ShareI have been reading press accounts of the GM decision to back out of the Opel/Vauxhall sale to the Magna/Sberbank consortium from various countries. There are a lot of different perspectives on this event in the U.S., Belgium, Spain, Germany, Russia, the U.K and elsewhere, because a lot of players are involved.
The conclusion I [...]

ShareFitch, the credit rating agency, has just downgraded the sovereign debt ratings for the Republic of Ireland from AA+ to AA-.  That is two notches and is proof-positive that the ratings agencies are worried about the hole in Dublin’s finances.
If you read the Irish press this morning, it is all doom and gloom and has [...]

ShareAt the weekend I wrote about Alistair Darling’s about-face on breaking up to big to fail financial institutions. Apparently, this was not a case of labour changing tack and finding regulatory religion, but rather of the European Union imposing its will on the British government. The EU is also dictating policy in Germany, the Netherlands [...]

ShareI used to be a European High Yield guy. I was there when the market first took off in the late 1990s on the back of telecom plays like NTL or Telewest. I was also there when the Russian devaluation and default shut down the market. And I remember how the market tanked when the [...]

ShareElga Bartsch writes that Morgan Stanley looks at the recent data coming out of Eurloand as distinctly bullish. As a result, they are revising up their GDP estimates.
A number of countries, notably the euro area’s two largest economies – Germany and France – posted a surprise rise in 2Q GDP. Others – like Italy, Spain [...]

ShareFrom the FT.
Iceland’s bid to join the European Union received a boost on Monday when the 27-nation bloc’s foreign ministers agreed without delay to ask the European Commission for its opinion.
The swift decision means that Iceland, which only submitted its membership application on July 17, has already moved ahead of Balkan countries such as Bosnia-Herzegovina [...]

ShareWhy is it that Jon Stewart, a comedian, has become the most able and trusted voice of investigative journalism into finance on television?  He spoke with the French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, something I find remarkable given America’s disinterest in anything foreign and the enmity for the French amongst the xenophobic camp.
Christine Lagarde is a [...]

ShareThe Economist released its remarkably telling Big Mac Index this past weekend.  The index looks at the relative cost of Big Mac in various countries to gauge how over- or undervalued the currencies in those locales are.  Judging from this Index, there are some monster distortions in the currency markets right now.

The numbers marked [...]

ShareCentral banks are not the only ones printing money to help get through this financial crisis.  Private citizens are increasingly turning to the printing press to help alleviate their financial problems as well.  My translation of an article from Finanzas, a major Spanish finance website, explains.
A total of 413,000 counterfeit euro banknotes were withdrawn from [...]

ShareI happened upon an article about shops being closed in France that highlighted a larger issue about cultural attitudes in the U.S. and Europe regarding work, leisure and material wealth.  I would like to share some thoughts with you on these issues because I think they are significant in regards to savings, debt and other [...]