25% © fintag

Today's shorts:
Dutch give middle finger to Goldman (global pensions)
AIFM collides with UCITS (hedge week)
Bigots rule Europe (bbc)
US feels smug as Europe burns (anyone for USD?) (reuters)
Wall Street Fights Red Tape: 3rd Time Lucky (msnbc)
Singapore Welcomes Red Tape Haters (bloomberg)
People Who Like Collecting Data To Collect Data (reuters)

Today's longs:
PIGS becomes PUKGSI (telegraph)
Will there be a run on Santander? (bloomberg)
Carbon Trading: Its all smoke and mirrors (dealbreaker)
Bigot Bully Brown Blunder Burns (times)
E&Y to go way of Arthur Andersen (globalpensions)

News comments:
So what do you reckon? 25% drawdown on the Euro versus USD? You see when the Euro started out the rules were tough. It looked like the UK would struggle to join and then the doors opened and any old country could enter. The problem is that Spain is a real estate play, Portugal a gamble on tourism and Greece, well what does Greece produce?

Of course I closed down my Santander bank account yesterday as I don't fancy another Icesave (see my old statement here). Not that one should be gloating over the misfortunes of others but the EU has spent years building up a red tape utopia and just like Rome is failing to see its own demise. A monster has been created.

My favourite demise of the day is our esteemed Prime Minister mishearing a question and apologizing profusely. My other was watching Barca be humiliated by some Italians in the that semi final clash of the most indebted nations in Europe. There does seem to be a correlation of sorts; PUKGSI countries are good at football. Best get my quants to factor that in.

Gossip:
German to launch its own new currency - Euro 2.0