The future of the Euro and EU.

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Originally Posted by SGWilko

Other than the powerful 'City' engine driving GB Plc, what is left?

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A City that, apparently, is less than ecstatic at Cameron's stance.

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Originally Posted by SGWilko

It was all either sold off, privatised or run into the ground by moronically flawed management.

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Er... how could it have been privatised by the management? This is one area in which government is to blame.

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Originally Posted by ioan

And rightly so.

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No-one is right to have kittens. This is scaremongering.

I don't get the big deal - You tried it and it failed - So go back to being cool countries and live life. Fzck the euro - Long live the Peso and the Lira

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

No-one is right to have kittens. This is scaremongering.

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I thought it was a figure of speech.

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Originally Posted by Brown, Jon Brow

Does this take into account that bailing out the financial sector could have cost us £1.2trillion (Reality check: how much did the banking crisis cost taxpayers? | Politics | guardian.co.uk), while tax revenues from the finacial sector only amount to £53billion or 11% of GDP (http://217.154.230.218/NR/rdonlyres/...inalForWeb.pdf).

I am sceptical of these figures, but if they are true then the city might be costing us money :(

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The bulk of 'bailouts' doesn't consist of money actually being handed over but agreeing to underwrite that figure in a worst case scenario. It is in that sense virtual.

Also it doesn't take into account the profit the government makes in loaning money at crisis times. IIRC RBS and HBOS/LLoyds were charged 12% interest for a cash bailout with massive penalty fees if the loans weren't paid back within a short set time (a year I think). The government borrowed that money at a rate of about 3-4% so they were making 8% profit. Again with the Ireland bailout the Government is borrowing at 2.5% and lending at 5-6%.

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

A City that, apparently, is less than ecstatic at Cameron's stance.



Er... how could it have been privatised by the management? This is one area in which government is to blame.

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Run into the ground was attributable to management, the Gov't did the selling off or privatising. I thought that was clear from the wording.

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Originally Posted by ioan

Depends on the rating agency, but it's more or less BBB, BBB- or BB+ and stable, a tad better than Portugal's rating.
Which is about fair, especially if you consider how low Romania's debt is.

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Precisely.

Romania with a relatively tiny 20% of GDP debt only has a credit rating slightly better than a country which is in the process of being bailed out. Bulgaria and Romania are economically weak and add little value to the Eurozone as opposed to, say Sweden or the UK. I don't think the Eurozone should be looking to add more potential liabilities at this time.

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Originally Posted by Malbec

Precisely.

Romania with a relatively tiny 20% of GDP debt only has a credit rating slightly better than a country which is in the process of being bailed out. Bulgaria and Romania are economically weak and add little value to the Eurozone as opposed to, say Sweden or the UK. I don't think the Eurozone should be looking to add more potential liabilities at this time.

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Not sure why they are liabilities at all given the situation presented above.
Anyway, Romania is not planning to adhere to the Euro zone before 2015 at the earliest, so no worries there. I have no idea about Bulgaria though.

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Originally Posted by ioan

Anyway, Romania is not planning to adhere to the Euro zone before 2015 at the earliest, so no worries there.

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That isn't my understanding, I thought Romania was going to peg its currency to the Euro under ERM 2 as of next year and actually join the Euro in 2015. It looks like Romania/Bulgaria have only expressed an intention to join and that they haven't met the criteria yet so nothing has been finalised.

Romania did state earlier this year that 2015 is when they are planning to join, which realistically will be about 2017.
As I said do not worry about it they are not going to make the situation any worse then it is now.

There are other countries who pose a much bigger threat to the Euro right now.