Saturday, September 20, 2014

Scotland says No to independence

Well the independence referendum in Scotland brought no surprise, as polls predicted it the Scots choose to stay within the United Kingdom. That's really interesting since everywhere else in Europe regions struggle to separate (see Catalunya, Corsica, Kosovo - the last one if we don't mention Crimeea which would arguably still be a referendum for independence).

Anyway if the Scots would have taken this historical chance to take their country back (as William Wallace said it in the block-buster Braveheart) there would be a lot of struggle with splitting the national debt, the budgets, being kicked-off NATO and EU, adopting their own coin, etc. So maybe they thought it would be too much of a headache to be independent and preferred to continue staying dependent on London.

David Cameron's bet paid off in the end even risky and Scots might not have a similar chance for a few centuries more. But how knows?

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Lowest ever interest rate

Who would have ever imagined that the Central European Bank would lower the reference interest rate to a measly 0,05%? That's almost free right?

Concerns of another crisis wave have increased after this measure as critics interpret this as a desperate way to stimulate consumption. However the markets reaction is minimal and banks are cautious to offer credit even at this rate.

Mario Draghi, the Bank's president will hold a press conference to explain this decision but analyst expect it will have little effect unless backed-up by other stimulation measures.