France and Germany put on a show of unity on Wednesday to urge European Union leaders to accelerate efforts to tighten financial regulation and clamp down on short selling.
In a joint letter to José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, called for proposals within a month to regulate trading in sovereign credit default swaps – a form of insurance against government debt default – and short selling.
On themost important stop of last week’s desperate mission to make the world safe for derivatives, US Treasury Secretary Geithner has been dealt a decisive rebuff. Geithner’s obvious attempt to sabotage the recent prohibition enacted by the German government against naked credit default swaps (among the most toxic of derivatives) was rejected in Berlin on Thursday by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble.
From a diplomatic point of view, last night’s German victory in the Eurovision song contestcould not have been better timed. How fitting therefore that the nineteen-year-old chanteuse who carried off the title, Lena Meyer-Landrut, is from an old German diplomatic family. Her grandfather used to be German ambassador to the USSR. And I am sure that she must be related to Nikolaus Meyer-Landrut, who is one of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s closest diplomatic advisers.
Europe “was, is and will remain” a key investment market for China’s foreign exchange reserves, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said on Thursday.
The euro and European capital markets rallied after China made the announcement.
As was to be expected, Anglo-america is not giving in. Here, they employ, once again, their dodgy rating agencies to downgrade Spain’s debt. It is almost beyond belief that this kind of ploy could result in anything other than laughter, let alone another run on the Euro. These are the same rating agencies which made the subprime scam possible: rather than determining the fate of nations they should be under arrest.
THE euro plunged and US stock markets fell last night after Spain was stripped of its top-level credit rating by a leading rating agency over concerns about its economic growth.
In the latest blow to the eurozone, which is struggling to cope with the fallout from the Greek fiscal crisis, Fitch Ratings downgraded Spain’s sovereign credit rating — a measure of how easily it can meet the interest payment on its debt — by a notch from the top AAA rating to AA+.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Vice President Xi Jinping Thursday respectively met with visiting European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek to discuss the European debt crisis, economic ties and climate change.
Zhao, who previously worked as a researcher at the central bank, said that “cutting euro assets means the government would have to increase dollar holdings, but the U.S. dollar itself may not be a perfect option over a longer term.”
China denied as “groundless” a report that it’s reviewing foreign-exchange holdings of euro assets, and the nation’s sovereign wealth fund said it’s maintaining its European investments.
In the second half of the show,(13mins) Max interviews Jim Rickards about naked short selling and overwhelming the specialist system, Wall Street banks undermining Greece and Goldman Sachs as an undeclared national enemy.
It is important to act in areas where you can act nationally, in anticipation of European efforts, Offer retorted, adding that other countries – including France – had taken similar steps.
Germany defended its decision to introduce an immediate ban on naked short selling, as the country moved to stamp its authority on negotiations about regulating financialmarkets.
The European Parliament and Council have both agreed this week to push ahead with stricter regulations for hedge funds, private equity funds and other alternative investment methods.
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