Jill brings us a good article about the latest happenings in Euroland. She points out that Germany is the only solvent country who can provide solutions, I suspect carrying that burden has become rather intense. Honest assessments are the best way for us to make decisions, and while the euros seem to come up with fable after fable and switchbacks, Jill puts it out there for all to see. Hope you enjoy the article.
A more exciting week, but what really happened? All the usual stories about Greece defaulting and, far more significantly as it seems, some big name European banks in trouble as a result. An emergency G7 meeting ( but not the more fashionable G20, we’ll return to that ) and, by far the biggest news in our view, Jurgen Stark hands in his cards.
First to the weekend get-together in Marseilles, which the Wall St Journal describes as involving the G8, though we cannot identify the final participant. Madame Lagarde found her way into the photoshoots, so perhaps it was the IMF. Anyway, they announced in their communique that they had agreed to work together towards a solution to their problems, though according to other sources they couldn’t quite agree on whether it was actually a communiqué or perhaps something less definitive. This sounds so vacuous that it might reasonably have emanated from the larger group, so why were the others not invited?
The answer seems to be that the two groups within the G20 have understood the truth, which is that they have nothing in common. The developed economies have managed the last few crises which they have created by transferring the damage to the emerging markets, but this ruse has finally been…con’t
