However sceptical one is over the eurozone it has to be admitted that it makes for good fun as well as nice forex movements. The weekend G7 in Florida produced the usual platitudes from politicians, claiming that all parties were in agreement and had a wonderful relationship. Yet as soon as everyone got home to the wife the weekends musings were quickly dismissed as a pina colada fuelled holiday fling. Everyone has got back to business as usual. The Us claim they want a strong dollar, which is true, just not as strong as it is now. Germany wants a weaker euro and lower interest rates whilst the French don't really care as long as they can keep their politicians out of jail for fiddling the books.The Japanese want to keep buying dollars and lending the US money so that they can buy Japanese goods whilst the UK are quite happily chuckling from the sidelines. Today the Austrians and the Swedes, at their own G 102 Group of less significant countries meeting, decided to punish Germany for not being allowed to sit at the big boys table by saying that they are quite happy with the Euro where it is.
Oh what a tangled web we weave when we try and let politicians manage macor-economic policy. There lies the problem with the single currency. You remove the power of the market to punish the mistakes of politicians via freely floating exchange rates, and then the only way to correct those mistakes is by those same politicians, who messed it up in the first place, making the correct fiscal decisions. Surely even the most pro-european would have to agree that the demise of the "suicide pact" has proved that this is a triumph of optimism over experience.
A report from the Morgan Stanley bond desk has highlighted these problems and suggests that we are witnessing what could be the start of the dismantling of the single currency. MS believe that speculators will target the government bonds of some of the less stable eurozone countries resulting in those countries ditching the euro. Should this occur our belief that the "proud pound" will strengthen against the euro ought to be realised as speculators will look for blue chip plays on the periphery of the euro zone such as Norway and good old Blighty.
Many thanks to the readers who have been sending me information on Winters clone Vince Stanzione. In fact I don't think clone is fair as he seems to be getting away with charging even more than "Doji Daz" with £2500 per person for his group seminars. I'm surprised he needs to charge so much as according to him he makes a fortune from trading. I'm curious. I seem to remember a chap with a very similar name who made his money from selling mobile phones and who, when having an account at a firm that rhymes with Cantors (oops), hardly ever traded and when he did regularly lost money. Could this really be the same person? Surely not, but I think I am going to have to take a closer look at this chap and I think I'm going to enjoy it.
Inspector Harry
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