Jean-Claude Trichet, proven the liar this blog always maintained he is!

I will not quote from my many postings of the past on devious dealings of Jean-Claude Trichet, former head of the ECB, but merely quote a passage from what the Acting Man Blog, linked here, has to say on that object today:

Finally investors must come to terms with the fact that when a politician or high-ranking bureaucrat opens his mouth, chances are very good that a blatant lie or grave misjudgment of the situation is about to cross his lips. Here is what the French career bureaucrat and former chief of the ECB, Jean-Claude Trichet, said in late July 2011:

“Speculating on Greece defaulting is a sure way to lose money, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet was quoted as saying in remarks released on Wednesday.

"Such a speculation would be a sure-fire way of losing money given the decisions taken last Thursday," Trichet told French magazine Le Point, according to a transcript of the interview provided by the ECB.”

And below is the outcome of that speculation that was such a 'certain way to lose money' according to Trichet – it was one of the best trades of the century, in all likelihood it is among the top trades in all of history. 5-year CDS on Greece were once available at a premium of a mere 44 basis points (this was back in 2007). Last week, they went out at 26,000 basis points, an increase of 59,000% in five years. The return since Trichet made the remark quoted above was 'only' 1,000%. As sure fire ways of losing money go, we could think of a few other trades, like buying Greek bonds 'because the EU will never allow Greece to default'

Emergency ECB Borrowing and Germany's Euro Imperialism (continued).

I blogged yesterday on Ireland's coming default and Germany's Euro Imperialism, here and here. Both topics require further explanation and elaboration.

Something very fishy is going on between Ireland, presently without a government during its election campaign, and the ECB. An article in the Irish Times this morning, linked here, titled "Irish banks spark surge in emergency ECB borrowing" includes this startling information:

The lenders have used about €15 billion in bonds – State-backed IOUs – issued by the National Asset Management Agency as collateral, or security, to borrow the money.

The Nama bonds, however, are being auctioned with the deposits so they could no longer be used to support week-long loans, given that their sale is expected shortly.

This forced Anglo and Irish Nationwide to swap their existing week-long loans with the ECB for overnight borrowings to pave the way for a quick sale to take place.

The Irish Central Bank referred queries to the ECB, which said it did not comment on the borrowings of individual banks. Anglo, Irish Nationwide and the National Treasury Management Agency, which manages the Government’s banking interests, had no comment either.

The study by Richard Conquest on German Economic Policy and the Euro 1999 - 2010, linked from this blog yesterday and again from here, had the following comments on ECB chief, Jean-Claude Trichet's role in the aggressive destruction of the economies of the EU's non-German economies, which I have branded on this blog German Euro Imperialism, which is almost exactly along the lines of the eventual complete economic domination of Europe prdicted in my novel Millennium Blitzkrieg, published in 2000, which predicted that by 2014, with Europe subdued, German ambitions would turn to the USA. The studies more pertinent quotes are below:

From Page 12

The realities of the situation cannot be freely admitted by the political elite because to attribute any of the blame for Europe’s malaise to the Euro would at once confirm the worst suspicions of the financial markets and precipitate a market-driven crisis that would quickly pass beyond the control of any government. Or, indeed pseudo government such as the Brussels establishment. As time goes on this situation will only become more acute and crises more violent and economically destructive. So,for the time being at least, denial by the elite is the most expedient stance – stating and insisting upon that which they know to be untrue.
Most worrying of all, perhaps, is the fact that the President of the European Central Bank, Jean Claude Trichet, speaks in very much the same terms as the political class. He does not pursue an impartial, objective assessment of economic conditions which would allow the formulation of an appropriate monetary policy response. This is after all the proper function of a central bank governor. But no,

From Page 13

rather, he serves an overtly political purpose. It is not for him to say, for example, which countries should remain in the Eurozone and which should leave. He flatly denies the possibility of the latter option, a manifestly absurd and very political position. History dictates that the politicisation of money always ends in disaster and Trichet is working actively to remind us of the validity of this observation

From Page 15

How could it ever have been seriously argued that the fast-growing Spain, with its enormous trade and current account deficits, apparent well before the coming of the Euro, should share a common interest and exchange rate policy with a slow-growing and export dependent Germany, luxuriating in huge trade and current account surpluses? It was always a recipe for disaster but the political class, including Trichet, are in their comfortable state of denial and of course, in receipt of lavish rewards for their incompetence.1

Footnote 1 on Page 15

Can it be any surprise to learn that Trichet is the latest recipient of the ‘Vision for Europe’ award? Previous laureates have included Jacques Santer, Jean-Claude Juncker, Jean-Luc Dehaene and Helmut Kohl, a depressing and dreary collection of functionaries in the ‘leadership’ of Europe. This award is granted ‘in recognition of outstanding achievements in taking Europe into the future’; self-evidently an exercise in fatuity.The first recipient of this self-congratulatory award was Jacques Santer, former EU President, forced from his extravagant sinecure by Paul Van Buitenen’s devastating accusations of corruption and fraud.

From Page 35

This grim situation has prompted intermittent debate in Italy’s political and economic circles about the desirability or not of that country remaining within the Eurozone – whatever fatuous noises Trichet might make on this issue. The problem then is that this debate is now a matter of concern to German economists and politicians.


From Page 55


Unfortunately there can be no such happy ending to the nightmare of the Euro. Although its disintegration would be economically beneficial in the long term, its demise will be extremely destructive in the near to medium term. The example of the UK simply illustrates that there is life after Euro-folly. However, in the same way that we could not expect that the government would deliver Britain from the absurdities of the ERM, so Europe cannot expect that the likes of Herman Van Rompuy, Manuel Barosso, Jean Claude Trichet and the other grandees and potentates of Europe will deliver the Eurozone from the destructive absurdities of the Euro.

Jean-Claude Trichet seems worried about his pension

In broadcast interviews from Paris this morning (well, well, well working on a Sunday!) Jean Claude Trichet seems to have twigged that if the Euro sinks, so too must the ECB and with it too perhaps his pension. His comments may be read in full from Reuter's, here, I offer these extracts:

Jean-Claude Trichet said the European Union's treaty should be changed to prevent one member state from destabilizing the rest of the bloc, and urged stronger governance of the euro zone.
"In my view it is necessary to change the treaty to prevent one member state from straying and creating problems for all the others," Trichet said in interview broadcast on French radio Europe 1 and iTele television on Sunday.
Asked whether this would mean getting rid of vetoes for member states, he said: "To do this, one even needs to be able to impose decisions."

Italy spreads over bunds breaks 450 bp, Draghi's ECB buying Italian Bonds!

The following quote from Gary Jenkins in the FT ,here, has its amusing side when one reflects Jean-Claude Trichet, named by this blog "The turd in the punch bowl" has finally departed, leaving Europe, not just the EU, in the complete and utter chaos that this blog always predicted over many, many years.

“They have created a situation where the only people buying Italian debt are themselves.”

Of course, when one of the Italians being so obliging, is the new head of the European Central Bank, on his first day at work, it probably has its brighter side, other than just the relief at the departure of the one man walking disaster that was Jean-Claude Trichet.

Unhappily the other Jean-Claude, this time the Luxembourger, Juncker , head of the Euro Group of Finance Ministers, is still on the scene, thus other matters are still going haywire! Even those beyond the chaos in Greece? Italian interest rates have smashed above 6.3% this afternoon, read here.

Merkel and Sarkozy have spoken on the phone and may meet tomorrow. Sarkozy has called an emergency meeting for late this afternoon and more importantly the Greek Cabinet is scheduled to meet at 1600 GMT today!

Prof. Kerber lashes out at ECB and Trichet

Open Europe in its daily press update reports an attack by Professor Markus Kerber on the spendthrift activities of the ECB under the leadership of Jean-Claude Trichet:

Speaking at a New Direction Debate in Brussels, German Professor Markus Kerber, who challenged the eurozone bailouts at the German Constitutional Court said, "it is crystal clear that with his daily buying of government bonds, [ECB President] Jean-Claude Trichet is overstepping his powers,” adding, "the fact that the European Parliament has applauded Trichet shows that it is completely disoriented from its voters, who are weary of the ECB's actions."

Elsewhere in the same report comes the mind-blowing news that from next year banks will be able to unload yet more worthless assets on the already overburdened EU citizenry:

The ECB announced yesterday that it would be easing its collateral requirements by accepting assets, as collateral in exchange for loans, that are not listed on regulated public markets from the start of 2012. This could pave the way for banks to use billions in asset-backed-securities that were previously unsellable, according to CityAM.

ECB's Trichet "No Comment" on Irish Renegotiation

A reporter from the Irish Times, asked as a follow-up question, what the ECB position would be if the Irish people elected a government this month, with a mandate to re-negotiate the bail out as imposed by the EU/IMF, Jean Claude Trichet replied at 1502 CET today - "No Comment"

The essence of the EU crisis is that sovereign nations elect governments which have the right to consider themselves free of contraints imposed by their predecessors, particularly if any re-negotiations of past commitments have been clearly placed before the electors and they have freely voted on such policies.

As I understand it the only party in Ireland not seeking to re-negotiate the imposed bail out deal after the election are presently Fianna Fail, therefore those countries advancing funds to Ireland are deliberately duping their own taxpayers, among those betraying the trust of those putting them in power must also be Jean Claude Trichet and his colleagues within the ECB! 

Greece now appoints an arsonist to extinguish the financial flames.

In selecting Papademos as PM, the Greeks  have not only aquired a man from the ECB with fingerprints all over the scene of the crime, they have also got a former Vice President of the European Central Bank, who sat silently alongside Jean-Claude Trichet for years as the Greek people were sacrificed on the altar of such men's rampant greed and lust for power.

Now we wait and watch to see if millions of Italians will be similarly betrayed in an almost identical manner by getting the EU fanatical Mario Monti appointed over their heads to run their lives down to the smallest detail.

Is one of the main culprits himself, Jean-Claude Trichet, now waiting to step in to Sarkozy's shoes, once Merkel's patience expires and France's triple A rating goes the way of the  French owned bonds of the Italian banks?

Ireland's tumbling PMI illustrates disaster of EU Bail Outs!

The Irish Times this morning, reports the worlwide fall (excluding the USA) in the Purchasing Managers' Confidence index, being particularly bad in Ireland, as follows:

In Ireland, the output reading fell from 52.6 to 48.7, while the new orders index declined from 52.9 to 48.7. Panellists reported declining demand, particularly in the domestic market, as being behind the decline in the new orders index.
Falling new orders led firms to transfer spare resources to complete outstanding business. Consequently, backlogs of work decreased sharply, and at the fastest pace since October 2009.
The drop in new orders also led to job losses for the second consecutive month, with the rate of decline accelerating at the fastest pace in nine months
Input-buying decreased at a solid rate, with the reduction mainly reflecting the decline in new work. The fall in purchasing was the sharpest since February 2010.

This weekend and the early days of next week will be another fascinating period for the EU, as those who purport to lead it, struggle to make sense of the many disparate threads of complete nonsense, muddled thinking and mixed objectives now accumulated.

It will be a little bit like trying to splice back together the two ends of a steel wire rope, which have become severely mangled and mutilated while parting, in the faint hope that such a splice will withstand more strain than that which caused the original break!

This morning the 17 Euro Group Finance Ministers, on a conference telephone call, will be asked to commit their taxpayers to throwing a further 12 billion euros down the drain which Greece has clearly become. Should that commitment be successfully obtained, they will then need to commit to a further package, totalling some 85 to 125 billion euros in a second bail out for Greece, in the certain knowledge that the first, so obviously having failed and not yet complete, will never achieve its supposed objectives, other than keeping the euro together for an extra thirteen months!

The IMF, having already stated its rules will not allow it to contribute to the last tranche of Greek financing under the last bail out, must therefore formulate a new policy under their new head, who is widely reported to be innumerate.

Jean-Claude Trichet at the over-committed ECB, is reported by the EU fanatical and financed EurActiv, (themselves surprisingly sceptical over the outlook,) as follows:

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet, who has repeatedly warned the EU against triggering a credit event or downgrade of Greek debt to default, took a cautious line on the French proposal in testimony in the European Parliament.
At this stage we have not yet [got] a position [...] we are very alert but I cannot give you a precise judgement on what is going on. There are several concepts being examined," he said.

In considering the most likely outcome, surely the world and the market's attention from early next week, and Tuesday will be critical here when Wall Street re-opens, is not which banks now hold Greek debt, but which financial institutions are insuring those bonds and holding the credit default swaps which seem ever more likely to soon fall due for payment!

What next for the two Jean-Claude Tricksters!

Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg, but far more "self-" importantly, Head of the Euro Group (the countries now trapped within the sinking euro currency) was last night clearly to be seen in a state of panic as proven by his public utterances: Juncker warns of further contagion, Forbes; Juncker says Angela Merkel is "Playing with Fire  ...with Extreme Consequences" Business Insider; Greece debt crisis likely to hit Italy, Belgium warns Luxembourg PM, International Business Times, etc.

What news, however, from the prime mover in this disaster, the "Turd in the Punchbowl" himself, Jean-Claude Trichet, for this crisis weekend?  So far, nothing, complete silence!

The IMF and the ECB, Strauss-Kahn and Trichet - John Lipsky owes the world some answers!

The EU/IMF is applying huge pressure on Greece to begin its privatisation programme, read Reuters, from here.

Open Europe's daily press briefing email yesterday included the following statement:

The FT reports that, earlier this month, Jean-Claude Trichet, ECB President, walked out of a meeting with Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg, after Juncker brought up the possibility of a ‘soft restructuring’ of Greek debt. Jürgen Stark, another ECB executive board member, warned that following a restructuring, Greek bonds would no longer be eligible for use as collateral in exchange for lending from the ECB – without which the Greek banks would most likely fail. FAZ argues that the ECB is acting in its own self interest as it would face huge losses from a restructuring given its large holdings of Greek debt.

Press reports following the arrest of DSK over the weekend included a statement that the IMF Chief, always travelled with two Blackberry comminication devices, one of which was encrypted.

John Lipsky owes it to the world, his shareholders, as new acting Head of the IMF, and to the citizens of the EU, to reveal exactly what has been going on between the IMF and the EU over the past year.

How will Greece ever recover, if its citizens are first taxed to death, while concurrently its state assets are all disposed of to foreigners?

EU crisis - Juncker to meet Tremonti on Wednesday

The euro currency is firmly on the skids this evening. Tremonti meeting Juncker tomorrow, read Forbes from here, hardly seems the kind of response that could possible achieve anything.

Gold has hit $1647 an ounce with an hour's trading left to go on the markets in New York.

Read an interesting item, urging Trichet to change his spots and start printing money, titled 'Can Jean-Claude Trichet turn into Jean-Claude Van Damme' from Forex Crunch, linked here.  This being expected from the man who actually raised Euro interest rates just a couple of weeks or so ago.

ECB' s Chief, Trichet calls for a Federal Europe!

Decades of denial come to this!

According to Open Europe's midday newsletter and press briefing of today, Jean-Claude Trichet admitted last evening that present measures will be insufficient to save the Euro currency and that a Federal EU is now the best way out. The exact unsourced quotation from Trichet, according to Open Europe, was as follows:

“Either we prove that we are able to find the new strong reinforced governance concept, which will fit with a constellation of sovereign states and permit the European Union to face up with the new globalised world. Or, we do not convincingly succeed into this direction, and then a new jump in the institutional framework of Europe toward a political federation will appear necessary.”

Further links and updates will be posted from this posting, when available:

More reporting on Trichet's speech iMarketNews.com here and Reuters vis TrustLaw from here.

Europeans must now grasp this nettle!

"It is extremely important that everything is commensurate to the dimension of the challenges," Trichet told journalists at the European American Press Club in Paris, according to Reuters this Friday morning, linked here.

 Reuters report continues "Trichet said that applied to governments' fiscal policies, structural reform and the "collegial collective action that we might have including through the stabilisation fund."

Trichet also said the main lesson of the crisis was the need to strengthen governance, speaking as Spain renewed calls for closer integration of economic policy.

"From our point of view, the main lesson ... is obviously that it is necessary to reinforce the governance of the euro zone countries and of Europe in general,"  he said.

The question that all citizens of the EU should face up to and confront this weekend is in my view best summarised as - "The Euro OR national democracy and independence".

Opting to continue the fight to preserve the Euro currency requires, more debt, more behind closed door decision making and deceit, ever less democracy, ever more regulation, increasing distrust between neighbouring European countries and potentially far, far worse. 

We Europeans cannot bury our heads in the sand any longer, this crisis affects us all and will continue to do so and also most probably impact our children and grand-children for years. We must make our nationally elected politicians aware of our concerns and fears, they are presently apparently paralysed by knowledge of the true depths of the abyss upon whose edge we are poised or ignorant of the obvious and glaring realities. 

Either Jean-Claude Trichet and his backers are victorious and totalitarianism is returned to Europe or we step back, rationally and calmly disband the Euro currency and the corrupted EU institutions and try to make a fresh start towards open trade and free movement of people. 

No sane nor rational people would construct the EU as it is today, nor invest one single centime nor penny of their own money on a construct as dodgy as the present common currency of the Euro!  National leaders, possibly blinded by fears over the futures of their own national banks, should be forced to confront such plain and obvious realities. 

EU Treaty Article 66 & Surging SE England house price rises.

Last night in Parliament, as may be seen at 6 minutes 15 seconds into the video linked from the posting immediately below, the spectre of the EU Council having the right to ban movements of capital to countries outside the EU, was raised by Gisela Stuart MP.

Such a ban would deal a death blow to the City of London, and the mere fact of the existence of such draconian powers is clear evidence of the treason that has been underway in the Palace of Westminster over many years.

Happily the authority of the European Council, with its ludicrous Gollum-like figurehead Van Rompuy in charge, is rapidly losing the small shreds of authority it once may have commanded. The farce of Jean-Claude Juncker's weekend Ecofin Euro Group outcome, and the horrendous debts incurred by Jean-Claude Trichet's misgovernance of the ECB, all point to an early end to the dagger that has for long been pointed at the heart of the City of London from Frankfurt.

One is tempted to wonder if the rise in property prices, as reported by Bloomberg in this link, now being experienced and anticipated in London and the South East, is a sign of a coming re-inforcement in the world role of the City.

The interjection by Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, into the debate over a Greek default, could well be another sign of the shift that may be taking place; Westminster, having ceded its law-makng powers to Brussels, may find them, once reclaimable, eventually coming to rest elsewhere!

If the EU Council wished to ensure a quick and final end to the EU fiasco, trying to activate Aricle 66 with the City of London in their sights, could perhaps find no quicker means to bring a halt to the Euro's death struggles! Surely such an event would finally end any further monetary transfers to the EU, or would Cameron, Clegg, Osborne and Hague continue to consider only their own personal finances which they clearly hope to promote through their ongoing subservience to a clearly collapsing EU, by their ruthless trampling over the economic well-being of the people of Britain.

ECB's Trichet calls for EU finance ministry! Accepts prize for unity!

Things really do seem on the skids this evening. Earlier I blogged that the ECB seemed to be facing bankruptcy, see the posting beneath this, now reports are coming through that the head of this crazed and out of control organisation, Jean-Claude Trichet, is calling for an EU Finance Ministry, presumably to bail out the EU's Central Bank!

Read more from - New York Times, Wall street Journal and The Guardian

Treasure this excerpt and quotation from the WSJ, as Europe stands poised on the brink of yet another disintegration:

In a speech accepting the Charlemagne prize for European unity, Mr. Trichet said the "union of tomorrow" could include veto power for European institutions over national budgets, and even a common European finance ministry to shape countries' economic policies.

Visit the WSJ link to see a photograph of this smug individual, who has followed his destruction of the ERM, with that of the Euro, as he receives his Charlemagne prize. Few modern day Europeans can have experienced such a career, where one catastrophe has followed so quickly upon others.Fewer still could be so blind to the pointless destruction of so many democracies.

J-C Trichet in Frankfurt - is the end of the EU Empire being foreseen by Hennessy?

Hennessy has a new product, the cognac Paradis Impérial has landed. At Frankfurt airport, Germany. Anyone lucky enough to be travelling through Heinemann Duty Free at Frankfurt airport terminal 1B between now and the end of August will be able to purchase a bottle or two of Hennessy’s latest creation, the Paradis Imperial. (Read more publicity blurb here)

Named after a blend created for the Dowager Duchess Empress of Russia, Maria Federovna, for her son the Tsar, one must wonder, bearing in mind what happened to the Russian Imperial Dynasty, what lies in store for the Euro, and the euro currency of the developing EU Empire, based in Frankfurt and likely to be further skewered by Jean-Claude Trichet, who today further raised EU interest rates, to the added agony of the EU periphery.

Has Hennessy serendipity? Why only Franfurt? See more on the new product, just released, from here.

There will be more on this blog, during or immediately after, Trichet's press conference from Frankfurt on a more serious note!

Lazy Greeks or Lazier Germans? Trichet bans Irish Haircuts!

Good background from the Covering Delta blog this evening on trashing a nation's image prior to an invasion. Read it in full from here, or cast your eye over this graphic and extract:

And the mischaracterization of Greeks as “lazy” speaks to a much larger point, and this is that the attacks being leveled against the Greek nation are not only economic and political, but they are also psychological. Whenever a nation comes under occupation, whether that be economic, political or even military, psychological warfare by the occupiers is crucial to maintaining order and stability within the country’s boarders. After all, if a nation feels that it is entirely to blame for its predicament, then it becomes much easier to convince its people that it also deserves to be punished. In the case of Greece, this punishment includes handing over the keys to our government, our sovereignty, and our economic future

No doubt those sick bankers presently salivating over the privatised assets they are about to be donated from the EU political classes they clearly control, will pooh pooh, the OECD data as false time sheets submitted by the untrustworthy Greeks.

Watch out, your country is on their list!

Ireland again had the whip cracked over its head by Trichet this evening, having struck the indebted nation with another quarter per cent interest rate hike this afternoon, he has now confirmed that the Irish State will get no help in their commiment to honour all the debts of all Irish Banks, presumably until the last native Irishman or woman has been forced to leave the country!

Jean-Claude Trichet's new form of ethnic cleansing perhaps?

Eurozone Double Dip Discerned

The Wall Street Journal this morning in New York headlines a report "ECB WATCH: Threat Of Double Dip May Prompt Unexpected ECB Moves" from which comes this:

The economic outlook for the 16 countries in the euro zone is deteriorating, and growth in the region may come to a standstill in the fourth quarter.

Euro-zone private-sector output growth in September slowed beyond expectations to a seven-month low, preliminary results of a survey by data provider Markit showed Thursday.

Ireland, meanwhile, posted an unexpected decline in second-quarter gross domestic product. The country's GDP dropped 1.2% from the first quarter, dashing hopes that the economy had turned a corner.

Cast your minds back to the departure of ECB head Jean Claude Trichet at the press conference before his departure for a holiday, on which I posted on this blog "Smug and self-satisfied Trichet heads for St Malo" linked here, which included this paragraph: The silver tongued and similarly white-haired manipulator of markets, amongst whose many disgraceful battle honours can be numbered the Credit Lyonnaise collapse and the european Exchange Rate Mechanism fiasco, has neatly bluffed the markets, so that like all good eurocrats he can depart for his lengthy undeserved summer vacation, secure in the knowledge that the fog he has dispersed will remain mostly impenetrable until well after his return to Frankfurt. Well the Central Bankers have finally returned to work as the sun slips south across the equator and the fog, for a brief moment, before the winter chill forces a return, has dispersed and the true disaster area of the euro of which Trichet has for long been a prime architect, is clearly in its death throes. How could the ECB head have then gone on holiday, knowing what was in store for us all, after all, this blog got it spot on!

Bundesbank sabre rattling towards the ECB.

There was a fascinating article in Der Spiegel last week, dateline originally 24th May, then to this article of 27th May linked here, which revealed some truly startling facts on the nature of the debts taken up by the ECB from other European National Central Banks.

Much of that article and its various links has now been reproduced and re-issued   with a dateline for today, see here. The conclusion hints at a clear dispute as to the division of power, I quote:

An Extremely Dangerous Development

Economists agree that Greece will not emerge from its crisis without a debt restructuring. "To become competitive again, the country would have to reduce prices and wages by 20 to 30 percent," says Ifo President Sinn. This would correspond to the devaluation that occurred in Germany in the early 1930s as a result of the emergency decrees of then Chancellor Heinrich Brüning. "This sort of thing works in theory, but in practice it leads to the brink of civil war."

The development is extremely dangerous for the ECB. If it hopes to keep faltering Greece afloat with new government loans, it will need the consent of Germany, the biggest financial contributor to the community. But how does it expect to get it if no one in Germany has any faith in its strategy anymore?

As a result, a rethinking of the ECB's approach seems to be taking shape -- not in the bank's Frankfurt directorate, which is stubbornly adhering to the anti-restructuring doctrine, but at its most important branch, the Bundesbank, only a few kilometers farther north.

Last week Jens Weidmann, the new president of Germany's central bank, expressed his views on the subject in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. And to ensure that no one would overlook it, Weidmann uttered a sentence at the beginning of the interview that Trichet would delete from any document: "The Bundesbank is not opposed to a debt restructuring per se."

The problem I now see possibly looming, is that Germany seems about to disown some of the lending practises undertaken by the ECB whilst under Trichet's management. If this extends to a disavowal of some of the detail of the loan structures between the various mechanisms of the EU and those of the IMF, following the May 2010 illegal decision to trash the EU Treaties, taken in Wolfgagng Schauble's absence, then things really are about to get very rocky!

N.B., this quote from the first link in the first paragraph of this posting:

Does The ECB Know How Safe Its Collateral Is?

The ECB maintains a list of "eligible assets," a sort of seal of approval for securities. Every major bank in the euro zone must have such securities, such as bonds or government bonds, or it would be excluded from the money market. There are currently 28,708 securities on the ECB list, with a total value €14 trillion at the end of 2010.(Blog editor's emphasis)

The national central banks determine which securities are placed on the list and under what conditions. "The ECB has no obligation to supervise the central banks, nor does it have the ability to monitor individual central banks," explains an ECB spokesman.

In other words, ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet doesn't even know exactly what kinds of risks he is taking on.

What now?

The intra-connected world economy has failed. Can any believe that today's crisis can be solved by actions of the G20, or the G10 or even the G7?

None can imagine the UN General assemby nor even the Security Council has any part to play in an economic crash.

The EU 27 have long since been proven ineffective as a group, with the botched Lisbon Treaty and the farce of a common EU foreign policy with the massively wasteful External Action Service under the ludicrous Baroness Ashton.

On 21st July the Euro Group of 17 countries, were jointly failed by their political leaders, as this blog recorded at the time. No solution can come from that direction as Jean-Claude Trichet so ably demonstrated in his usual supercilious style at yesterday's press conference.  Trichet's swansong and denouement was aptly similtaneously backed up by the panic-stricken letter from EU Commission President Barosso's letter to the 27 EU Heads of Government, all as reported in my postings of yesterday and forecast in my various blogs of the past several years.

Eventually the Dow in New York closed 500 points down, so what now? The solutions will have to come on an uncoordinated national basis so let's consider my country's situation on its own:

What now for Britain?

Cameron must return from Tuscany and call an immediate emergency Cabinet meeting. Top of the agenda should be the measures Britain must take to insulate itself as best as possible from the consequences of a dissolution of the Euro. It would be sensible for Parliament to be recalled and for George Osborne and Vince Cable to have a meeting with Ed Miliband, Ed Balls, Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling before the Cabinet meets.