By John Galt
August 13, 2011
As I scan the Middle East newspapers for hidden gems, out pops this beauty of a story from Qatar’s Gulf Times:
Shorting ban should stretch across G7’
Germany’s Economy Minister Philipp Roesler said he supports a short-selling ban across the Group of Seven rich nations, going further than his country’s finance minister, who has backed such a ban only in Europe.
Roesler said: “It is good and proper that other European countries have now banned short-selling,” in an interview with the Welt am Sonntag newspaper released yesterday.
“But that is not enough,” he added. “It’s necessary that highly speculative financial transactions be banned not only in Europe, but at the level of the G7 states.”
Roessler said the issue should be “on the agenda at the next G7 summit”.
On Friday, Germany called for a European ban on some short-selling of shares after four of its EU partners banned the speculative practice for two weeks to combat uncertainty rocking markets.
Berlin backed measures by France, Italy, Spain and Belgium to stop short-selling of bank shares but urged Europe to go further to calm the waters.
I would love to say that this is a sick twisted joke but apparently the Germans want the entire world to commit suicide hand in hand with the European Union which insures that liquidity in the markets evaporates completely and a major recession if not depression is all but guaranteed. I guess the lessons learned from the past are not required reading or memory retention is not a requirement for the job of working within the financial offices of the governments of Europe.
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