The news brief is taking a break until next week Wednesday, May 16, 2012.
It’s a day for whining in the country they call Europe. Spending in the UK crashed in April, apart from umbrella sales, which rose by 5000%, says the Guardian. Portugal erased four public holidays, two of which were of religious nature, from the calender from 2013 to 2018 to boost the economy. And Spain, well Spain is following in Greece’s footstepsonce again…
And to think it was only two days ago that the schizo market interpreted Spain’s bank sector nationalization as good news. (Zero Hedge)
So the never ending implosion of the EU continues, but it’s hard to find more cheerful news elsewhere, with the US worrying about its unemployment situation. Like MarketBeat put it:
That leaves the onus on Europe to drive market option. Even the optimists have a tough time finding reasons for hope in that scenario.
Alexis Tsipras, Greek far left leader, who is still holding the mandate to form a coalition in Europe’s favorite problem country, demanded for all fiscal measures that came into action in response to the crisis will be revoked. In response to the lunacy, the ECB’s Joerg Asumussen told the German Handelsblatt that Greece’s reversal of austerity policies would lead to an exit from the eurozone. Back to square one. read article
The Queen is addressing the houses of parliament today. Topics she is expected to address are the ring-fencing of retail banks from investment banks, an exemption of the UK from EU-led bailout programs, while approving the creation of the ESM (European Stability Mechanism) and limit executive pay. Time to move to Switzerland. Furthermore, the state pension age will be raised to 67 years; needless to say, unions are against this. But that’s because they don’t understand the issues of an ageing population.
BusinessWeek has uncovered what nobody has paid attention to so far: the correlation between Greece and mitosis.read article
Finally, the French press reports that Sarkozy will bid politics farewell for good when he leaves office on May 15.Adieu.
So long.
