Depressing Times

The price of silver follows the price of gold down. Gold is going down as the US dollar rises as a result of  market uncertainty over the euro. The Germans say the meeting of EU leaders this weekend will not resolve the euro crisis and the markets this morning traded lower. There are rumours that the EFSF will be used to raise €2 or €3 trillion for eurozone bank and sovereign bail outs. Such leveraging we are told by some commentators will likely lead to a downgrade of France's AAA rating which is already under pressure as the country with the worst deficit in the eurozone. If France's AAA rating gets downgraded it will possibly lead to the break up of the euro says Professor Belke of the German think tank DIW Institute. What an unbelievable mess. It is not a surprise though as the mess was foreseen before the euro was set up. Why in the good years did not those in charge of the euro work out a plan to deal with inevitable disasters like the current one? At the very least those in charge have been negligent in the extreme. The tragedy is the mess remains unresolved and is likely to remain unresolved until the whole thing blows up. Better by far to bring the whole crazy experiment to an orderly end now and before the Occupy people get their act together and attract followers of a more sophisticated kind than those we have heard interviewed thus far. The idea that China is going to help the euro seems somewhat forlorn as their economy loses some of its gilt through the slowdown in its growth because of both the problems in the EU and US  economies. In the meantime inflation grows in the UK. What a depressing day.