A Plan to Have a Plan
Research for Online Investors

by John Dalt

10/14/11

G20 Finance Ministers are meeting in Paris today and tomorrow.  Slovakia passed the enhanced European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) on Thursday. It cost Prime Minister Iveta Radicova her job. When the first vote failed, it was seen as a loss of confidence in her administration. Slovak President Ivan Gasparavic plans to dismiss her today and will begin talks with political parties next week to form a new cabinet.

New elections will be held in March 2012.  If the President cannot obtain an agreement from the political parties for a coalition government, he can retain the old cabinet as a “government in demise” or appoint a “caretaker” cabinet of professional bureaucrats until elections.

Iveta Radicova may be the most relieved politician in Europe.   She is now out of the mess called the eurozone.

Finance Ministers are meeting to "flesh out" a plan for rescuing eurozone countries that come under pressure in bond markets. Greece is waiting on $11 billion dollars to pay their bills; Spanish debt was downgraded by Standard & Poor’s on Thursday. S&P also downgraded their credit rating on UK banks Lloyds and Barclays along with UBS of Switzerland.

Inspectors from the “troika” of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Commission are ready to recommend release of the $11 billion dollar loan to Greece.  After meetings with the Greek government, they said they reached agreement on further austerity measures for the country.

Turbo Tim Geithner, U.S. Treasury Secretary, is expected to rattle the Chinese over the Yuan’s valuation.  This guy is about as welcome as insects at a picnic.  He was criticized after the last Finance Minister’s meeting for pressuring them for a bigger response to the crisis.  Now he wants to buzz around, telling anyone that will listen how the Chinese don’t play fair.

Note to Tim; everyone knows it.  They just don’t mention it in polite company.  They all want China to buy their treasury bonds with the excess funds the country has from keeping their currency undervalued.  Oh, and by the way, the U.S. manipulates our currency too!

If you want to do something about China’s unfair trade practices…do something.  Quit acting like children caught in a game of Liar, Liar Pants on Fire.  Use the same WTO rules they use to smite them like the enemies they are.  File unfair trade practice cases, declare some industries as national priorities, and fight fire with fire.

What is the Plan?

The G20 Finance Minister’s meeting will end with few decisions and probably with finger pointing and a split remaining between Germany and France on how to address the credit problems in the eurozone going forward.

Developed countries, including the U.S., Japan, Germany and China, rejected a proposal from developing countries to increase funds available to the IMF.  Speaking about this weekend’s finance minister’s summit and the proposal for banks to take larger write downs on Greek debt than the 21% agreed to in July, French Finance Minister Francois Baroin said, “It will be more, that’s more or less certain.”  What does that mean?

Quote:
The G20 Finance Ministers…This is a plan to have a plan, to have a plan, to have a plan.---Phil Flynn on Fox Business

Obama’s made America so bad, all the Mexicans are going back home.---South Park

The information presented in this newsletter is based on generally available news releases, corporate filings, current events, interviews and the editor’s opinions.  It may contain errors and you should not make investment decisions based solely on what you believe you have read here.  Do your own research, it is your money.  If you lose it, it is your responsibility, not ours or your grandmothers!  The editor may or may not have a position in any securities discussed.  The editor may have held a position in a security earlier, or in the future.

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