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A customer enters a branch of Barclays bank in London

Of banks and intimations

Last week a number of banks issued 2010 first-half results. Northern Rock, HSBC, Standard Chartered and Lloyds all released figures showing overall profits in their operations that were good given the current market conditions in their field of activity. All, including Northern Rock, were able to demonstrate the benefits of the "universal model" of banking and senior executives from these companies, both on and off the record, were keen to emphasise their belief in the continuance of thi...
Spain's Economy Minister Salgado arrives at the Brussels Economic Forum conference

The pain in Spain lies mainly on the Costas

Once the full extent of the financial crisis in Greece became apparent, the governments of the EU, the European Commission and the European Central Bank, set about putting together a rescue package which eventually also took account of money market pressures against Portugal and Spain. Owing to several delays in getting this massive project under way, the money markets rapidly lost confidence in any determined action from the EU and Eurozone countries and had started to concentrate, not simply ...
Trichet President of the European Central Bank addresses the media during his monthly news confrence at the ECB headquarter in Frankfurt

European Central Bank and EU at a crossroads?

In 1971, the Bretton Woods Gold-Dollar exchange rate system broke down, bringing in an era of floating exchange rates with all their uncertainty. Governments, especially the USA's and UK's may have been relieved of defending a particular parity by having to take deflationary action but this simply passed the burden on to trade and industry. As rates of exchange might vary at any time, both exporters and importers feared exchange rate losses, so increasing risk and uncertainty in the busi...
Greece's Prime Minister George Papandreou  holds a news conference after a Euro Zone leaders summit in Brussels, May 8, 2010

Greek tragedy, but there might be a silver lining

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts? It has been touch and go this past month or so as to whether or not a wooden horse would make a suitable coffin for the euro. The EU itself has been shaken at its very core by a rift between President Sarkozy of France and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel when, was been reported, the French President banged his fist on the table and threatened his country would pull out of the euro if Germany did not give its full backing to a rescue/bailout package for Gre...
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