Today's Alex cartoon in the DT says it all. Alex is sitting interviewing a young job applicant who says to the great man ' So Mega bank passed its easy peasy, EU, stress test but what guarantee do I have it wont go bust before I actually start a job here? Quite. Says it all about these non-tests.
Yesterday, the DT published Reuters own stress test results which tested bank's entire holdings of sovereign debt not just that on their repo trading book and on that basis 23 not just 7 were found wanting. Much more believable in my view. They also examined core tier one capital effectively equity and found most German landesbanks struggling. All have state guarantees and none failed the official test. Six German banks failed to disclose enough information to run the Reuter's test so things in the Fatherland could be even worse. Watch the OIS Libor or Euribor spreads to see what the market thinks.
On UKIP I applaud Nikki Sinclaire's ambitious 100,000 ‘People’s Petition’ in Birmingham and Stoke calling on the coalition government to hold a referendum on European Union membership.
Would we had more MEPs like Nikki and less useless Faragistas like Clarke.
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