I’ll return to wittering about the riots from my armchair out in the leafy suburbs before too long. Meanwhile I thought it might be worth having a quick look at a few economic tidbits that may have been over looked during all the local fun and games.
The big bit of news is probably that Standards and poor have downgraded the USA’s credit rating. They’re no longer AAA rated but AA+, only one rating agency so far though others have changed their outlook to negative. Though as has been pointed out to me for those that keep a closer eye on things fiscal than I do this was quite well covered in the right places.
Guido has the news that Swiss banks are now charging negative interest rates (but oddly people aren’t rushing to empty their accounts), but on the bright side the UK is seen as a better bet than Germany for people buying gilts*. So possibly not joining this Eurozone thingy might have been a good plan.
Apart from that we’re still broke, the Government spending is still rising despite all the talk of cuts. But we may now have a “riot” to pay for – I’m not actually sure about this as I don’t think it was declared a riot which may get the state off the hook. In the meantime a load of lawyers are going to make a lot of money out of it and one way or another we’re all going to pay financially for the clean up (and that of course ignored the hiden costs).
* Whatever they are.
