Tag Archives: EU

Is a Global Aviation Trade War About to Break Out?

The EU’s emissions trading scheme could trigger a full scale global aviation trade war within weeks. A total of 30 countries which signed the Moscow Joint Declaration in February – including Russia, India, and the US - have threatened to retaliate. But China has upped the stakes by warning that it is prepared to impound European aircraft, if the EU punishes Chinese airlines for non-compliance, according to Reuters.
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Has Standard & Poor’s Got Its US Numbers Wrong?

The S&P might just have catastrophically damaged its credibility. The US Treasury has just issued this rebuttal of S&P's downgrade of US debt. As if the ratings agencies did not have enough trouble in Europe, they have now given the US government justifiable cause to shake up the present ratings system. This basic error in its calculations appears irresponsibly casual and unprofessional, at the worst possible time. The scapegoating of the ratings agencies in Europe may be ludicrous, but it's a fair bet that EU politicians are going to make capital out of this. If S&P's downgrade was motivated by a desire to make up for its shortcomings during the credit bubble, it has seriously miscalculated.
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Throwing the Bond Market Out With the Bath Water

The war the EU has declared on the ratings agencies shows why investors should not underestimate its determination to scapegoat “Anglo-Saxon” speculators for the sovereign debt crisis, and reduce “excessive profits” in the financial sector. Even if it means cutting off the EU's nose to spite its face.
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The West’s Manufacturing Continues to Pay for Green Gesture Politics

The true economic cost of Western government’s obsession with fighting global warming is becoming increasingly apparent. News that a fifth of the UK’s soaring energy bills now consist of hidden environmental subsidies has brought home the cost of Britain’s economically suicidal commitment to reduce CO2 emissions by 80% within 40 years. It can’t be long before there is a political backlash from consumers and industry against the West's green gesture politics.
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Eurozone Governments May Need To Bail Out Municipalities

A lot has already been written about the risk to municipal bond holders in the U.S., as a growing number of states face severe fiscal problems. But local government debt is an even bigger threat in Europe - where it could force governments to assume the debt, putting further pressure on sovereign bond spreads.
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Update: Call for A Eurozone Break-up

A rare column arguing that the peripheral countries of the monetary bloc should simply leave the eurozone by decree, has been published in the Institutional Investor. Vincent J. Truglia, Managing Director of Global Economic Research at Granite Springs Asset Management, writes that the flawed structure of the eurozone - which was built for political rather than economic reasons - leaves only two questions: 1) How do you handle the shrinking or dismantling of the Eurozone? and 2) What is the timing of such changes? As the tensions tearing the euro apart will only grow, it's likely that we'll see a lot more articles like this one in the future.
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The Second Wave of Europe’s Banking Crisis is Crystallizing

As the crisis in the European financial sector deepens, trading patterns are indicating a major sell-off within the next month, if the market breaks out of the flag patterns forming in the MSCI European Financials Index. After all, the ECB’s extension of its liquidity safety net for vulnerable euro zone banks – and the guarantees for troubled banks in Ireland – can only fuel suspicion about skeletons in the closet.
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EU To Follow US Lead on Commodity Speculation

More bad news for commodity ETFs. The E.U. could follow U.S plans to tame speculative activity, which has been blamed for record food and energy prices in 2008, if France’s call for common action to regulate volatile commodities markets are adopted
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When Green Doesn’t Mean Green: Obama is Backtracking on Clean Energy

Environmentalists seized upon President Obama’s stimulus plan as a means to turn America into a low-carbon economy by pouring massive amounts of money into clean energy and green transportation. But in these tough economic times, taxpayers are not prepared to keep footing the subsidy bill. Belatedly, there is now recognition at the highest levels of government that a green industrial revolution is no longer realistic, economically or politically.
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Running Faster to Stand Still, Ireland is Going Nowhere Fast

Standard & Poor’s cut to Ireland’s credit rating is hardly a surprise given that Irish debt is estimated to peak at 137% of GDP, against government estimates of about 94%, despite austerity that will have seen the economy contract by around 15% since 2008 by the end of 2010.  Many more downgrades can be expected [...]
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