38 replies on “The Banking Landscape: Moving Forward”
@ Phillip
No they dont!
Sub’ed out to Jam Media
Edited from a DOF powerpoint presentation.
Nice work by Jam Media but it’s the type of format that is best deployed when there’s a good yarn to tell.
They could have done more with the prezi.
Some of the info could have been video clips of the information: RTE news, Business channels, animated presentation etc.
As suggested above, probably works better in a real presentation format with someone tcalking through it. Still, impressive summary of all the efforts on fixing the banking system.
Wow snazzy way of displaying data … now you can kind of understand how bankers could fool themselves that they are not doing that much damage….going forward.
I like the Wilbur Smith quote
“They are really fixing the economy”……. seriously.
But for whom ?
This artifical division of costs between the Taxpayer and the money supply is really really getting annoying.
I am reminded of Erin Burnett trip down to the Wall Street protests and her explaining to a hapless Dork how the bailouts did not cost any money – we can’t credibility say that on this Island but the costs go far deeper then the “taxpayer”
And I am not doing a Vincent Browne thingy either – lets just talk about the money supply and not the taxpayer or society – it gets far closer to the mechanics of these operations.
Anyway here is the Young Turks take on Erins “reporting” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x4ly3Gr3kw
and then a priceless response from Cullen Roche a MMTer ( I know the US economic system is so much different then Europe’s but ultimately its all about banks producing too much credit on both sides of the Atlantic)
CULLEN ROCHE
So what should Dan the “unemployed software designer” have said to Ms. Burnett? He should have said this:
“Excuse me, but I believe you have a completely insufficient understanding of the way that our fiat monetary system works. When the U.S. Treasury “makes” money it is actually reducing the outstanding net financial assets of the private sector. There is no such thing as “making money on the Wall Street bailouts” because, as the issuer of our currency, the U.S. Federal Government is not a profit making entity and cannot be compared to a household, business or bank. There is simply no such thing as the U.S. government having “more” money when it brings in tax revenues. As the monopoly supplier of the U.S. dollar, the Federal Government must issue money before it is available to us. And when they “make” money via increased taxes they are quite literally removing net financial assets from the private sector.
So no, none of us are “making money” on the bailout except for the people who caused their banks to collapse. That is of course, unless the banks or Uncle Sam are paying you some form of special bank bailout dividend? Did that happen? No. So none of us are “richer” directly because of the bank bailout.
More importantly though, what the banks did to us was break the moral code that is always attached to money. Money is always debt and when an institution or individual fails to adhere to the moral code attached to our debts, they are directly infringing on their moral obligations that they are legally bound to. And when a government bails out banks, individuals or businesses, they are saying that this infringement is okay and are in fact encouraging it. This is why we don’t allow counterfeiting, fraud, scams, etc. These are all forms of infringement on the moral code that inextricably links us all together via trade and commerce. Without the soundness and strict adherence to this moral code, there is no such thing as a healthy functioning U.S. economy. And the banks infringed on this moral code to the tune of trillions of dollars. And we let them get away with it. Now you’re justifying it with a false understanding of how a fiat monetary system works. Shame on you.
So, no, there is nothing you can say or do that would make me feel better about the Wall Street bank bailouts. SERIOUSLY!”
I doubt this (opaque and confusing) presentation bothers to mention the most interesting development of the Irish Bank recapitalisation of the last three months. As mentioned in Today’s Sunday Business Post, the Irish banks have used €3 billion of state funding to buy up Irish state bonds, apparently contributing almost entirely to the massive drop in Irish bond interest rates over this period.
The reason for Irish bonds yields dropping so dramatically had completely escaped me up to this point, but now all has become clear. The banks [b]have[/b] become organs of government policy. The State bails out the banks, and the banks bail out the state. The Minister has been more strategic than I gave him credit for.
I think the hope is that the continuous circular motion will create a hypnotic effect distracting people from the contents.
I see the presentation contains multiple uses of 2011’s most irritating buzzword – “momentum”.
@ OMF
“As mentioned in Today’s Sunday Business Post, the Irish banks have used €3 billion of state funding to buy up Irish state bonds, apparently contributing almost entirely to the massive drop in Irish bond interest rates over this period.”
Yeah, that’s factually incorrect, there’s been lots of other buyers of Irish govt bonds. In, fact, its believed that one foreign institution may have bought €3bn by itself.
@aiman
“I see the presentation contains multiple uses of 2011’s most irritating buzzword …”
Shurly you mean ‘contagion’ (hic)?
The Banking Landscape: Moving Forward
Yes, let’s draw a line under the past, move on, no investigations or anything to see hear so move along please.
Nice technics but nothing new in the content. The thing that really leaps out is the credit allocaiton trends 1998-2010, which is on one of the later slides.
Just take a look at what happened to credit for manufacturing enterprise. It was never great in Ireland and it just shrunk.
Looks like our banks didn’t want to lend to anything so silly and risky as making things. The MNCs would take care of all that and they had no need of Irish credit lines. Our bankers wanted get into the really important stuff like land speculation and financial jiggery pokery.
The DoF can produce as many fancy presentations as they like, but, as the saying goes, they are putting lipstick on a pig. A cock up of these dimensions must lead to a constitutional crisis. We are only scratching the surface of the problem at present.
@Obsessive
Perhaps its a reversion to the old “sovergin” / bank symbiotic model although to be fair that never really existed in Ireland.
The Irish banks preferring the shit in your own nest model which was surprisingly successful for them until the globalisation birdie was sucked into the Chinese gas turbine.
@Bond
If the debt remains in the hands of external players and we do not produce any credit – surely that means the extraction of Irish credit deposits will accelerate even further ?
I suppose these players are planning / hoping for another private credit bubble to mask the wealth extraction or perhaps a little bit of in your face old fashioned mass starvation – as that is the only business model that would work if external actors continue to hold Irish sov debt.
Pretentious muddle. Useful in a Boardroom or AGM. Very difficult to build a coherent understanding of a somewhat complex issue. But that’s NewEra technology for ye!
Constructors clearly not heeding advice: “Keep it simple, then simplify it!” Always have 3 points. Attention spans fade after that. Lots more!
Brian Snr.
I have a rule of thumb that use of the phrase “going forward” (as opposed to…..?) often justifies extra bullshit detection awareness.
Its inclusion in a title is particularly naff.
As PR Guy says, there is nothing subtle at all here about the importance the authors would like the reader to attach to recent economic (read ‘banking’) history.
Ah Dork, we’ve come around to the fact that the government printing money isn’t free for all. Good.
@ OMF
“……the Irish banks have used €3 billion of state funding to buy up Irish state bonds, apparently contributing almost entirely to the massive drop in Irish bond interest rates over this period.
…….the banks [b]have[/b] become organs of government policy. The State bails out the banks, and the banks bail out the state. The Minister has been more strategic than I gave him credit for.”
I doubt Noonan spent too much time convincing the banks to do so. Mind you it makes a helluva lot more sense to buy Irish government bonds (backed by EU and IMF) at 8% than to lend money to Irish property buyers (backed by no one) at (a riskier) 5% or to (equally risky) businesses (also backed by no one).
Great whirly stuff. T’would dazzle a banker in good times.
The sharkes that are looking for cheap assets need look no further than the deleveraging brief on assets sales.
It is the first slide on challenges ahead section.
Translated it mean a giant car boot sale. Sell at any price until the “quantum” is achieved.
But full marks to Jam Media. Whatever about the country, those people have a future.
@Dom K
Never said that – refer to Cullen Roches reference to the extraction of private wealth chiefly assets when real money is printed in the dollar system.
But the losses need to be recognized by destroying private credit & crunching credit hyper inflated assets as the losses are in the system regardless.
The economic stratergy is unfortunetly all about peserving private bank balance sheets which then destroys real economic activity which then feeds back into bank balance sheets in a negative feedback loop. http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0618/hansfield.html
PS I am not a MMTer – they accept the creation of private credit into their system and use money creation to somehow balance this system i.e. – they are modern day Keynesians.
I am a full money advocate although I recognize that it is impossible given the power dynamics in the western world.
In a full money gradually rising no credit system you would never get the above farce happening.
Would prefer a printable version but otherwise very illustrative summary.
Particularly like the level of detail on the July 31st recaps in relation to AIB/BoI.
No mention I could see of the €500m to €1bn Minister Noonan says is being earmarked to recapitalise credit unions, many of which have ceased functioning as household savings mobilisers.
I did note the €400m figure earmarked for a temporary sme loan guarantee scheme – recall Ministers Coughlan and O’Keefe spent a long time looking into a guarantee scheme.
“The situation with Dexia is the latest warning sign over the health of Europe’s lenders. It has a global credit risk exposure of around $700bn, twice the gross domestic product of Greece. “
@OMF
Didn’t see the Post yesterday but Cliff Taylor has been on to this for a few weeks. 3 billion will do a lot in a small market. However, the buyers must have no rules or criteria for bonds they buy with IRL bonds rated junk or as near as dammit.
It would be interesting to see the view of the Financial Regulator on this aspect.
@PR Guy
Yes, next step is contagion spreading to the core with a downgrade for Belgium more or less guaranteed.
@Ceterisparibus
I see they’ve postponed the ‘urgent’ EU summit on the debt crisis by a week (to 23/10)!!
A week is a long time in a meltdown 😉
@PR Guy
A week can be long even without the meltdown.
Today was a bit torrid with three banks nationalized and the markets soaring.
But the best I heard today was on the six one news when they announced the creation of 15 jobs over 5 years. When I heard it Bruton was on the screen but I’m not sure he was announcing this. God between us and small farms.
Edward Tufte famously showed how Powerpoint can increase institutional rigidity and lower the amount of useful information flow. If Powerpoint “makes you stupid” what does Prezi do to you? Make you entirely comatose? What a waste of time with all these spinning slides – it might help to deceive some people but it does not add useful content. Really a poor job IMHO.
Can you believe this guy…
“French Finance Minister Francois Baroin insisted that Dexia’s rescue was an isolated case and that banks in trouble were already identified in the European stress tests on the industry earlier.”
In the meantime Greek 1 yr at 151.2%..anyone fancy a punt?
@PR GUY
Dexia accounts for June 2011 show total liabilities of €517 billion euros.
Maybe the BBC are overegging the pudding at €700 billion.
On the other hand Dexia had €60 billion of derivative Liabilities at June 30th. In my book that is €60 billion of lost gambling debts, maybe CDS exposures. http://www.dexia.com/EN/shareholder_investor/results/Documents/20110408_slides_analyst_2Q_UK.pdf
Maybe those €60 billion losses have quadrupled since June. That is easily possible.
Of course its all supposed to be the ‘fault’ of ‘Greece’. Not really. Its the gamblers who took on the bets on Greece. It seems that the whole European Banking Industry may just be one gigantic casino, that is just losing fortunes and continents on all the tables.
@Ceterisparibus
“French Finance Minister Francois Baroin insisted that Dexia’s rescue was an isolated case and that banks in trouble were already identified in the uropean stress tests on the industry earlier.”
Er, okay – Dexia was apparently the third best capitalised bank in Europe according to the last stress test. So there are 697* other large banks that need to be recapitalised, less the three in Ireland that already have been?
(*Random number)
A correction in the above, if I may.
In my book that is €60 billion of lost gambling debts, maybe CDS exposures.
That should of course be
€60 billion of losses on hundreds of billions and maybe thousands of billions of lost gambling debts.
Dow finishes up 330. That Angela and Nicky duet seems to be a class act.
Wonder what will happen on Nov.3 when they announce some other cockeyed scheme.
Sufficiently flashy surely to merit a nice move to a Eurocrat job in Luxembourg for the boss man.
@Dork and All
“More importantly though, what the banks did to us was break the moral code that is always attached to money”.
IMHO that sentence is worth its”weight in gold” and deserves to stand out on itś own .:)
When does Slovakia vote? Is it sometime around now? I presume they will go ‘no’ first, then agree new elections with the opposition and have a re-vote (who knows, maybe even later today or tomorrow)… and the EU will have already promised largesse to the key players who did the right things (like stand down as PM) to make the re-vote happen and get a ‘yes’?? Horse trading is a wonderful thing to watch.
Just catching up on the reality of life outside of work….
Daily Telegraph at 16:02 – “PM Radičová says the vote will be repeated until the EFSF bill is passed.”
There’s an air of déjà vu about this one!
Apparently the vote is due 17:00’ish our time.
And then probably again at 18:00 by the looks of it 😉
Now they’ve taken a break until 18:00 and there is talk the vote won’t actually take place until midnight. I won’t be covering this one live…
Meanwhile in other news…
Risk on/Risk off became Risk Dunno today.
An anti-austerity protest of 30 people in Brussels today were sitting in a circle discussing economic policy and suddenly found themselves outnumbered and surrounded by riot police (that’s true).
38 replies on “The Banking Landscape: Moving Forward”
@ Phillip
No they dont!
Sub’ed out to Jam Media
Edited from a DOF powerpoint presentation.
Nice work by Jam Media but it’s the type of format that is best deployed when there’s a good yarn to tell.
They could have done more with the prezi.
Some of the info could have been video clips of the information: RTE news, Business channels, animated presentation etc.
As suggested above, probably works better in a real presentation format with someone tcalking through it. Still, impressive summary of all the efforts on fixing the banking system.
Wow snazzy way of displaying data … now you can kind of understand how bankers could fool themselves that they are not doing that much damage….going forward.
I like the Wilbur Smith quote
“They are really fixing the economy”……. seriously.
But for whom ?
This artifical division of costs between the Taxpayer and the money supply is really really getting annoying.
I am reminded of Erin Burnett trip down to the Wall Street protests and her explaining to a hapless Dork how the bailouts did not cost any money – we can’t credibility say that on this Island but the costs go far deeper then the “taxpayer”
And I am not doing a Vincent Browne thingy either – lets just talk about the money supply and not the taxpayer or society – it gets far closer to the mechanics of these operations.
Anyway here is the Young Turks take on Erins “reporting”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x4ly3Gr3kw
and then a priceless response from Cullen Roche a MMTer ( I know the US economic system is so much different then Europe’s but ultimately its all about banks producing too much credit on both sides of the Atlantic)
CULLEN ROCHE
So what should Dan the “unemployed software designer” have said to Ms. Burnett? He should have said this:
“Excuse me, but I believe you have a completely insufficient understanding of the way that our fiat monetary system works. When the U.S. Treasury “makes” money it is actually reducing the outstanding net financial assets of the private sector. There is no such thing as “making money on the Wall Street bailouts” because, as the issuer of our currency, the U.S. Federal Government is not a profit making entity and cannot be compared to a household, business or bank. There is simply no such thing as the U.S. government having “more” money when it brings in tax revenues. As the monopoly supplier of the U.S. dollar, the Federal Government must issue money before it is available to us. And when they “make” money via increased taxes they are quite literally removing net financial assets from the private sector.
So no, none of us are “making money” on the bailout except for the people who caused their banks to collapse. That is of course, unless the banks or Uncle Sam are paying you some form of special bank bailout dividend? Did that happen? No. So none of us are “richer” directly because of the bank bailout.
More importantly though, what the banks did to us was break the moral code that is always attached to money. Money is always debt and when an institution or individual fails to adhere to the moral code attached to our debts, they are directly infringing on their moral obligations that they are legally bound to. And when a government bails out banks, individuals or businesses, they are saying that this infringement is okay and are in fact encouraging it. This is why we don’t allow counterfeiting, fraud, scams, etc. These are all forms of infringement on the moral code that inextricably links us all together via trade and commerce. Without the soundness and strict adherence to this moral code, there is no such thing as a healthy functioning U.S. economy. And the banks infringed on this moral code to the tune of trillions of dollars. And we let them get away with it. Now you’re justifying it with a false understanding of how a fiat monetary system works. Shame on you.
So, no, there is nothing you can say or do that would make me feel better about the Wall Street bank bailouts. SERIOUSLY!”
I doubt this (opaque and confusing) presentation bothers to mention the most interesting development of the Irish Bank recapitalisation of the last three months. As mentioned in Today’s Sunday Business Post, the Irish banks have used €3 billion of state funding to buy up Irish state bonds, apparently contributing almost entirely to the massive drop in Irish bond interest rates over this period.
The reason for Irish bonds yields dropping so dramatically had completely escaped me up to this point, but now all has become clear. The banks [b]have[/b] become organs of government policy. The State bails out the banks, and the banks bail out the state. The Minister has been more strategic than I gave him credit for.
I think the hope is that the continuous circular motion will create a hypnotic effect distracting people from the contents.
I see the presentation contains multiple uses of 2011’s most irritating buzzword – “momentum”.
@ OMF
“As mentioned in Today’s Sunday Business Post, the Irish banks have used €3 billion of state funding to buy up Irish state bonds, apparently contributing almost entirely to the massive drop in Irish bond interest rates over this period.”
Yeah, that’s factually incorrect, there’s been lots of other buyers of Irish govt bonds. In, fact, its believed that one foreign institution may have bought €3bn by itself.
@aiman
“I see the presentation contains multiple uses of 2011’s most irritating buzzword …”
Shurly you mean ‘contagion’ (hic)?
The Banking Landscape: Moving Forward
Yes, let’s draw a line under the past, move on, no investigations or anything to see hear so move along please.
Nice technics but nothing new in the content. The thing that really leaps out is the credit allocaiton trends 1998-2010, which is on one of the later slides.
Just take a look at what happened to credit for manufacturing enterprise. It was never great in Ireland and it just shrunk.
Looks like our banks didn’t want to lend to anything so silly and risky as making things. The MNCs would take care of all that and they had no need of Irish credit lines. Our bankers wanted get into the really important stuff like land speculation and financial jiggery pokery.
The DoF can produce as many fancy presentations as they like, but, as the saying goes, they are putting lipstick on a pig. A cock up of these dimensions must lead to a constitutional crisis. We are only scratching the surface of the problem at present.
@Obsessive
Perhaps its a reversion to the old “sovergin” / bank symbiotic model although to be fair that never really existed in Ireland.
The Irish banks preferring the shit in your own nest model which was surprisingly successful for them until the globalisation birdie was sucked into the Chinese gas turbine.
@Bond
If the debt remains in the hands of external players and we do not produce any credit – surely that means the extraction of Irish credit deposits will accelerate even further ?
I suppose these players are planning / hoping for another private credit bubble to mask the wealth extraction or perhaps a little bit of in your face old fashioned mass starvation – as that is the only business model that would work if external actors continue to hold Irish sov debt.
Pretentious muddle. Useful in a Boardroom or AGM. Very difficult to build a coherent understanding of a somewhat complex issue. But that’s NewEra technology for ye!
Constructors clearly not heeding advice: “Keep it simple, then simplify it!” Always have 3 points. Attention spans fade after that. Lots more!
Brian Snr.
I have a rule of thumb that use of the phrase “going forward” (as opposed to…..?) often justifies extra bullshit detection awareness.
Its inclusion in a title is particularly naff.
As PR Guy says, there is nothing subtle at all here about the importance the authors would like the reader to attach to recent economic (read ‘banking’) history.
Ah Dork, we’ve come around to the fact that the government printing money isn’t free for all. Good.
@ OMF
“……the Irish banks have used €3 billion of state funding to buy up Irish state bonds, apparently contributing almost entirely to the massive drop in Irish bond interest rates over this period.
…….the banks [b]have[/b] become organs of government policy. The State bails out the banks, and the banks bail out the state. The Minister has been more strategic than I gave him credit for.”
I doubt Noonan spent too much time convincing the banks to do so. Mind you it makes a helluva lot more sense to buy Irish government bonds (backed by EU and IMF) at 8% than to lend money to Irish property buyers (backed by no one) at (a riskier) 5% or to (equally risky) businesses (also backed by no one).
Great whirly stuff. T’would dazzle a banker in good times.
The sharkes that are looking for cheap assets need look no further than the deleveraging brief on assets sales.
It is the first slide on challenges ahead section.
Translated it mean a giant car boot sale. Sell at any price until the “quantum” is achieved.
But full marks to Jam Media. Whatever about the country, those people have a future.
@Dom K
Never said that – refer to Cullen Roches reference to the extraction of private wealth chiefly assets when real money is printed in the dollar system.
But the losses need to be recognized by destroying private credit & crunching credit hyper inflated assets as the losses are in the system regardless.
The economic stratergy is unfortunetly all about peserving private bank balance sheets which then destroys real economic activity which then feeds back into bank balance sheets in a negative feedback loop.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0618/hansfield.html
PS I am not a MMTer – they accept the creation of private credit into their system and use money creation to somehow balance this system i.e. – they are modern day Keynesians.
I am a full money advocate although I recognize that it is impossible given the power dynamics in the western world.
In a full money gradually rising no credit system you would never get the above farce happening.
Would prefer a printable version but otherwise very illustrative summary.
Particularly like the level of detail on the July 31st recaps in relation to AIB/BoI.
No mention I could see of the €500m to €1bn Minister Noonan says is being earmarked to recapitalise credit unions, many of which have ceased functioning as household savings mobilisers.
I did note the €400m figure earmarked for a temporary sme loan guarantee scheme – recall Ministers Coughlan and O’Keefe spent a long time looking into a guarantee scheme.
Dexia
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15235915
“The situation with Dexia is the latest warning sign over the health of Europe’s lenders. It has a global credit risk exposure of around $700bn, twice the gross domestic product of Greece. “
@OMF
Didn’t see the Post yesterday but Cliff Taylor has been on to this for a few weeks. 3 billion will do a lot in a small market. However, the buyers must have no rules or criteria for bonds they buy with IRL bonds rated junk or as near as dammit.
It would be interesting to see the view of the Financial Regulator on this aspect.
@PR Guy
Yes, next step is contagion spreading to the core with a downgrade for Belgium more or less guaranteed.
@Ceterisparibus
I see they’ve postponed the ‘urgent’ EU summit on the debt crisis by a week (to 23/10)!!
A week is a long time in a meltdown 😉
@PR Guy
A week can be long even without the meltdown.
Today was a bit torrid with three banks nationalized and the markets soaring.
But the best I heard today was on the six one news when they announced the creation of 15 jobs over 5 years. When I heard it Bruton was on the screen but I’m not sure he was announcing this. God between us and small farms.
Edward Tufte famously showed how Powerpoint can increase institutional rigidity and lower the amount of useful information flow. If Powerpoint “makes you stupid” what does Prezi do to you? Make you entirely comatose? What a waste of time with all these spinning slides – it might help to deceive some people but it does not add useful content. Really a poor job IMHO.
Can you believe this guy…
“French Finance Minister Francois Baroin insisted that Dexia’s rescue was an isolated case and that banks in trouble were already identified in the European stress tests on the industry earlier.”
In the meantime Greek 1 yr at 151.2%..anyone fancy a punt?
@PR GUY
Dexia accounts for June 2011 show total liabilities of €517 billion euros.
Maybe the BBC are overegging the pudding at €700 billion.
On the other hand Dexia had €60 billion of derivative Liabilities at June 30th. In my book that is €60 billion of lost gambling debts, maybe CDS exposures.
http://www.dexia.com/EN/shareholder_investor/results/Documents/20110408_slides_analyst_2Q_UK.pdf
Maybe those €60 billion losses have quadrupled since June. That is easily possible.
Of course its all supposed to be the ‘fault’ of ‘Greece’. Not really. Its the gamblers who took on the bets on Greece. It seems that the whole European Banking Industry may just be one gigantic casino, that is just losing fortunes and continents on all the tables.
@Ceterisparibus
“French Finance Minister Francois Baroin insisted that Dexia’s rescue was an isolated case and that banks in trouble were already identified in the uropean stress tests on the industry earlier.”
Er, okay – Dexia was apparently the third best capitalised bank in Europe according to the last stress test. So there are 697* other large banks that need to be recapitalised, less the three in Ireland that already have been?
(*Random number)
A correction in the above, if I may.
In my book that is €60 billion of lost gambling debts, maybe CDS exposures.
That should of course be
€60 billion of losses on hundreds of billions and maybe thousands of billions of lost gambling debts.
Dow finishes up 330. That Angela and Nicky duet seems to be a class act.
Wonder what will happen on Nov.3 when they announce some other cockeyed scheme.
Sufficiently flashy surely to merit a nice move to a Eurocrat job in Luxembourg for the boss man.
@Dork and All
“More importantly though, what the banks did to us was break the moral code that is always attached to money”.
IMHO that sentence is worth its”weight in gold” and deserves to stand out on itś own .:)
@Hogan
Good story in the Telegraph…
“Jeremy Warner
Banque de France turns a blind eye to European financial crisis
Crisis? What crisis? To judge by a speech in Tokyo last week from Christian Noyer, Governor of the Banque de France, you would never have guessed there was an almighty financial implosion going on at the heart of the eurozone.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeremy-warner/8818937/Banque-de-France-turns-a-blind-eye-to-European-financial-crisis.html
Fascinating little mention on Newstalk this morning that Chinese governemnt wealth funds have bought shares in its own banks overnight.
I found this article on it from bloomberg.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-11/china-s-stocks-rise-after-sovereign-wealth-unit-buys-bank-shares.html
When does Slovakia vote? Is it sometime around now? I presume they will go ‘no’ first, then agree new elections with the opposition and have a re-vote (who knows, maybe even later today or tomorrow)… and the EU will have already promised largesse to the key players who did the right things (like stand down as PM) to make the re-vote happen and get a ‘yes’?? Horse trading is a wonderful thing to watch.
Just catching up on the reality of life outside of work….
Daily Telegraph at 16:02 – “PM Radičová says the vote will be repeated until the EFSF bill is passed.”
There’s an air of déjà vu about this one!
Apparently the vote is due 17:00’ish our time.
And then probably again at 18:00 by the looks of it 😉
Now they’ve taken a break until 18:00 and there is talk the vote won’t actually take place until midnight. I won’t be covering this one live…
Meanwhile in other news…
Risk on/Risk off became Risk Dunno today.
An anti-austerity protest of 30 people in Brussels today were sitting in a circle discussing economic policy and suddenly found themselves outnumbered and surrounded by riot police (that’s true).