Banana Monarchy: Britain Is Bigger Credit Risk Than McDonald’s
ONCE great, Great Britain as now revealed to be a bigger credit default risk than McDonald’s.
Ronald or Gordon? Scotland awaits the answer…
Which one’s in the clown boots?
Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) — Investing in U.K. government debt is almost
twice as risky as buying bonds sold by McDonald’s Corp., based on prices
in the credit-default swap market.The CHART OF THE DAY compares the cost of protecting against a decline in the creditworthiness of the two borrowers. U.K. protection became more expensive on Sept. 29, when the pound suffered
its biggest one-day loss against the dollar in 16 years after the government took control of Bradford & Bingley Plc, Britain’s biggest lender to landlords.Britain risks being viewed pejoratively as a banana republic “apart from the technical disqualification that we have a monarch and so cannot be a Republic, and it’s too cold to grow bananas anyway,” says Sean Corrigan, who helps oversee about $8.5 billion as chief investment strategist at Diapason Commodities Management SA in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Yes, we have no bananas, we have no bananas today…
Posted: 9th, December 2008 | In: Money, Photojournalism Comments (3) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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December 10th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Thank you, David; I know a bit about financial black holes, but the news yesterday that the centre of the Milky Way is a very large Black Hole is completely baffling to me.
I thought the whole point of a Black Hole was that it was very small, so clearly I haven’t got a clue on the Big Issues.
I’m told that authentic sausages are available in very few places, and posting them from Englnd is not a practical proposition, so bananas it is, then. Not very Christmassy, though.
December 10th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Chenier.. you’re so knowedgeable about these things.
I’m into bananas myself, hard to find an authentic sausage around here though.
December 10th, 2008 at 12:09 am
Ah yes, Sean Corrigan and his partners in .Diapason Commodities Management SA.
I can certainly understand why Mr Corrigan prefers to gaze upon clowns outside his own office; he’s in need of cheering up.
Though the people who bought the Sentry Select Rogers International Commodity Index Principal-Protected Notes are probably even more in need of something to alleviate the gloom; it’s indisputably depressing to have laid out large amounts of dosh, only to be told that Diapason Commodities Management SA have managed the portfolio of commodities upon which the Notes were based so well that the investors will be getting nothing between now and 2013.
Not even a sausage.
I think I’ll stick with bananas…
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Sentry-Select-Capital-Corp-925624.html