Dunno if you lesen Deutsche, but I do and from what I’m reading in the German business press.... they’re fairly well screwed.
The thing that most people here in the cave-man like US (as seen from the EU’s eyes) is how sophisticated all these Europeans are. Why, this is why they decided to have the Germans run the banks in the EU, and have the French run the political show.
Now it appears that the Germans have left a few potato mashers laying around in the cupboards in the bank managers’ offices... with the pins pulled.
Whoopsie.
I was reading up on the Fortis/Hypo charlie-foxtrot on Sun/Mon evening. My wife was wondering what I found so funny... I tried to explain it to her, but the humor in the German language doesn’t quite translate to English. I have to explain it to people in terms like a Three Stooges episode: so there’s Curly, walking along and he steps on a garden rake, which pops up and smacks him right in between the eyes.... he falls backwards into Mo, who then falls backwards through a plate glass window into a basement, on top of a housewife who is ironing her laundry.
Larry rushes into the situation, helps the poor lady out of her basement, but neglects to pull the plug on the iron, which then sets the laundry alight, which burns down the house.
All because someone left a garden rake laying on the sidewalk.
Curly is the German banker, the rake is their leverage tied to US swaps, Mo is the Bundesbank banker and Larry is played by whatever German politician you’d like to insert into this comedy of errors...
Ich habe keine (or is it 'kein'?) Deutsch. Sehr schade. Eine kleine Nachtmusik, bitte!
;^)
The politico I should like to insert into your ‘3 Stooges’ scenario is my old ‘’friend’’ Gerhard Shoe-Odor, now a lobbyist for a Russian-German energy firm.