Sir, Regarding ‘Europhiles lead ‘economic governance’ calls on Europe Day‘: The financial crisis that hit global economy in late summer 2007 is the worst in post-war economic history. It affected the European Union, proving the need for real economic governance in Europe involving convergence of fiscal policies. Up till now, there has only been economic [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Hedge funds face uncertain future after EU votes‘: Since the start of the financial crisis in 2007 and the subsequent meltdown, it has become clear that banks (under the Fed’s regulations), investment banks and hedge funds have been investing in the demise during the ensuing financial meltdown (e.g. Bear Stearns). During the GATT/WTO/Clinton/Rubinomics [...]

Sir, While the attention of Europe and the world media remains concentrated on Greece and the other ‘PIGS’, the financial irresponsibility of other states in the euro zone appears to be being happily ignored by the European Central Bank and encouraged by the institutions of the European Union. This is happening despite the fact that [...]

Sir, Most countries in Central, East and Southeast Europe emerged from the trough of the crisis at the end of 2009. Several leading indicators point to a modest upswing. All countries in the region will only begin to grow again by 2011. Growth may accelerate slightly in 2012, but will in general be slower than [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Skills shortage worsens EU unemployment‘: As a recent graduate from the London School of Economics and holder of a European Parliament scholarship from 2007-09, I have now been making hopeless overtures to the job market for longer than I care to count. During my four years of graduate studies, I have consistently taken [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Parliament gears up for fight on financial regulation‘: I’m writing to state the case against any US bill that includes a financial transaction tax. Two bills in particular have proposed this tax as a way to pay for job recovery programmes: ‘Let Wall Street Pay for the Restoration of Main Street Act of [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘EU plans to review mortgage access rules‘: A 40% cap on loan-to-value (LTV) to obtain a mortgage, as mentioned in the article, would be a vast overreaction when one thinks of the millions of successful borrowers and mortgage products as compared with the far smaller number of bad debts and repossessions. As the [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Lawmaker: ‘Financial regulation must be tailored’‘: There is so much speculation on how best to proceed in regulating the financial sector it is hard to know where to begin. However, it appears to me that the main criterion is not one of regulation but one of consumer confidence. To this end, what the [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Hedge funds seek allies in new EU Parliament‘: The EU president (created by the Lisbon Treaty) should be given a veto over decisions reached by qualified majority voting (QMV) in the Council. The way in which QMV functions presently is deeply undemocratic. States with nothing but an academic interest in an issue can [...]

Sir, The big banks, which caused the current recession, refuse to take responsibility to date. By calculating excessively high interest rates, the economic recovery is being blocked. EuropeanCompanyMarket has found that the negative sentiment is fortunately decreasing. The number of visitors on the website www.E-cm.eu is increasing. People from all over Europe are interested in [...]