DID WE GET A RESULT?

Angie won big.  Note I said Angie, for her victory was very much a personal one and it was she that dragged her party along.  It was short of an outright majority, however, and while a far better showing that last time around, her popularity may just what mucks up the entire thing because her party's partner in the coalition, the FDP, did not achieve the 5% of the vote needed to have representation in the legislature.  Without a partner, the Angie cannot govern and now the question is where do we go from here?

The western press, who tend to be a touch on the liberal side, jumped all over this and began speaking in terms of a "grand coalition" involving the SPD which in effect would give the left (who just got trounced) a hole card to play in future governance.  Frankie in France might even enter a church to pray for such a result which is why there is going to be a whole lot of shakin' goin' on before that happens.  The next EU conference will be a snore session but the economic problems that plague the southern tier, especially Greece, will probably worsen over the remainder of the year.  Remember, even the Germans admit that the Greeks are going to need so 10 billion Euros in the spring which marks another big swallow for the German taxpayer as well as the rest of the mob.  Euro elections come up in I think March which means that unless there is a change in the projected environment, we limp into the summer of 2015 pretty much with no change from now which is not a good thing.

Oddly, from my standpoint at least, this is not a bad thing because I was clearly wrong in stating that they might not get this far.  Good on 'em they made it.  But this kind of performance cannot continue and yet I see no grand design that will change what is other than a very desultory picture for the future.  It is true that economic performance number for Euroland have improved but those are German performance 1/3 of which involves intra Europe transactions.  For how long can we expect this to continue?

And then there are the banks and the regulating thereof.  A story unto itself which we shall try to decipher as the week moves on.  Stay tuned.