£6billion to Portugal?

[stoop]

Hey up - well have to stop agreeing like this ;-)

[stoop]

Another thing- remember when the euro came in and how much everything went up? Well it's come back to bite them on the bum now.

[usedbustickets]

Stoop I'm still not clear on what it is that Darling signed up to that has got you all in a lather ... he certainly didn't sign up for euro membership, so what is it exactly has he done?

[Highlander]

He signed the UK up to the new EU stability mechanism aimed at bailing out the countries like Portugal. And he did it having just lost the election. MUPPET

[Colwyn]

Usedbustickets, Stoop has forgotten to mention one little point. The vote on this issue was one of those requiring a majority vote only the UK had no veto. So whether Darling voted in favour or against it was going to go through and anyway.

Ed Balls also told the BBC that Georgie Osbourne had agreed to the deal. Ossie has probably forgotten; he's good at that - he has completely no recollection of the worldwide crisis of finacial capitalism and thinks George Brown caused all the difficulty.

[Ovacikpeedoff]

The UK government signed the Lisbon treaty in 2008. The basis of the treaty was to ensure stability and development in the EU and not just the Eurozone. This was before what has happened recently in the financial markets.

A major financial centre like London cannot bury its head in the sand.  The city is the biggest earner for the UK. The days of manufacturing are long gone. The billions that flow into the city every day could easily disappear to Frankfurt or New York. The city has to be seen as an important player and has to take some of the responsibility for managing the financial markets.So the UK to avoid ratifying this treaty could have been the end of the City of London.

Today, financial market are global markets and are interdependent on each other. If portugal, Ireland or Greece went under where do you think the major losses would be incurred. It would not be in those countries it would be in the financial centres like
London.

I am no lover of the Labour party but Brown and Darling did come out ith a lot of credibility for their involvement in returning stability to the world markets.

The Euro is a flawed currency and was from the start and the first major recession proved it. The rules that were set before a country could join the Euro were never applied. On day 1 Germany, the biggest country, failed the three tests.

[BM06]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=STE20110408&articleId=24230 Colwyn I tried to find the article regarding the interest rate, I am sure it was on sky news? but can not find a link, but as you say it does seem a bit high!

[Colwyn]

BM06, Portugal was only paying 5.11% (6 months) and 5.9% (one year) on the commercial markets before it applied for the bail-out. They will be hoping that the 80billion reduces the (financial) cost considerably - in human terms they will take one hell of a whack of course.

[Ovacikpeedoff]

The interest rate on any ECB or IMF loans have not been set.

The way any country raises finance is by issuing bonds. These bonds are bought by other governments and financial institutions. To sell these bonds the government has to pay a rate of interest to encourage investors. The higher the risk the higher the rate. So investors are now looking for over 8% to invest in Portugal. The IMF rate will be somewhere near to Ireland at about 5.5%.

Reading BM06 global search article just highlights the cost in human terms. It is like being on an out of control roundabout. We have seen nothing yet because if Spain goes Europe will not be able to bail it out and we could have a worldwide depression.

[Old Daffodil]

Quick everyone book holidays in Spain!