Their word is their Bond. So don’t buy either.
Something of a rhetorical question, as most readers guessed already. These are the dimensions making further comment pointless on the views, plans, strategies, opinions, bollocks and lies permeating the bedlam now built where once stood an interesting place called Europe:
1. Nobody out there is listening
2. Everyone is beginning to panic and/or revert to national type
3. Nobody wants to suffer any pain
4. Almost nobody has any econo-fiscal motives in common with anyone else
5. The bureaucrats are frozen in the headlights
6. The Germans will take their ball home if it isn’t done their way
7. The banks will take their ball home if asked to have too close a haircut
8. The French are already on the way home with their ball
9. It has become an issue from which markets can make money, rather than one of which anyone can make sense
10. The process is unstoppable, because there is no dominant or collective will to stop it.
From here on, The Slog will stick to information significant in the sense of giving a scale and a timing ballpark to the entire mess. If I don’t mention that Spain has been downgraded, Italian borrowing is getting more expensive by the hour, or Herman Van Rompuy has forecast success, it’s not because I’ve nodded off, but because I’m bored with the thousand stickleback nibbles, and only now interested in important events like French default and how it might be handled. And if I don’t know anything that you can’t read somewhere else anyway, I won’t post anything….although if anything amusing occurs to me, I will.
So – for example – today, Trichet has wafted a goodbye swipe at Merkel about bank haircuts, the Greeks have reaffirmed their determination to succeed with debt repayment, Spain has started dropping hints about missing its austerity targets, and Ackermann is already trying to rubbish any attempt to make banks safer, nicer, or more useful. None of this is important, but rather – perm one from these as necessary – lies/fantasy/to be expected/spin/irrelevant/nonsense.
Cut to Mario Draghi caught in flagrante with Adam Werritty.
The Slog 