To be worried about all this Euro crisis stuff

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Seriously, what's the worst that might happen to the UK?

What if loaves of bread end up being £100 or the banks refuse to give us our money?

Are we safe in our beds?

But Greece etc can't devalue the currency - the Euro isn't under their national control. If they hadn't been in the single currency the whole situation would have been different. And if they default, who's going to trust them enough to lend them money then? They'd need to balance expenditure and income without the option of borrowing to make up the difference.

Whatmeworry - yes that is exactly right. The major global banks are telling the EU politicians and bureucrats in Brussels to do something indeed anything to prevent the peripheral countries defaulting on their debts. The bankers care nothing for the extreme hardship that will cause to the people of those countries.

The constant clarion call that the bankers are making to EU politicians/bureacrats is to allow the ECB to print money and use that money to buy the peripheral Govt debts off the banks to save them from the consequences of a future default. Either that or the ECB be allowed to lend directly to the peripheral countries so they can keep paying interest on the existing debts.

I read that, of the Euro 8 billion of funds that is currently being discussed as the next round of bailout funds for Greece, approximatley half of that will go straight out of the contry to pay German/French/UK/US banks. In other words, the Greek people will see no benefit at all from half of every penny of debt their Govt takes on in their name from now on. The entire country is slipping into debt slavery and bankers wil do everything possible to make sure the Greek people keep paying as long as possible before the eventual and inevitable default. Same story in Ireland, Italy, and so on across peripheral Europe.

Iceland are quite energy independent, retained their own fishing grounds and of course their own currency.
They were not as reliant/interwoven with the international community s the rest of the eu.

Iceland are quite energy independent, retained their own fishing grounds and of course their own currency

In the Great Depression those were the sorts of countries that did best. There is a lesson there :)

I don't want to make of this. It looks as though all of the 'sovereign nations' are about to promise to give unlimited sums to the ESM. It does not involve the UK, but it is quite chilling. What do you think?

Three British families try out the tax, pensions and work practices that caused Greece's economic crisis and brought on the austerity measures aimed at cutting the deficit and qualifying for EU bailouts.

A 54-year-old British hairdresser discovers the generosity of the Greek pensions system, which still allows hairdressers, pastry chefs, radio continuity announcers and people in almost 600 other jobs to retire aged 53 at 90% of the final pension because their jobs are defined as hazardous.

www.channel4.com/programmes/go-greek-for-a-week/episode-guide/series-1/episode-1

"Iceland are quite energy independent, retained their own fishing grounds and of course their own currency."

Yes they are, but until they made major money from the finance sector, they were a very poor country. Take away the financial sector and the majority of the money comes from fishing, farming - mainly sheep and selling some geologically created energy on.

continuity announcer!
I would say that teaching is more hazardous than any of these and teachers here are having to retire at 67 on, ahem, less than 90% of (I think that is final salary, not pension).

I think that Italian public service workers retire on 100% of final salary.

Irish teachers have taken a 15% cut in salary; partly a drop in salary and partly paying more into their own pension, to replace government contributions.

Also Iceland, and as far as I can see, don't have that many public services. So it is really not comparable to those countries with lots of public services/welfare state.

Iceland also have a population of around 320,000 . Which is about the same as the town I live in.

have = has

Did anyone look at my link at 11.16, and if so would you tell me what you think, to save me thinking for myself.

I fear for Spain... under its system, the new government does not automatically take over, they have this "transition", so effectively they won't come into power until Xmas, until then it's a bit of a no-man's land.

Today their 10yr bond yields were getting perilliously close to 7%, and more short-term yields had doubled to 5% since last month. The new PM needs to be formally in charge of the government, in office, in order to put his plans forward, but I don't think the markets are going to give him the time to do so at this rate, they'll force his hand.

My feeling is that whatever he announces is somehow not going to be good enough for the markets .

Sorrry judy, cannot get YouTube at work, so can't help you with the thinking.

Yes indeed, Spain also issued short term (3 month and 6 month duration) debt today but had to pay 2% higher interest rate than it did a month ago.

That shows investors are fleeing EU debt markets and demanding much higher rates of interest.

The world is not EU & US, that's what's worth remembering.

Have a look here - I saw Jim O'Neill speaking at the CBI yesterday and I'm still awed.

On a personnal level - want to avoid recession and devaluation of your wealth? I'd really considering moving to a fast growing economy and starting afresh, plenty of opportunity abroad.

Apologies for the slightly confused grammar above... brain suffering today.

Another thing, the CBI says that the top executives have to be paid ridiculous amounts of money because they would go elsewhere.
Why can't all the companies in the world just agree to limit the top wages and then they will have nowhere to run to and the wages for the poorest workers could rise.

Too simplistic of course. It's becoming like the Victorian times, no wonder people are starting to protest around the world.

Another thing, the CBI says that the top executives have to be paid ridiculous amounts of money because they would go elsewhere

Which is patently not true, because most of "elsewhere" pays less, the US has more than enough of its own to make it a vicious market, and Id bet that there are 3 people willing to give every UK top job a go for much less and I'd bet some (those underpaid senior women?) would be as good.

I don't know who is still buying, or who has even recently buying any of these bonds.

It is widely known in the market that the ECB is the only real buyer of bonds from the peripheral countries. Although banks may, on the face of it, be buying they are flipping them straight to the ECB.

Does that provide enough cover for Angela Merkel to convince her voters that Germany isn't picking up the tab, even though of course it is?

I read an interesting article yesterday from a British journalist who has lived in Germany for a long time.

He said that the German people will never agree to guaranteeing the debts of Greece, Italy, etc. However, he sensed a definite softening in the German people's attitude to the idea of the ECB buying the bonds of the peripheral countries. The reason being that Germans really want to save the Euro more than they hate the idea of the ECB printing money.

That said, the Dexia (Belgian bank) bailout agreement is near collapse this morning and talk of France's AAA rating under threat. There really needs to be a solution and fast otherwise the core countries will be pulled into the crisis .

Some commentators think that in the end Germany wil leave the Euro with France and set up their own new Euro bloc with a few other strong core countries and merge their monetary and fiscal union in a much closer union. The weaker countries will be left with the old Euro which will devalue dramatically. I actually think this would work economically and politically and the German people would vote for it.

Germany failed to get bids for 35pc of the 10-year bonds it sold in an auction today. The country was only able to get away ?3.89bn of a sale with a maximum target of ?6bn.

Worth following the live coverage from The Telegraph & The Guardian, to preserve perspective.

Just watching TV, and someone said the bond auction by Germany today was the worst ever recorded. Not in terms of the interest rate but in terms of bid to cover. A large chunk of the bonds had to be bought in by the Bundesbank apparently. Investors, especially US investors are fleeing anything with Europe written on it.

The question is, will a few 'failed' German bond auctions like this allow Merkel the political leeway to allow the ECB to print money to buy any and all European Govt bonds?

Going back to Iceland, there was an interesting article in the FT yesterday (Martin Wolf, here) - not just the article, which is a relatively conventional analysis, but the various comment papers linked from it (especially this one, I thought).

I hadn't realised the extent to which Icelandic people had mortgages denominated in foreign exchange (also a big issue in Eastern Europe I believe) - hence how hard hit ordinary people have been by the devaluation of the Kroner.