> I disagree that the EU financial mergers are really being orchestrated by
> governments -- something more interesting is happening. How it seems to me
> is that the European Commission has decided to interpret the Single
> European Act as something equivalent to the MAI -- as a prohibition on
> government interference in the affairs of "investors", whoever they may be.
> This means that Trichet et al have to treat carefully when trying to put
> together or block a merger, for fear of being sued. It's pretty well known
> that they didn't get their preferred solution in the SocGen/BNP takeover
> battle. Tessa's writing an article on this for the World Economic Forum
> (egad!) -- I'll post it when I get a draft.
Fascinating. Eurocapitalism is definitely a target in motion, for sure. It's true that the bankers are obviously hardcore monetarist neoliberals, but I wonder how much latitude they really have to implement this; even watered-down social democracy still puts huge barriers on what capital can do (real wages on the continent haven't fallen the way they have in the US, for example, and France's 35-hour policy would be unimaginable in the US). But given those behemoth US current account deficits, maybe the US bubble *is* the EU's bubble (bubbles are outsourced nowadays, like everything else). My own feeling is that those low EU interest rates are the perfect rocket fuel for a genuine Eurobubble some time in the Noughts -- and that the Eurobankers are cagey enough to realize this and plan to make a superpower-sized mint on the thing. Last call on those SAP futures!
Incidentally, what do you think of Rolf Breuer? Smooth, very smooth. Poor Hilmar kept ingesting shoe leather, so I guess they learned their lesson.
-- Dennis