Der Euro sollte die Volkswirtschaften der Eurozone stärken. Aber kann die Übernahme einer starken Währung schwachen Ländern Sicherheit bringen? Jetzt, wo einige Länder mit wachsender Arbeitslosigkeit und zunehmenden Haushaltsproblemen zu kämpfen haben, sieht Ian Campell das Eurozonenexperiment vor seiner ersten großen Bewährungsprobe.
by Ambrose Pritchard-Evans
Britain has foreign reserves of under $61bn dollars (£43.7bn), less than Malaysia or Thailand. The foreign liabilities of the UK banks are $4.4 trillion – or twice annual GDP – according to the Bank of England. The mismatch is perilous.
It is why sterling has crashed 10 cents from $1.49 to $1.39 against the dollar in two days. The markets have given their verdict on Gordon Brown's latest effort to "save the world".
Credit default swaps (CDS) measuring risk on British debt have reached an all-time high of 125 basis points, just below Portugal. The yield spread on 10-year Gilts over German Bunds has doubled to 53 basis points since last week.
Standard & Poor's has quashed rumours that it will soon strip Britain of its AAA credit rating – an indignity averted even after the International Monetary Fund bail-out in 1976. But there was a sting yesterday as it responded to the Treasury plan for the banks. "Market confidence in the sector has eroded to such a degree that it is not clear whether these measures by themselves will bring about a material improvement," the IMF said. "As a result, full nationalisation of some banks remains a possibility in our view."
Spain was relegated from AAA to AA+ on Monday, and Spain's public debt is a much lower share of GDP.
"If Spain can get downgraded, then the risks for the UK are self-evident," said Graham Turner, of GFC Economics. "The increase in the UK gross public debt burden – 11.8 percentage points in just one year – is troubling. The market rightly fears the long-term fiscal costs of a collapsing banking system. Rising Gilt yields are the main impact of the botched move from the UK Treasury."......if Britain walked away from UK banks' $4.4 trillion of foreign liabilities – worth eight times Lehman Brothers – it would destroy the credibility of the City and take the whole world into deeper depression.
"The UK cannot go down that route because it would set off an asset price death spiral," said Marc Ostwald, a bond expert at Monument Securities. "The Western banking system is already on life support. That would turn it off altogether." www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/...elands-soft-option.html