Seventeen dead or dying hands on the wheel

The 'euro-bus' careers on down the mountain pass with seventeen trembling hands pulling the wheel first this way then that.  It's like one of those Hollywood films and last weekend we actually had an American 'hero' bravely climb aboard to offer advice but he was simply told to 'eff off' in seventeen different languages.  The fact that he, personally, had helped steer the American bus straight towards the Grand Canyon did not add 'lustre to his cluster', as it were!  Meanwhile, the people not actually on board but waiting at the bottom of the ravine in direct line of the approaching smash are wringing their hands and bleating ineffectually with increasingly squeaky voices.  As usual, Andrew Alexander in The Mail tells it the way it is:

Be under no illusion: we are poised on the edge of an economic precipice, along with the rest of the Western world. The IMF has, on this occasion, got it right in warning of a ‘dangerous new phase’ in the world economy.  But make no mistake about the cause, which the IMF has underrated: the euro and its year-long crisis.  It is the principal reason for the low or non-existent growth we are experiencing and which is liable to get worse. The effects are felt from Turkey to Toronto.

He goes on to point out that so long as the uncertainty on the euro goes on then business will simply refuse to invest in new enterprises or improvements to their existing ones.  Where, oh, where is the Bismarck de nos jours?  Dreadful, fat, old Prussian bully he may have been, but he had an absolutely clear eye on the realities of life.  The current bunch of pox doctors' clerks who pretend to be steering Europe are far too busy filling their boots and will do nothing until those infamous "events, dear boy, events" destroy them, and us, in the coming crash.

However, Alexander spies a gleam of hope in the gloom:

Yet, ironically, one pleasing touch came yesterday. Italy’s credit rating had been cut on Monday but the markets were unmoved. It was, as they say, already ‘in the price’. Investors had already allowed for it.  It could be — we might hope — that the markets have already priced in the losses which various banks will experience when Greece defaults.

So, not all bad, then?  Well, probably 'yes', actually:

But that still leaves Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland to worry about.

Meanwhile, back at home  . . .  (to be continued - I'm sorry to tell you!)

 

Comments

[Andra]

I'm prepared to let you have the world's greatest treasurer for a small fee. No returns, you buy, you own.

Or, even better, let's put the Swan up for auction.

Who'll start the bidding?

Anyone..........??

[David Duff]

You've lost me, Andra. Which 'treasurer? And which Swan?

[Andra]

Wayne Swan (or Swann) is a wuss!!

[David Duff]

Oh, I see, he's an Aussie poltician, sorry, I don't even know the names of half the Brit ones, let alone anywhere else.

[David Duff]

Oh, I see, he's an Aussie poltician, sorry, I don't even know the names of half the Brit ones, let alone anywhere else.