Does the Chinese word for crisis = danger + opportunity? No! This is a widespread public misperception. However, there certainly may be opportunities ahead: our current crisis is indeed an "incipient moment; crucial point (when something begins or changes)". This week looks to be another interesting one: not only will Osborne be spelling out the first 'tranche' of UK cuts tomorrow, for which Clegg was bravely preparing the ground this morning: "that turbulence in the eurozone had lent a greater urgency to balancing Britain's books",
...but also, the crisis continues apace: "Markets on alert after bank bailout", [Times] The Spanish central bank will bail out Cajasur, 146 years old and with religious roots - founded by the Cordoba Cathedral Chapter - it is 20th biggest in the sector; they had fooled everyone (including most of their staff) up until Saturday, rejecting a merger offer on the table. The bailout is half a billion Euros (for starters), which coincides almost with what they lost in the last year. Now it will be up for sale to the highest bidder. The collapse of the property market (and the construction business) has put Spain in a very poor situation, even among Euro colleagues. Last weeks near bond failure [FT] and sliding Spanish debt are making headlines but bearly making waves 'in the street', knowing the Spanish no doubt that will come soon enough: street demonstrations are a national pastime; and why should it be top news when we have the world's worse kept secret the Real news "Mourinho to quit for £40m Real Madrid deal."
"So not only are we going to have to deal with cuts, we are also going to have to actually deal with some of the pledges that the government made in the past which they didn't even provide budgets for.
The age of plenty where money could be thrown around in almost carelessness, which is what the outgoing Labour government has done of some time, now is over."
2 comments:
Did you know that in China children might stop taking Chinese as a first language and study English instead? Apparently even the simplest letter involves so may brush strokes that the Chinese authorities are considering making their own language the number two taught in schools.
Singapore, which has both English and Chinese speakers, is running a pilot scheme.
Spain's collapse is very much like Irelands - loads of money spent in the construction sector.
Not much good news here really. :-(
I thought the way my post drifted from Chinese characters through UK cuts to Spain economic problems to Real Madrid was a bit much...but it works!
:-)
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