In what was a very slow new weekend the most significant story is that Spanish PM Rajoy’s political party held on to power in the PM’s home state of Galicia. This was considered to be an important test for Rajoy for if his support in his traditional support base had turned against him, there would be no chance that the PM would have proceeded down the road of further austerity. Now Señor Rajoy may be emboldened to surrender to the demands of German-imposed CONDITIONALITY so as to receive the proposed bailout from the ESM. This should be short-term bullish for the EURO as it will remove one of the obstacles that was blocking a massive dose of liquidity into the Spanish financial system. The trade-off game of financial support for enacting more austerity should help the markets as near-term fears of a Spanish collapse should be postponed.
Posts Tagged ‘CIFIUS’
Notes From Underground: Rajoy’s Party Retains Power in Galicia
October 21, 2012Notes From Underground: The Success of any EU DEBT Relief program Rotates on a German Axel
January 17, 2011Some housekeeping weekend news: British Petroleum returned to the Russian market as it announced that it was swapping $16 billion shares of its stock for an equivalent amount of ROSNEFT, rendering the Kremlin the largest BP shareholder. BP management has determined that its future is better off in developing large Russian oil reserves than depending on the capriciousness of U.S. ENERGY POLICY. This is not an easy issue as some previous aggrieved parties are going to slow this agreement down until they receive compensation for past illegal moves by the PUTIN clique. More importantly, it says that serious business people are beginning to see a change in Russia and want to be part of the early movers into the “great potential.’
Notes From Underground: WEN in Rome
October 7, 2010Chinese Premier WEN Jiabao visited Italy after the EU/China summit that took place this week. Wen had been to Greece earlier as China is looking for assets in the battered peripheral economies of the EU. Are the Chinese sovereign wealth funds truly interested in European troubled assets or merely attempting to buy some good will so as to break up a possible unified action by the developed nations against the renminbi? The Chinese are in Italy and making some noise about buying Italian companies to ensure a place in the European economies.
Notes From Underground: Unemployment was softer then expected; and CFIUS must not have read the G-20 communique
July 5, 2010Friday’s unemployment number was close to consensus but the average hours worked and average hourly wages were a little on the soft side. Yes, the unemployment rate fell to 9.5 percent, but that was due to the amount of people that left the work force as the ability to find work is causing workers to leave the job search in frustration. The rate itself is not important at this point because a higher jobless rate with a more robust economy would signal that people were returning to the labor force–a good thing.