>>>Germany has sold €3.9bn of six-month bills at a negative interest rate.
>>>
>>>Thats really not a good sign.
>>
>>There is no good economic news coming from Europe. I just hope Angela and her spanky boys don't talk the rest of the continent into choking off government spending. That will be the surest way to pull the region into a new depression and probably us along with you. It happened once before.
>
>Mike, I think there is something else, much more worrying going on. With all that is currently on the news about the economic crisis in europe, it is awfully quiet on the UK and US side. Mind you that if you look closely at those markets are really in no better shape than the european economy. It is a welcome diversion for obama and his british colleage not to be overwhelmed with bad economic news from their own country.
>
>The eu, is a young nation with different economic rules and the world now it watching the very closely what is going on there and how its getting out of the crisis. That is absolutely not to say that things are any better oversees.
>
>Germany for example is not doing all the bad, neither is the Netherlands. The main problem we've got here are the southern countries that have significant economic problems. They can't use the old technique of printing money and devaluating their own currency as they use the euro. This is a significant challenge the UK and US are not facing.

You're right Walter . The government here is a living in a fools paradise at the moment. Eurozone problems have distracted from the UKs economic outlook and I think the low rates the UK is paying to borrow money at the moment will not last long. Unemployment is going up and business confidence is plummeting Meanwhile the governments preferred solution is cuts and de regulation of employment laws, conveniently irgnoring the example of Germany which follows a different and very successful example.

A good example of our two economies was provided in the news the other day. Cross rail is a plan to drive a tunnel under London to link rail east and west of the capital. The multi million pound sophisticated mining machines are made in Germany, the no skill needed concrete tunnel liners are being made in the UK.