Monday 16 February 2009

Please buy my debt

Everyone wants a piece of the bailout action. From the FT....

Europe’s central banks and governments should consider buying corporate debt on an emergency basis to stop businesses going bankrupt in the recession, the leader of the European Union’s employers’ federation said on Monday.

The proposal of Ernest-Antoine Seillière, president of BusinessEurope, underlined the anxiety of numerous companies about securing access to credit as Europe suffers its most severe economic conditions since the second world war.

EU governments and central banks have pledged hundreds of billions of euros over the past six months in various schemes aimed at saving national bank systems and restoring credit flows to pre-recession levels.


I think my blog needs a bailout. Do you think the Bank of England might give me some money?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

...only to keep quiet....

Anonymous said...

Obvious question: what happens if the ECB buys a corporate bond, and the issuer defaults?

Anonymous said...

Mr. Seillière wants a bailout. Understandable really, everyone else has their hand in the till, why not him?

Unknown said...

I'll give you a bailout.

Here's a 5 billion pound IOU.

Hurry up and go spend it, we need to reflate, don't you know.

mike said...

I would be anxious if I was in the Euro zone.

LD, the likelihood of 'default' is quite high in my opinion given the amount of money needed to stabilise the eastern countries. This recent Telegraph article detailed some shocking statistics:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/4623525/Failure-to-save-East-Europe-will-lead-to-worldwide-meltdown.html

It says:

Austria's finance minister Josef Pröll made frantic efforts last week to put together a €150bn rescue for the ex-Soviet bloc. Well he might. His banks have lent €230bn to the region, equal to 70pc of Austria's GDP. A failure rate of 10pc would lead to the collapse of the Austrian financial sector," reported Der Standard in Vienna. Unfortunately, that is about to happen.

I predict this will be the next major crisis to come to surface. It might lead to the bear share market that some people were predicting last year. Let's hope the UK does not have to contribute to bailing them out.