-The Rolling Stones
We'd like to dedicate the above to German leader, Angela Merkel, as she desperately tries to keep alive dreams of the survival of the European federal union, the single currency or even just the domestic banking system which is on the verge of being bankrupted by its exposure to the basket case economies of Western, Central and Eastern Europe. Trying to bail out the biggest global financial crisis of all time may have fatal consequences. It's definitely time that the Euro said goodbye to Portugal, Spain, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Belgium, Holland and Austria just for starters. Politically we have no problem with Maastricht or the Euro but economically it seems to be doomed.

We're no fans of Goldman or their fellow 'Street' partners in crime but we see a delicious irony that having so often gotten away scot-free they seem to be getting blamed for problems that are far more to do with the structural infeasibility of the single currency than with wrongdoing by Goldmans. Frau Merkel's attempts to shift the blame away from Greece by banning CDO products are like trying to stop supermarkets selling wine because a drunk-driver has injured other road users. The driver (Greece) seems to be escaping German wrath as do the police who performed a breathalyser test (Eurostat) . This transaction has been in the public domain for the best part of a decade and could and should have been better understood and publicised by the Eurozone's finance professionals.

In the inverse beauty pageant that is major western currencies in 2010, the Euro currently is the ugliest. Mind you we suspect that the others will have plenty of tricks up their sleeves later in the year that may change that.....