A NEW DAY DAWNING?

Not from where I sit.  Not from where my really smart friend Larry sits either.  He's gloomier than I am but then again he has a 5000 bottle wine cellar of really special Shirazs from Oz and a whole bunch of great Eyty stuff that he couldn't possibly drink so if anyone will stand me the price of a ticket to London life may well begin to look a bit brighter.

The Greeks collected 120 million Euros for three years from Euroland and a bundle from the IMF who is back in the nation building business once again after about 10 years of 10,000 out-of-work economists in search of a mission.  God's in his heaven, yada, yada.  I've seen this show before.  It will take about six months for the Greeks to announce that they can't possibly comply with the IMF mandates whilst in the mean time the punters will be beginning to pound the 'Geese and the Spanish into submission while whomsoever is in charge of that gaggle that will be the House of Commons will be wrestling with what both of us fear will become the most unmanageable nation in Europe.  Now, as Larry suggests this may all be a ploy on the part of the Euros who, knowing this deal hasn't a chance of working just wants to set up a smoke screen for the eventual rescheduling of all of these debts which are lodged in the banking system, but I'm not so sure.  You see, Larry is a hell of a lot smarter than the guys (and gals) running this thing and whilst that's what HE would do, this mob hasn't figured it out...yet.  Then again they might ask him for advice which they can probably get for free because God knows he doesn't need the money.  That will give the two of us a wonderful opportunity to get gloriously drunk, sit back and laugh our bums off at the scene before us.   If anyone's interested, I have his number.

Back on this side of the pond, The Leader is reveling in some good economic numbers which, sadly for him, have been over-shadowed by the oil spill in the Gulf.  I think they are trying to blame it on George Bush but so far no such luck.  The Fed is making encouraging sounds but still refuses to tighten up and the exposure to Fanny and Freddie just keeps going up.  You may think I'm nuts but you heard it here first: I have seen financial institutions estimate possible losses in various sectors for almost 40 years.  Those estimates all have one thing in common; they are always too optimistic.  I think that at the end of the day the U.S. taxpayer is looking at one trillion in losses in these two pieces of junk and in the FHA.  Suddenly, there comes the revelation that the bill put forward by Chris the Crook doesn't even mention Fan and Fred. Whatupwiththat?  People are also coming to the understanding that not much is accomplished by this rubbish legislation, that TBTF remains, that Poo Bair hasn't a clue and will not have a clue as to how to deal with, say, a Bank of America much less Citigroup and the real effect of the language on derivatives will be to drive the business into the arms of institutions that we can't touch.  Amazingly, it's the academics that are beginning to sound the alarm which is scary in itself.  Yessirree, a real bright horizon out there.

We shall be following the sequence of events but in the mean time you will be happy to know that the rain held off for a time and the tomatoes were put in.  A Victory Garden and Larry's cellar may get us through this.