Word on the streets is that there is a big German bank, possibly the second biggest in Germany, needing bailout funding. Like many European Banks it made hay at the expense of the peripherals and the ECB but now given the talk of debt defaults, haircuts and increased capital requirements its position is becoming increasingly fragile. If the SoFFin rescue fund is reactivated look for a German bank shedding its liabilities…………

This follows another European bank, probably French, which needed to cover a dollar position a few weeks ago. The only institution which stepped in was the Fed fearing a Euro meltdown and contagion.

So if these stories are to be believed we see the two founders of the Lisbon2 Treaty up to their eyeballs in the mucky stuff. Nothing like that for concentrating minds though and let’s not forget these people will be well aware of this stuff well before it becomes public knowledge!

With that action by the Fed and its current agreement to cover all Euro dollar positions we have to ask what was demanded by way of payback? Looks fairly certain the subject matter of the last EU summit, the one Dave walked away from, will contain the answers! One of the biggest ‘ideas’ is to have the ECB as lender of last resort but legally it can’t do that. Not to be sideswiped by something as insignificant as the law the Eurocrats, and for that read the Fed, now want the ECB to take over and capitalise all those Euro rescue vehicles identified by the dammed silly acronyms so the ECB can provide funding for them and they in turn can provide funding for sovereign debt. That, like imposing Troika mandated unelected leaders, is playing fast and loose with principles we are supposed to hold dear.

"The question of lender of last resort remains unresolved and the UK's economic future will continue to hang in the balance until it has been sorted."

The UK’s economic future will continue to hang in the balance until such time as our leaders start and concentrate their minds on domestic issues rather than trying to interfere in continental political gyrations in which we have never really had any influence. We have a domestic economy woefully out of balance, high streets are imploding, SME’s starved of investment, manufacturing allowed to wither, to name but a few. The current answer, protect the financial sector at all costs, someone has got to be having a laugh and it’s not the taxpayers!

Economies are in dire startis, but I can count on this!