Wednesday, February 22, 2012

...where's your positive spirit?

Yesterday, finally, after months of talks, a deal was struck between Greece and its European Union partners to avoid the potential catastrophe of a Greek default. Now, you would think this was a good thing and I for one think it is. However, after weeks of buoyancy in the markets on the prospect of this very deal, the trading boards turned red and City 'commentators' were queuing up to rubbish the deal on whatever news channel would let them.

For years we believed that Goldfish only had three second memories, a fact now disputed quite convincingly by research on the topic. But it seems the truth is that the Journos and 'commentators' rubbishing the Greek deal, are actually the ones with three second memories. Until the deal was struck, we were looking at the prospect of a Greek default. A default that could potentially have caused another collapse of the banking system, a collapse in the value of the Euro and a messy exit for Greece. This could have plunged Europe into a deep depression and poor ole Greece would be facing not a decade of austerity, but decades of third world poverty and isolation.

Today we should be counting ourselves lucky. We now have a window of opportunity to talk-up the economies of Europe and focus on policies for growth.

I say again, I think Monday was a good day for Europe.

...wash and scrub for centre city.

Good news yesterday that Bruntwood have completed their purchase of the Centre City office tower for £19.7m.

It's reported that they now intend to spend over £4.5m on refurb works, including a new entrance and reception. It'll be nice to see this beast on Smallbrook Queensway being given a little TLC.