European Tribune

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Better to have one engine room, than none at all.  Financial services is the one area where Britain still has some claims to a world leadership position.  With the decline in all revenues the external earnings of the financial services sector is the only gravy train left.

The current implosion in that industry is very bad news (VBN) for Britain and Gordon Brown indeed.  Not only have the Eurozone and Frankfurt, London's chief competitor, been relatively unaffected, but Eurozone countries still have strong industrial sectors to add substance to the sometimes ephemeral nature of financial services and products.

Think where will the Chinese, Indians, and Oil producing countries invest their massive surpluses from now on?  The nosediving dollar, the stagnant pound, or the Eurozone which still produces a lot of real products (Airplanes, Cars, hi tech goods) that people actually want and need in the real world?

The very thing that is supposed to have held Eurozone countries back - excessive government regulation - is also what has ensured that their financial services are backed by real assets.  

The dollar will recover it's poise in due course, the USA's real economy is still quite strong.  But whither Sterling?

notes from no w here

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot dotty communists) on Sat Dec 1st, 2007 at 02:23:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The dollar will recover it's poise in due course, the USA's real economy is still quite strong.

The dollar as currently constituted is finished.

The crash coming will be as dramatic as that at the end of the Japanese bubble and there is still a long way to fall. The difference will be that there will be stagflation in the US, not chronic deflation as in Japan.

The underlying US economy is potentially strong, for sure, but where will the money come from to mobilise it? The one thing I do know is, it won't be in dollars as we know them.

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Sat Dec 1st, 2007 at 05:42:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The Yen is still there after many years of stagnation.  The US has a long history of devaluing the dollar as a way of correcting huge government and trade imbalances.  Their problem is that the Chinese are refusing to let them play that game unhindered.  At the moment the EU central bank is being suckered into taking all the strain - something which will ultimately cause recession in Europe if not corrected soon.

The US economy is still growing faster than the EU - and current currency movements will only exacerbate that divergence unless the EU reduces interest rates sufficiently to halt any further appreciation of the Euro.

notes from no w here

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot dotty communists) on Sat Dec 1st, 2007 at 07:11:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]
US growth is illusory.
by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Sat Dec 1st, 2007 at 07:25:18 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The dollar will recover it's poise in due course, the USA's real economy is still quite strong.  But whither Sterling?

It will join the Euro, of course, as soon as the City decides it is in its own best interest or the BoE/FSA/Treasury crash the ship through incompetence. However, the UK will have to go through two years of pain while they join the EMU exchange mechanism before they can actually join the Euro.

We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Dec 4th, 2007 at 08:16:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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