Wednesday 14 November 2012

Eurozone Club Med on Strike; BoE fiddles

Even the BBC have reported these huge strikes over all the PIGS. It will end in blood. This was a trade union organised protest but the right wing can organise strikes as well. It can't go on. The Greek economy is forecast to contract a further 7% this year! Unemployment is already 25% in Greece and Spain rising to 50% among the young. Portugal, the good little PIG which has swallowed the Merkel austerity medicine is in just as big a mess. Universities there have had a 50% funding cut since the crisis began and one University head is talking of shutting the whole University down.

Never mind the Brussels gravy train rolls on. I was amazed to read that LibDem MEP and Cabaret star Sharon Bowles is on the Bank of England short list for Governor! I gather she claims to know a lot about regulation. Well thats what a spell in Brussels teaches you but not a lot about banking. It will be something fo Nick to boast about and is a monument to political correctness The bank had a better female in 2008 with Rachel Lomax who then held Tucker's DG job. But along came Northern Rock, Gord got cold feet about changing his bank governor in a minor crisis so he re-appointed Merv and created a major crisis. The sister hood led by P Toynbee were very disappointed.

I gather my old boss Paul Tucker is hot favourite and he will be grateful that La Bowles is a total nonentity. He is the only banker on the list. JohnVickers was the Bank chief economist but is a competition economist with no hands on banking experience. The same applies to Adair Turner and Terry Burns, ex-HMT so its an open goal for PT. He is very able but believes his own publicity a little too much.

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