Unfortunately he hasn't the balls of Papandreou.

He probably also cannot because of the coalition with SDP.

If he had the bottle, he should call an election now stating that the EC is unworkable and undemocratic and with that on the manifesto he would get the UK Independent votes; some SDP votes and with the Sun newspaper as the manifesto for the working class win with a clear majority.

Back onto the Finacial Crisis.

Western Europe will come to a grinding halt; no growth and recession. USA will be able to blame Euro/Europe for its financial crisis though it was already screwed.

China and Asia will not go unscathed as their export market disappears and then the China property bubble will burst.

It looks as though a war with Israel and Iran and the Arabs would distract matters especially when the USA get involved unsure whom to side with with the fact that they want the Arab oil but that the US government is basically run by the Jews.
I would expect that Iran would fight back Israel and once they realise they cannot do anything but nuke Iran that matters will go out of hand.

That might be when we see economic growth just like the end of the 1929 Great depression ending with World War 2.

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I do not have friends..........I have contingent liabilities

I love how Papandreau has opened up the debate (not to mention, given the finger to the EU). While all the debate so far has been about Greece, the problem really is Italy and Portugal and Ireland and Spain. The fearless EU leaders of course could not wait to pat themselves on the back for having 'solved' the sovereign debt problem...

Greece was a tiny problem. Now that Italy is falling, and it really is too big to fix with duct tape... the stupid politicians will finally have to confront what has gone wrong with western capitalism.

Jeez... can you also tell me where the Dow will close tomorrow?

With you around, who needs newspapers, eh

I suspect one of the involved stakeholders will soon rip them off & pass them around.

Where? In the USA.

The newspapers are either hiding the truth or the journalists do not seem to be able to work out what is going to happen.
The figures never stacked up to me back in 2007.
The reason i say that is that I was in the UK and used to see people driving flashier more expensive cars than me, have better holidays than me and bigger TVs than me. I kept asking myself; "how can they afford this? I earn more than them and I am able to avoid tax". The answer was that they couldn't ! The whole economy was driven on credit.

There is so much personal debt, bank debt and government debt in the West and nobody appears to admit they are in debt and can afford to pay it back and are all waiting for each other to go skint so they can blame their downfall on others.

The only reason that shares are so high (yep; they are too high) is because what are the alternatives investments.
Companies will not make profits in the coming years and if they do, they will be taxed by the governments and don't worry, the governments will have no choice but to come after those individuals with capital because with the majority of people ending up on minimum wage because that is all companies will have to pay employees, then government will have to get tax from the somewhere and that will be on wealthier peoples capital.

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I do not have friends..........I have contingent liabilities

That seems a little like blaming a slew of car crashes on the roadway system. Capitalism is just an economic framework — it defines what has happened to western economies much less than what western politicians and their banks have done within that framework over the past many decades (i.e., using government power to institutionalize fractional reserve banking, on-going currency inflation and "public" debt). Those activities aren't uniquely capitalist by definition.

True. and that's exactly what I meant - I should have been clearer.

There's nothing wrong with capitalism - it is still the only system that works. The trouble with today's model in the west is excessive leverage (with little appreciation of the attendant hazards) and excessive influence of banks in the political decision-making (leading to repeated socialization of losses while privatizing profits) thus fanning moral hazard...

What we have right now is not sustainable. Something's gotta give... soon.

As expected today "European Central Bank responds to eurozone debt crisis by cutting main policy interest rate from 1.5% to 1.25%"

Personally I do not think the eurozone debt crisis is the main driver; it was always a dumb idea to up the rate last time around.

Anyway dropping rates usually weakens a currency which is not an optimal way to resolve the eurozone debt crisis .

Certainly seems to be going pear shaped, but where to run and hide ?

The problem IS Greece. You must be kidding when you compare it with a country such as Italy, with a highly diversified economy and debt-wise non-dependable on foreign savings as italian households do save quite a lot of money.

Greek economy on the other hand is on ruins, they lied on their national accounts, they hid debt under the carpet to reduce the debt level, etc etc

I actually think they would do a great favour to the European Union and the eurozone if they finally decide to quit the euro... they shouldn't have joined in the first place as they did it by lying to all of Europe about their economic situation.

Probably true about Italy but you will have to convince a very significant majority who think otherwise;
- today the yield, or interest rate, on Italian ten-year bonds is up to 6.35%; 7% is bail out time!!

So the margin to Italian disaster is 0.65%

Accounting for the 'Burlesque'-oni handicap, I would say Italy is already in crisis territory. They have over 2 TRILLION dollars of debt (120% of GDP), a stagnant economy and an aging population. Not to mention a leader whose dic* makes most of the decisions ...

Berlisconi might be a total tw@t as a leader of Italy but who could replace him. The other candidates appear even worse from what I can see.

You have to understand that Italy has basically been bankrupt since about 1940 but not to the extent they are now. It is now total meltdown.

I can only tell you from what I see:
There is basically very little manufacturing compared to 20 years ago.
FIAT (manufacturer) does not stack up to me. The product is lousy, they own Chrysler which is also lousy and I don't see that many Fiats/Alfas/Lancias on the roads in Italy compared to years ago. I actually think that FIAT is another "Parmalat"; acquisitions are a really good way of "adjusting" the balance sheet and profit and loss.

I would not be surprised if Italy pulls out of the Euro and EC in the near future.

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I do not have friends..........I have contingent liabilities

Hot news from the G20 summit seems to be "no news"
Surprised they did not delay this to stop the markets crashing down before the weekend.

Oh well, time to start putting the good wines in the nuclear shelter again

BookmakersWilliam Hill are now offering odds of 7/2 that the Euro will cease to be a currency by the end of 2012. It's 9/4 that Greece will no longer be in the Euro.

Italian 10 year bonds were around 6.68% (crisis level) today & now around 6.5% & changing continually.

Dexia has just unveiled a EUR 6 Billion loss.

if you're French or Belgian, you can shed another tear...

It's the first time I really start fearing for the euro, and for my well being too. I don't believe in the end of the currency as that would be extremely costly, but I do believe on this crisis dragging on forever, and that means pain for Switzerland and any other country inside or bordering the EU too I pray to be wrong or at least that european leaders are strong enough to resist the attacks until cracks in the US are wider and hardly masked.

Voluntary write downs on Greece