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Apparently the EU summit taking place tonight has a red carpet, Oscar like, and the various participants turning up in flash limos to a huge volley of flashguns. If you are going to use the Oscar analogy, this must be Rocky84.

The word is that Germany are against the European Central Bank increasing their loans to the European Financial Stability Fund. In order to get round this they are planning to use, wait for it.....

A Special Purpose Investment Vehicle or SPIV for short to convert a large sum of money into an even bigger sum of money. A bit like the complex investment ploys that got us into this ballsup in the first place.

You couldn't make this stuff up.

Cheers
D

A special purpose investment vehicle??? !deadhorse!


Who makes the SPIV? Volkswagon?

Dunno, but apparently you buy it new, one day and the next, the wheels fall off.

Cheers
D

Just to bolster your confidence that this is all going to work out hunky dory, here is a clip of Silvio "Bunga Bunga" Berlosconi's chief coalition partner, Umberto Bossi, head of the Northern League responding to a political opponent's comments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZhdthKD ... ure=topics

Classy, political debater huh?

It was the Northern League which tried to get kebab shops banned in Italy because they watered down Italian culture. I imagine they will be very keen on being told what to do by Germany and France.

The show goes on!

Cheers
D

I have zero confidence.!disaster!

The Mafiosi are going to have a field day when it all goes tits up !cool!

It's not really working this European stuff is it?

Greece is akin to a massive concrete block tied round the neck of an ill man dragging himself along a road. They have squandered trillions of Euros on their social welfare schemes and spent nothing on their infrastructure. In short they are doomed because every Euro that is passed in their direction is squandered, with nothing to show for it.

A good example of the reckless waste of money is this. 30 years ago you could not put bog roll down a Corfu toilet because the system was outdated. In May of this year you STILL couldn't put bog roll down the toilets.Not a Euro has been spent on modernisation. However the population of Corfu have very single possible welfare benefit that is imaginable.

Next problem is that no one wants to pay tax, I believe there is, "Not one millionaire" living in Greece, according to the tax authorities!

This is the crazy economic reality of Greece, into which the EU is supposed to pour trillions more Euros into. The country is doomed and no one has the bottle to cut them adrift.They will drag the whole of Europe into the abyss.

Somehow out will be made to survive though jim, too much is at stake for politicians, not you or I

Where will that 1 trillion EUR come from????? The Germans only approved 211 Bln.

Where are the banks going to get money from to cover their loses on Greece?
Isn't the problem still there? Greece is still spending too much?

Graphic showing who owes what to who?

"Where will that 1 trillion EUR come from????? The Germans only approved 211 Bln. "

Remember a spiv? A special purpose investment vehicle. Turns water into wine it does. Except it was this kind of stuff that helped to get us all in the shit last time round.

Where are the banks going to get money from to cover their loses on Greece?

They are being asked to recapitalise in order to strengthen their bank balances to deal with this and future "haircuts" to use the jargon du jour. Banks may well have insured against these losses. Alternatively in the case of Greek banks which will take the worst hit, they will receive funding from the EU to prevent them sinking without trace.


Isn't the problem still there? Greece is still spending too much? "


Err, yes indeedy. All this seems to be about is buying some more time. The basic problem here is that you have a bunch of independent sovereign countries with completely different economies being forced down a single, monetary path called the euro. And surprise, surprise, it is falling apart because Greece for example, cannot devalue in order to strengthen its export capability as the UK has tried to do with the pound.

The only solutions to the Euro problem involve one or more of the following:

1. The rich countries, Germany and France who have at least tried to make some effort at prudence give piles of money to the less well off countries e.g. Greece, Spain, Italy to help them wipe part of the slate clean.

2. There is fiscal union between the euro countries as well as monetary unions so there are uniform retirement ages, taxation systems etc.

3. Some of the Euro countries who should never have joined the euro in the first place like Greece who completely fudged the condition data for joining the EU be let loose. After all the Greeks have already massively defaulted in the sense that the banks are being asked to write off 50% of the Greek debts they hold. If that isnt a default I'm Shirley Bassey.

Surprise, surprise, given that for any of the above measures to be agreed will involve legislation and votes in each of the sovereign countries in the euro and it will require all countries to agree, best not to hold your breath. In fact as far as I am aware there is absolutely no mechanism in place whatsoever for any country to leave the euro.

In the meantime, as far as the UK is concerned:

1. The EU takes half of our exports so if they are up the Limpopo without a paddle so are we, export wise.
2. Some of our banks may well have insured Greek debt held by other countries' banks so they could require further capitalisation. This will make loans even harder to get for small businesses, mortgages etc.
3. If the rally in the stock markets that took place today is only temporary and things start going tits up again then for those people who have a private pension and are close to retirement, it's a gloomy outlook.

Oh the other alternative is for the euro countries to ask David Cameron and Boy George how to run a successful economy.........

Maybe not.

Cheers
D