A secure democratic Net is a fundamental right

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/09/22/...-big-to-rescue/

European banks face greater capital shortages than their U.S. counterparts, but have become too big for any one European country to save, according to an article published Saturday by European economists Daniel Gros and Stefano Micossi on the Centre for European Policy Studies’ Web site

source The “overall leverage ratio” - a measure of total assets to shareholder equity - of the average European bank is 35, compared with less than 20 for the largest US banks, the economists say, and relatively small writedowns on their assets could have a devastating impact on a bank's capital.  “If ever they were forced into a firesale, they could go very quickly into insolvency,” said Gros, who is director of the Centre for European Policy Studies

More comments from the authors  Given that solutions for the largest institutions can no lounger be found at the national level, it is apparent that the ECB will need to be put in charge. It is the only institution in the euro area that can issue unlimited amounts of global reserve currencies. The authorities in the UK and Switzerland –- who cannot rely on the ECB – can only pray that no accident happens to the giants they have in their own garden

but there seems to be little contradiction to the study, which is worrying in itself. Because if nobody says that they are wrong in the present newscycles, they are right ? Or aren't they ? Because if they are right, their opinions have enormous consequences. If they are wrong, they could be responsable for being an element of panick.

It is clear however that some have overstretched their risks and risk taking us all with them in their downfall.We shouldn't be surprised if we will be seeing Belgian banks for example trying to sell all kinds of stuff they have invested in for no obvious reason at all (and for which some received beautiful amounts of money).

The most beautiful thing happening is that the financial sector is going back to being normal banks with normal financial products and normal risk ratio's. These guys looked so old fashioned before, so be-gone aside the wealthy glamorous inventors of new financial products (as if it was Shampoo).