FTT - Fantasy, Trickery & Theft! The UK Acts & Fitch Downgrades
Of the three large credit rating agencies Fitch, which downgraded the UK from Triple A to AA+ yesterday evening, is the only one with strong links to France for which it maintained its Triple A rating.
At the same time news emerged that the UK was going to challenge the legality of the Financial Transaction Tax, eleven EU countries are presently preparing under the Enhance Cooperation provisions of the EU Treaties. Open Europe has a good detailed report on that move linked here.
Far be it from me to attack or defend credit rating agencies, which by maintaining any triple A rating for any nation within the Euro Group must IMO be completely disconnected from any reality, but this clear connection in timing has to be pointed out.
France has been the country pushing hardest for the FTT. Its national economic estimates incorporate revenue from the tax which allows the fiction that it will meet its EU agreed targets for the present and coming years even slightly realistic.
Yesterday morning on this blog I suggested Britain and France work together to counter the dangerous direction Germany now seems to be taking our Continent, instead they have picked this fight over a completely absurd tax proposal.
This morning on Radio 4 Today programme we heard the harrowing account of a then eleven year old Jewish girl's escape from the Germans, though the sewers of Warsaw during the uprising which took place 70 years ago this weekend. The sheer horror of what then took place must AGAIN be generally recognised in Europe, together we must accept and confront the direction we seem to once gain be heading towards similar ghastliness.
That means leadership, which four Parliamentary votes yesterday in Italy failed to achieve but they try again this morning. BUT what are PM Cameron and President Hollande doing this weekend? They need to agree on something other than a tax disputation which was how things were left last evening!
At the same time news emerged that the UK was going to challenge the legality of the Financial Transaction Tax, eleven EU countries are presently preparing under the Enhance Cooperation provisions of the EU Treaties. Open Europe has a good detailed report on that move linked here.
Far be it from me to attack or defend credit rating agencies, which by maintaining any triple A rating for any nation within the Euro Group must IMO be completely disconnected from any reality, but this clear connection in timing has to be pointed out.
France has been the country pushing hardest for the FTT. Its national economic estimates incorporate revenue from the tax which allows the fiction that it will meet its EU agreed targets for the present and coming years even slightly realistic.
Yesterday morning on this blog I suggested Britain and France work together to counter the dangerous direction Germany now seems to be taking our Continent, instead they have picked this fight over a completely absurd tax proposal.
This morning on Radio 4 Today programme we heard the harrowing account of a then eleven year old Jewish girl's escape from the Germans, though the sewers of Warsaw during the uprising which took place 70 years ago this weekend. The sheer horror of what then took place must AGAIN be generally recognised in Europe, together we must accept and confront the direction we seem to once gain be heading towards similar ghastliness.
That means leadership, which four Parliamentary votes yesterday in Italy failed to achieve but they try again this morning. BUT what are PM Cameron and President Hollande doing this weekend? They need to agree on something other than a tax disputation which was how things were left last evening!
Labels: Cameron, FTT, Hollande, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
posted by Martin at 8:04 AM
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