I just can’t help feeling we’re living in interesting times. And this last weekend could go down as a tipping point.
France and Germany have stitched up a deal on the Euro financial crisis created by countries living beyond their means. The deal involved banks lending countries even more money to pay for the debts they already couldn’t afford.
Britain and the US have bailed out banks who racked up debts by lending money they didn’t have to people to live beyond their means. Having engendered a debt crisis those same banks are now being berated for not lending people even more money.
But this weekend the French people have said a resounding “Non” and elected an anti-deal, Socialist, President and given the incumbent a bloody nose. The new President basically wants to tear up the deals.
The Greek people, in a parliamentary election, have effectively thrown out the coalition which agreed to their country’s bailout. There will either be a new anti-deal coalition or new elections.
The Irish are tiptoeing towards at least trying to tear up the deals.
And the Italians are expressing discontent with the stitched up deal in their local elections.
Meanwhile …
Britain is again in recession — I personally doubt we were ever out of it — and if you look at the data this is a much longer and deeper (double dip) recession than those of the mid-70s, early-80s or early-90s. (The mid-70s recession felt pretty bad, so heaven knows where this one will end up.)
Shareholders at UK insurance giant Aviva have rejected the boss’s bonuses leading to the resignation of the CEO. Other shareholder revolts look to be on the cards.
The value of the Euro has fallen against the Pound; you can now get at least €1.20 to the Pound.
All the markets are sharply down on the day largely due to the uncertainty in Greece and the rest of Europe. One thing the markets hate is uncertainty.
And of course Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, is behaving like a petulant child and throwing her toys out of her pram to try to blame and bully everyone, because her chickens are coming home to roost and her knicker elastic has perished.
It’s a harsh reality, but all of this could probably have been avoided if (a) the rigid structure of the Euro had been stillborn, (b) the regulations on budget deficits in the European Treaties (and they were there regardless of the Euro regulations) had been adhered to and (c) a few banks had been allowed to fail because of their bad debts.
What of this could not have been foreseen?
Who said we don’t live in interesting times?!