bit queasy or they forgot their trainers.

The detail if you want it, you can read a little later, but so as not to cause undue indigestion at this time of the day, here's the Euro-Summit Canape.

There will be a banking union, the details will be sorted by the end of the year and it'll roll out like a flat tortilla during 2013. Dave really, really supports the idea, he supports the Euro, the Eurozone, the banking union and will not stand in it's way. A few details to be sorted but nothing to worry about. Angela was in the room down the hall, they were all laughing as I passed by... Passos Coelho gave a good impression of a man in control - Best Actor.

And into the lifts we all trundled. To lunch. Keep the seats warm, it's the budget stuff next.

Tuesday 16 October 2012

George Soros - The current course is pushing euroland into a "lasting depression, and it is entirely self-created".


Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes: www.telegraph.co.uk 
The residual euro would fall to a level that better reflected economic fundamentals in Southern Europe. Competitiveness would largely be restored at a stroke, without the need for debt-deflation. There would be no further risk of large sovereign defaults.
Mr Soros said — as he has many times before — that the current course is pushing euroland into a "lasting depression, and it is entirely self-created".
Indeed. "Entirely self-created". Repeat that a hundred times. There is nothing seriously wrong with Europe's underlying economy. It has magnificent companies, great creative skills, a global current account surplus and relatively low debt. (That is not a misprint. Europe does not have a debt crisis. It has a political crisis. It is so badly structured and so badly run that moderate debt has been allowed to mushroom into a crisis).

Female Entrepreneurship In The USA

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Source: Online Business Degrees

The Soft Landing Contines. German Confidence Unsteady

Soft landing continues. The German ZEW index increased in October on the back of fading short-term tensions in the euro crisis. Nevertheless, the ZEW index which measures investors' confidence still stands in negative territory, now -11.5, from -18.2 in September. At the same time, investors have become somewhat more negative on the current economic situation. The current assessment component dropped for the fifth consecutive month.

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