Doubt it: far too many passengers in first class on the EU Gravy Train.And plenty of also-rans that love licking the EU Jack boot.Only a revolution would threaten it.And that won't happen in my lifetime,if ever.
Odd. The latest proclamations from the bankers are all about how everything is recovering. Unless of course S&P now feel they can release their verdict without sinking the whole EU economy. In any case, is it so surprising? Would you lend Greece or Spain money? Why should they deserve AAA status? Still, no doubt a crumb of comfort for johnv's weekend.
John, are you talking about the ECB? Pretty rubbish if that's the case. Glid, I thought the eurozone was still stuck at zero or slightly negative growth. Granted, I've stopped reading the news until the new year.
I don't know. Maybe it is. But the fortunes of the different countries are varied. Some are doing a lot better than others. From all I see on the news, there are now no longer any stories about a Euro meltdown, and the stock markets seem to be improving constantly. No news is good news. If it's ceased to be a real talking point, chances are that things are on the mend, which appears to be the prevailing story.
Glid, you may be right that the economic conditions are improving, but the fundamentals still apply: the northern countries have much stronger economies than the southern. It's not possible to have one currency operating across all the countries without central control over money supply. And even then, the southern countries will experience significant pain adapting to the northern policies. Years ago, Giscard D'Estang stated that it would be impossible to implement a single currency without a central economic policy for the whole eurozone, but they still went ahead. I was talking to a Dutchman in Nice last year, who said that people across Europe were beginning to see that Margaret Thatcher was right when she predicted structural issues with the proposed European superstate.
Quite. As always the media are interested only in bad news, or predictions of future even worse news. There is hardly any news value in reporting stability, reducing problems, or improving figures of any kind. The EU economy, like the UK and USA economies, is now gradually improving by most measures. The crises have been weathered - but that is not news. For some people, of course, the glass is always half empty. Just to get it clear, the EU and the Euro currency are pretty stable and will not be collapsing any time soon, even if a few nutters are praying for meltdown.
Standard and Poor. The competitor to Moody's. S&P as in S&P 500, the US version of the FTSE (unless it's the Dow Jones. Don't bother giving me your view on this.)
Agree about the media but confidence and 'wanting it' will only get you so far, as JerryXT points out the fundamentals have to be right. The growth we are seeing in the UK is wrong kind of growth. An orderly withdrawal is what is required, a reigning in of further political and fiscal integration. In that way a meltdown, which would be a disaster for all, is less likely.
Not quite correct. S&P are a ratings agency that assign a risk value to companies, banks and countries.
Who says so and whats it got to do with a bunch of no-marks who cant spot an elephant from 5 paces, never mid and up or down turn
What you didn't say was that they primarily evaluate risk. A minor quible which is why I used the phrase 'not quite correct'. S&P and Moody's are not indices like the FTSE and Dow.
Quite so. What is also interesting is that they are private companies (unless someone wants to tell me differently) and that always creates conflicts of interest (especially when they have to give a risk analysis of their customers - banks often.)
