Eurozone is slowly dying

That was the message Gerald Lyons, chief economist of Standard Chartered gave on Jeff Randall tonight. He nailed Lagarde's obsession with debt. The problem is not debt but lack of growth or even contraction.


The Germans are doing very well in China as they make thimgs the Chinese want to buy. Not so here in the UK. No amount of Dave PR can change that.


Spain sinks deeper into the mire. The Germans won't go there. A big problem for the EU

The pain in Spain falls mainly on the plains

Spanish austerity is horrendous but very selective. The cosseted public sector is protected and the poor buggers in the private sector pay through the nose. The market sees through the EU kicking the can down the road. There will be more LTROs from the ECB to Euro banks on life support, money printing by another name.


Rates on Spanish and Italian debt jumped yesterday to 6% and have come back only slightly today under ECB massaging. It will go on like this with diminishing returns from each further dose of LTRO until reality sinks in that the Euro is finished.


Even in the Fatherland the penny is dropping. Yesterday BMW and Audi announced record increase in sales but this did not happen in the EU but in the BRICs especially China. The story that the EU is a dynamic expanding economy is now being exposed as a fairy tale kept going by unscrupulous self serving Europhiles.


Cameron's visits to the BRICs also gives the game away. He knows the EU is a busted flush.The UK is in a mess and there is no way out via the EU. The UK's future and destiny lies as it always has with open sea and the world outside Europe. The Europeans will continue to squabble as they have done for a thousand years. 

Tax transparency is for others not politicians

If you missed Mr Farage's weasel word performance last Friday  on Any Questions you can pick it up off the BBC website but if you click on link you can listen to Mr Farage elaborating on his excuses for not publishing his tax details. In the City its called talking your book. 


We have been here before with Mr Farage. On the question of publication of his MEP expenses he claimed on TV that his expenses were published on the web. I could never find them. I asked for any one who could find them to let me know the URL. I received no replies but my request still stands.

Then of course there is the question of Mr Farage employing his wife on EU funds something that following the MP expenses scandal all serious politicians gave up as improper.


What was sick making was Mr Farage's claims that Labour and Tory parliamentarians were largely juvenile political careerists making money out of politics. Mr Farage has made a great deal of money from the EU so why should others not be able to do likewise?


Mr Farage claims he could make more money in the City than he does as an MEP. He says he worked in the City before becoming an MEP.  I would be grateful if any one could tell me who he worked for in the City.


It was good to hear the Exeter MP, Ben Bradshaw, flatly contradict Mr Farage's claim that school headmasters could not get rid of poor teachers as completely untrue. Mr Farage's claimed  'source' was 'a friend of his who was a headmaster'. Who is this headmaster? What school is he head of? It all sounds a bit like ' a bloke in the pub told me'. Its not even anecdotal!


I hope to see and hear more challenging of Mr Farage's assertions. For too long they have gone unchallenged by political opponents and incompetent journalists. We are entitled to transparency in this as well as politicians tax and income. 

Suicide rate is the measure of a society's health

I never did sociology at university but  I remember a good friend of mine who did Soc I telling me that the suicide rate is a measure of a society's health. I read with interest Richard North's blog today in which he reports that suicides caused by financial pressure are increasing in Italy and Ireland amongst pensioners and entrepreneurs. Indeed the Irish suicide rate is the highest ever recorded.


The Eurozone is clearly a very sick society. Richard also reports that an ad hoc committee set up to try and cut Italian MP salaries, the highest in Europe, gave up a hopeless fight. Its a bit like trying to clean up EUKIP, a job for Hercules.


Portugal will soon need another bail out and the effect of Draghi's money printing at the ECB has worn off as evinced by Spanish and Italian bond yields jumping after the poor market reception of the latest Spanish bond auction. The FT reports the Euro has fallen through its floor against the Swiss Franc and is now trading at 1.21 to the pound Sterling so if you are thinking of buying your Euroland retreat now is the time.


Merkel's gauleiter in Italy Monti is running into problems over his proposals to make it easier for firms to sack workers. I guess the EU will discover that democracy is a dreadful system of government until you try the other ways of running a country.


The Dr Frau has turned her tax panzers on the peace loving Swiss and according to Jeff Randall yestreen will get 100 bn Euro back from tax avoidance schemes by Germans using Swiss banks. Come on wee George. Get your tax tanks rolling or at least threaten to sink the Swiss Navy.


For those who are not yet depressed and suicidal I recommend listening to Any Questions on BBC 4 at 8:00 pm tonight. I expect the EUKIP suicide rate to rise after this broadcast.

Greek despair forces pensioner to suicide

A Greek pensioner committed suicide yesterday outside their parliament building. The 77-year-old retired pharmacist, Dimitris Christoulas, shot himself in the head on Wednesday after saying that financial troubles had pushed him over the edge. A suicide note said he preferred to die than scavenge for food. 


This is a professional man driven to take his own life by the EU enforced austerity programme.Its that bad. Does
 the EU care? Of course not their idiotic project justifies all. Reuters reports Greek police recorded another 4 serious suicide attempts this week by people driven to despair by financial pressures.


This is playing big in the coming Greek election scheduled for 6th May if the EU allow the Greeks to vote. Its not just us who are diddled out of their democratic rights!


The Greek people's main anger is directed against the two main Greek parties who have held power since the Colonels gave it up. They are facing melt down. For the EU the nightmare is they will be faced by extremist parties of either the left or right. Meanwhile Jeff Randall reported tonight Portugal needs another bail out. No rest for the ECB printing press then.


When we in the UK get to this stage conditions will be ripe for us to leave the EU. I make one prediction. Farage and his EUKIP cult will not be involved. Piss ups are their speciality.

Market does not believe Spanish austerity plans are deliverable

Spain held a bond auction yesterday. The results were poor. Spanish 10 year bond yields closed at 5.71% with Italy at 5.37% and Portugal at 12.35%. So why so bad given the ECB's trillion Euro money printing?


The market thinks the Spanish plans are undeliverable and Spain, the 4th largest Eurozone economy, is headed for a recession and worse bank failures because of the property market collapse. There was a huge sell off today in Euroland equities with all the main markets including the UK down 2% to 3%. Banks were hardest hit with Spanish banks the biggest losers.


Its not over in Euroland by a long chalk.

Spanish austerity puts UK to shame

24%+ of Spaniards are out of work. Almost 50%  of its under 25s are unemployed. The Spanish government is pressing on with the right kind of austerity, public sector budget cuts. It has cut the budget of its Foreign service by an eye watering 50%. as for its foreign aid that has been eliminated completely. Would that our government had the courage to do the same but I suppose there are too many Old Etonians in the FCO to allow it to happen in the UK. As for foreign aid why we have just increased it. Crity does not begin at home for the LIbDEms but with corrupt foreign regimes in poverty stricken countries.


Wolfson's little prize on how to exit the Euro is down to a short list of five. I hope Dr Frau Merkel is on the judging panel.


At some stage the markets are going to take a hard look at the UK and I don't think they will like what they see. A-levels have been a steadily devaluing currency over the last 30 years. Gove is correct to put control into the hands of University academics but he is holding back from the crucial reform, get rid of the plethora of examining boards and have a national exam! Profit making Exam boards have an inbuilt conflict of interest. Raise standards and reduce your profits and go out of business. Its a no brainer, to raise standards we need one national exam. It also make recruitment and university place offers a whole lot easier.


Still we will no doubt bumble on with our LibCons until the markets blow the whistle on their total incompetence.