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European Leaders Agree To Financial Rescue Package
telegraph.co.uk — Gordon Brown has won heavyweight European backing for a £12 billion immediate rescue package for small businesses in peril because of the credit crunch.
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- MacBookForMe, on 10/05/2008, -5/+11Feed the wealthy bank crooks to be even more wealthy on public expense.....and reward them for their basic financial criminal activities by not performing their only bank rule activity of measuring risk of their investments...:)
- computershack, on 10/05/2008, -1/+3Err, we're bailing out small businesses, not the banks.
- kjubik, on 10/05/2008, -0/+1And where does that money end up to?
- nick1971, on 10/05/2008, -0/+2The European plan is structurally different than the US package but "Gott es will" that you look at the article or research the background. I think if you did so you would be labeled a communist.
- computershack, on 10/05/2008, -1/+3Err, we're bailing out small businesses, not the banks.
- hnazareth16, on 10/05/2008, -10/+14Interesting -- Europeans are facing a financial crisis of their own to some degree, but yet instead of creating a $700 billion Bailout Plan to save the wealthy, they're making one to save the little guy.
- Hockey13, on 10/05/2008, -6/+19Wrong.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambrose ...
The Europeans are doing precisely the same thing the Americans are doing, only perhaps worse.- bal00, on 10/05/2008, -2/+6That plan was rejected.
"Only the Dutch seemed to approve of the notion of a 27-country, £230 billion fund to be used when one of the member states’ key banks or financial institutions faces serious trouble." - Hockey13, on 10/05/2008, -1/+2Which plan? There are multiple plans mentioned in that article. Many of the individual member nations of the EU are reacting almost exactly the same as the US. FTA:
By Monday, Mr Steinbrück was having to orchestrate Germany's biggest bank bail-out, putting together a €35 billion loan package to save Hypo Real Estate. By then Europe was "staring into the abyss," he admitted. Belgium faced worse. It had to nationalise Fortis (with Dutch help), a 300-year-old bastion of Flemish finance, followed a day later by a bail-out for Dexia (with French help).
Within hours they were all trumped by Dublin. The Irish government issued a blanket guarantee of the deposits and debts of its six largest lenders in the most radical bank bail-out since the Scandinavian rescues in the early 1990s. Then France upped the ante with a €300 billion pan-European lifeboat for the banks. - sprash, on 10/05/2008, -1/+3Wrong!
Instead of lowering key interest rates like the British and Americans the ECB was raising it and keeping it stable. So the ECB limited the printing of Euros and with that limited the devaluation of savings of most citizens. The guy in the article criticizes the ECB for exactly that and so somehow contradicts himself.
However the final rescue package was in the end not a real one because now the agreement is that every state does things on his own and when something might happen they might probably get together again sometime. - Hockey13, on 10/05/2008, -1/+2sprash, I agree with you with regard to the ECB's efforts to stem inflation, but in terms of bailing out banks, the individual member nations seem to be on par with the US.
- bal00, on 10/05/2008, -1/+1The EU-wide €300 mil fund didn't pass, neither did the Hypo Real Estate bailout.
- mrigns, on 10/05/2008, -1/+2The Hypo Real Estate bailout was rejected, no money for the big guys this time.
- Hockey13, on 10/05/2008, -0/+1Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The German government and the country's banks and insurers agreed on a 50 billion euro ($68 billion) rescue package for commercial property lender Hypo Real Estate Holding AG after an earlier bailout faltered.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&si ...
Looks like it actually hasn't been rejected. - Hockey13, on 10/05/2008, -0/+1Also:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/function/0,2145,12215_ci ... - bal00, on 10/06/2008, -0/+0Not rejected, but changed. The financial industry is now providing most of the capital for Hypo Real Estate.
The guarantee for private accounts in Germany is not an issue because the vast majority of these accounts are already very well insured. The insurance limit for a Citibank account is 243 million Euros (per customer), for example.
- bal00, on 10/05/2008, -2/+6That plan was rejected.
- ChayD, on 10/05/2008, -0/+4This is for small businesses, not banks as far as I'm aware (although, I would think that (high street) banks would benefit by not having customers going bust on them)
- Hockey13, on 10/05/2008, -6/+19Wrong.
- hwy9nightkid, on 10/05/2008, -5/+19I knew America could be a leader once again..!
- baldgye, on 10/05/2008, -8/+18I don't know why people are against the bailout plan... sure the top guys are going to be safe, but they always where... I'd rather have the banks bailed out, then watch the global economy go to total *****.
And us Europeans are now realising how many big corporations, and banks had money invested in the states..- Br3ach, on 10/05/2008, -4/+5Im against it because it doesnt fix the core of the problem, just props up what is left and gives the burden to US taxpayers. The bailout may not even work the way they want it to, now the rest of the world seems to be following suit as the American systems break down
- nick1971, on 10/05/2008, -2/+3The US tax payers are involved in the ECB (EZB) intervention because .......
some of you have a passport
some of you have heard of Europe
some of you have been here
some of you have a globe and realize there is a land mass outside the US
some of you have realized that when you come to Europe speaking louder and slower does not always help because we are neither deaf nor stupid
- nick1971, on 10/05/2008, -2/+3The US tax payers are involved in the ECB (EZB) intervention because .......
- djoobacca, on 10/05/2008, -5/+5maybe because no one wants to pay more taxes to bailout crooks?
- stagmire, on 10/05/2008, -2/+3Good point. We should let the economy collapse so that no one has any income and therefore no one pays taxes.
- djoobacca, on 10/05/2008, -8/+2@stagmire, don't know how they do things in your communist country but this is america. we don't bailout anybody. if economy collapses it is not the tax payers' fault but the idiot managers' who ran their companies into the ground through corrupt practices. if we bail these thieves out, they will continue abusing the system. got that, you dirty little commie? go back to china.
- Hockey13, on 10/05/2008, -1/+1@stagmire
Good point. When faced with a financial seizure, economies simply collapse to the point where everyone's real income is zero. That's how it works.
Keep telling yourself that wealth is created solely through debt and be on your merry way. - nick1971, on 10/05/2008, -0/+3Actually djoobacca you already have.
Before you fall back to the standard US argument our economy is great and no one / nothing can touch us I would respectfully suggest that this economic crisis will require more than hiding under the sheets and singing a mixture of hail to the chief, America America and god bless America interspersed with USA, USA screamed at high volume.
The international community is scared and is interlinked with the US economy.
The dollar is weak at the moment because you are carrying 10 Trillion dollars of debt and a trade deficit of 800 Billion dollars. This is before the financial services intervention which your government is pulling together. We (and I live in Germany) are the countries outside of the US are the people who hold this debt and we who now hold slightly less than 50% of the publicly held and publicly traded U.S. Treasury securities, 25% of corporate bonds, and about 12% of U.S. corporate stocks.
Should the US economy undergo a near-collapse as would be the case were no intercession to take place then you only need to read the following document to understand the horrors of this scenario.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL34319.pdf
The intervention which needs to take place is for the market & yes this will mean that some of the debt that needs to be purchased from non US investors. - stagmire, on 10/05/2008, -0/+2"this is america. we don't bailout anybody."
I laughed. Last time I checked Chrysler was still making cars.
- spyd3rweb, on 10/05/2008, -2/+6If a business makes a bad choice, why should taxpayers pay for it.
- ptemple, on 10/05/2008, -0/+2Your average business does not tend to hold the life savings of most of the population. You need to calculate whether going ahead with the recovery plan will cost more or less in the long term. If liquidity of credit is the most immediate problem, and the immediate effect on the economy coming crunching to a halt with associated job and home loss will be more devastating than a fair portion of the debt having to be written off in the long term, then it sounds like a good plan. If the current liquidity of credit problem is actually only covering a very immediate massive hole caused by an ill-structured economy that would have imploded whether this crisis came up or not then it would be throwing good money after bad and the market should be left to self-correct. Pretty much all the world leaders, European as well as US (both potential plus the one incumbent) believe the former. Without any evidence to the contrary I am forced to agree.
Phillip. - baldgye, on 10/05/2008, -1/+1becasue these are NOT business, they are BANKS.
- ptemple, on 10/05/2008, -0/+2Your average business does not tend to hold the life savings of most of the population. You need to calculate whether going ahead with the recovery plan will cost more or less in the long term. If liquidity of credit is the most immediate problem, and the immediate effect on the economy coming crunching to a halt with associated job and home loss will be more devastating than a fair portion of the debt having to be written off in the long term, then it sounds like a good plan. If the current liquidity of credit problem is actually only covering a very immediate massive hole caused by an ill-structured economy that would have imploded whether this crisis came up or not then it would be throwing good money after bad and the market should be left to self-correct. Pretty much all the world leaders, European as well as US (both potential plus the one incumbent) believe the former. Without any evidence to the contrary I am forced to agree.
- Hockey13, on 10/05/2008, -3/+10Your comment is based on the assumption that the economy will "go to *****" if the banks aren't bailed out. Nowhere do you describe what it means to "go to *****," how it might "go to *****," or for how long it might "go to *****." This is what's wrong with the debate over the financial crisis. It's gotten to the point where people who have never studied economics for a moment in their lives think the debate boils down to:
Bailout = economy goes good, but we have to pay for it
No bailout = economy goes bad, but we will have to pay more soon anyway
To put it exceedingly simply, a bailout of banks might make it seem like the economy is recovering in the short term, but the huge injection of monetary liquidity and government regulation will have enormous unintended consequences. Trying to patch up major problems simply doesn't work. Stowing the "bad debt" away in a government vault will do nothing to stimulate growth in the long term. All it will do is delay the necessary changes needed in the market. I work very closely to this industry and there are already several genius solutions to the information problem in asset-backed securities (i.e., the buyer of the security has no real information on the payments of mortgage pass-throughs, ergo a huge opacity premium on yields), and this bailout has simply delayed those ideas from coming forward, because now the government is choosing (at its OWN discretion) which asset management firms will get to decide how much these things are worth. That is the very definition of government inefficiency, and it will cost taxpayers a lot of money.
- Br3ach, on 10/05/2008, -4/+5Im against it because it doesnt fix the core of the problem, just props up what is left and gives the burden to US taxpayers. The bailout may not even work the way they want it to, now the rest of the world seems to be following suit as the American systems break down
- djoobacca, on 10/05/2008, -25/+3who cares what eurotrash leaders agree to?
- zephyear, on 10/05/2008, -2/+15hurrdurr europhobia is so cool hurrrrrrrrdurrrrrrrrr
- djoobacca, on 10/05/2008, -11/+3europhobia? hah, you kidding? in america we love europeans. they're even more stupid than our rednecks. they do all sorts of things for us like dying in iraq and afghanistan. europhobia my ass, lol.
- Carrot1991, on 10/05/2008, -3/+6You ARE a redneck. GTFO.
- mickstephenson, on 10/05/2008, -1/+4to anyone wishing to pass judgment on this comment, or any other submitted by this idiot.
DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS - ChayD, on 10/05/2008, -0/+3Who cares what you think?
- djoobacca, on 10/05/2008, -3/+2apparently you do.
- zephyear, on 10/05/2008, -2/+15hurrdurr europhobia is so cool hurrrrrrrrdurrrrrrrrr
- caracter2, on 10/05/2008, -5/+13STOP IT!! STOP IT!!! The US is giving everyone bad ideas!!
- Katana314, on 10/05/2008, -2/+2THE MADNESS IS SPREADING
- Albumen, on 10/05/2008, -1/+3***** man. Whine much?
- JackOCat, on 10/05/2008, -1/+4SO all world leaders a wrong... and digg commenters are right. Got it.
- ptemple, on 10/05/2008, -0/+1Pretty sure we started nationalising the banks with Northern Rock before the US got in on the act with Freddie, Fannie and AIG.
Phillip.
- haentz, on 10/05/2008, -11/+5Well, my dad warned me years ago not to even think about investing in US stocks. I didn't. Wish the bankers here in Europe had such a clever dad as well...
- stagmire, on 10/05/2008, -3/+18OMG RON PAUL THE FED....oh wait, Europe?
- Agonizing_Gas, on 10/05/2008, -4/+7With the way the dollar is falling, that's like $700 billion American...
- PeanutCheeseBar, on 10/05/2008, -5/+4First the United States, and now Europe?
It all comes tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling down...- kakwakas, on 10/05/2008, -0/+4It all returns to nothing.
- kaskarn, on 10/05/2008, -3/+17First, we are talking about less than 30B dollars here, not 700. Second, the money is not going to major financial institutions but to smaller businesses. You can complain if you want to, but don't copy and paste your comments on the American bailout article, considering how widely different the two plans are.
- Nielsio, on 10/05/2008, -0/+2Corporate welfare is corporate welfare, no matter who you give it to. And that's just it, it's not given, because the government doesn't own it. It first has to be stolen from someone (through the banking cartel) and then it can be handed out.
Now, I can write a long paragraph about the economic effects of this, but if you don't get this, then you won't get anything: theft is bad, mmkay.
- Nielsio, on 10/05/2008, -0/+2Corporate welfare is corporate welfare, no matter who you give it to. And that's just it, it's not given, because the government doesn't own it. It first has to be stolen from someone (through the banking cartel) and then it can be handed out.
- zippy757, on 10/05/2008, -3/+11yes...it's global conspiracy... the rich around the world are working a coordinated plan to acquire the of the wealth they don't already have...
Get real.
The odd thing is, last time I checked, banks and wall street firm where owned by their share holders... and those share holder appear to be the citizens of the countries...why would the citizen of any country want to destroy their own wealth by killing the place they put their investments ?
The reason this gets traction on DIGG is because most folks on DIGG are simply too young to have acquired wealth yet.
BUT...if they thought about it, they would want to help their parents maintain their wealth, so that can can inherent it. - mastermemorex, on 10/05/2008, -1/+13Here in Europe the crisis is seen in a very different point of view. All countries are acting on their own to face the crisis for their own interest, but all fairly agree to help businesses that are the ones which create real wealth in the economy and not the banks. They will not hesitate to send all banks to bankrupt and nationalize them. From the point of view of Europe, the plan that has been approved by the US government is like blowing more oxygen to a fire.
- ohreilly, on 10/05/2008, -1/+1"They will not hesitate to send all banks to bankrupt and nationalize them" (what does this mean? I'm assuming you mean they will not hesitate to let them go bankrupt)
Here in the UK = nationalised Northern Rock, the crap bits of Bradford and Bingley. UK government leaning on Lloyds TSB to get them to buy HBOS
Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg = partially nationalised Fortis
- ohreilly, on 10/05/2008, -1/+1"They will not hesitate to send all banks to bankrupt and nationalize them" (what does this mean? I'm assuming you mean they will not hesitate to let them go bankrupt)
- Bloodwine, on 10/05/2008, -0/+4Well, this should be good news for the U.S. dollar. If Europe starts doing bailouts, that should keep the Euro from trampling the U.S. dollar. Looks like the West as a whole is about to have a bit less purchasing power.
- uninspireded, on 10/05/2008, -1/+5The bailout is for "Small Businesses", *not* banks.
- powatom, on 10/05/2008, -1/+10This is a bailout for SMALL BUSINESSES - not banks. The idea is that by propping up the little guy - the ones who didn't land us in this mess in the first place, then the effects will 'trickle up' - it's pretty much the exact opposite of the American bailout, where the effects were to trickle down from the top. If the businesses - the ones which generate wealth in the first place - can survive, then their own banking behaviour should at least buffer banks from bankruptcy. It is the banks themselves which will have to reign in their spending with this plan.
It's not ideal - the entire system is still a mess in the first place, but I would say it's better than rewarding the ultra-rich for being such colossal *****-ups. - mastermemorex, on 10/05/2008, -2/+4A bailout like the US is nearly impossible in Europe. ¿Why Spain should help a bank in Holand? ¿Why French should help a bank in Ireland? All countries has their own mess.
- rootsm3, on 10/05/2008, -1/+2¿What the ***** are you doing?
- Earendil1, on 10/05/2008, -1/+3¿Viva la Spain?
- mastermemorex, on 10/05/2008, -0/+3I don't understand your comment. It is the common opinion here. In Spain the financial system is not facing (for the moment) any serious problem because their strict regulations. In Spain the problem is unemployment, not financial. In Ireland they have problems because of the inmobiliary bubble while French were trying to correct that years before.
- rootsm3, on 10/05/2008, -3/+1I understand your point, but the inverted question marks? ¿
- burketo, on 10/05/2008, -0/+1@mastermemorex: Ireland's financial troubles were a home affair that were confounded by the american crash. We came into trouble because the banks started giving out 100 and even 110 percent mortgages believing the price of houses would go up forever. bloody idiots.
Luckily our government took the step that the rest were afraid to and we bailed out our banks. Now, while the rest of europe scrambles to do the same while simultaneously grumbling to the media about our actions, our banks are raking in the cash from all over europe and the states, stabilizing our economy.
I've never been happier that we voted no to lisbon!!
- glenSM, on 10/05/2008, -0/+2Yeah Ireland was riding high for a bit but it has plateaued, a lot of people cant get jobs in construction etc. But everyone will get through it.
Lets hope Europe doesn't go through what the US is going through.
- rootsm3, on 10/05/2008, -1/+2¿What the ***** are you doing?
- travbrack, on 10/05/2008, -0/+6£12 billion eh? So what's that? like 6 trillion USD right?
- mastermemorex, on 10/05/2008, -0/+1No must be 12 UK billions.
Wait! I've got it XD
- mastermemorex, on 10/05/2008, -0/+1No must be 12 UK billions.
- glenSM, on 10/05/2008, -0/+2dammit the nwo controls all :X wheres my tinfoil hat
- savagesteve13, on 10/05/2008, -2/+1No surprise European banks are going under, because the Federal Reserve is a group of european banks. If we go down, they go down too.
- Sefus, on 10/05/2008, -1/+2This whole thing is falling apart. Anyone seen Esoteric Agenda?
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