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THE RATING AGENCY Standard & Poor’s has put the entire European Union on a watchlist for a possible credit rating downgrade tonight.
It follows S&P’s decision earlier this week to put 15 of the 17 eurozone nations on negative watch – indicating a 50-50 chance that those countries could have their credit rating lowered within 90 days.
With the eurozone accounting for 62 per cent of the EU’s budgeted revenues in 2011, it appears the entire 27-member union is at risk from the crisis of confidence which it is hope can be allayed at a crucial EU summit getting underway in Brussels tomorrow.
The agency has tonight placed the EU’s AAA credit rating on credit watch “with negative implications” indicating a possible downgrade in the coming weeks.
In statement issued this evening S&P said:
The CreditWatch on the EU is an expression of our concerns about the potential impact on the future debt service capacity of eurozone sovereigns, and therefore also the EU, in the context of what we view as deepening political, financial, and monetary problems within the eurozone.
S&P said it expected to resolve the credit watch placements on the eurozone and subsequently the EU as soon as possible after the two-day summit in Brussels which gets underway tomorrow.
It normally takes 90 days for a resolution but the agency said it would make a decision sooner if “possible and appropriate”.
The rating agency also put a number of European banking groups on credit watch, again “with negative implications”. Some of the banks include BNP Paribas in France, Germany’s Deutsche Bank and Italy’s UniCredit.
The Wall Street Journal reports that this was not unexpected and S&P warned of further rating actions on other large banks in the eurozone including the possible downgrade of Irish banks by as many as two notches.
A statement said:
We believe that the ratings on Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg could be lowered by up to one notch, if at all, and those on Estonia, France, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and Spain by up to two notches, if at all.
S&P also said it intends to resolve the credit watch placement on these banks soon after the resolution of the credit watch on the eurozone and EU.
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This is the new alternative to trade unions; company models that respect their workers make the need for trade union obsolete.
But it’s not really, is it?
This guy has his exit strategy lined up and nobody expects the takeover company to continue to employ all staff at 70k. I also expect his risk analysis to include projections for an increase in contract staff, and his HR team to be supplied with copies of Mein Kampf.
Dream on buddy
Maybe it is a blocking manoeuvre nobody is going to take your start up away from you if you’ve the highest cost base possible.
I have no strong opinions on this.
@Trea.
Judging by what I see, T/Unions are almost obsolete anyway however many employers are stingy & exploit their employees.
I doubt if this generosity will ever occur in Ireland.
@Sammy very good
Hi, can you forward this article to Dail Eireann please?
Thanks in advance
Stay on topic
I’m pretty sure the minimum wage there is already over $70k
Nowhere near, a person working a 40 hour week on minimum wage in Ireland would earn in the region of €17,000 per year. That’s a massive leap away from $70,000 which is much closer to €55,000.
I re-read your comment and see I was a little off-point but the figures remain very much the same. The minimum wage in the US is $8 an hour which equates to $15,360 per year working a 40 hour week.
I meant the minimum wage in the Dail. Not clear enough obviously.
Great idea. Getting loads of free publicity.
Application form please
Do they need a cabinetmaker???
I need a cabinet maker. where are you based?
Founder and chief exec. Surely still the major shareholder so I’m guessing salary is insignificant in the grand scheme, but nice optics.
Unless there are restraints on naked capitalism, imposed or voluntarily assumed, capitalism eventually becomes unsustainable.
Although we paid the CEO’s of the Banks large fortunes in compensation packages, we got incompetent monkies.
Large salaries are no indicator of talent or ability.
Senior executive salaries are generally gross and disproportionate.
Don’t know why you got red thumbs for that
He used words of more than three syllables which tags him as a commie pinko lesbian lefty in the minds of some who post in the Journal
That much is true Tony.
Sorry @Anthony Lang
Capitalism always works. When you tinker with capitalism, like bailing out the banks, it runs into problems.
This guy is doing the capitalist thing, he’s thinking of new innovative ways to grow his business, attracting hardworking employees.
I really hope it works for him.
It is a fact that there is no correlation between the salary of the CEO and the success of a company
I see it reported in this weeks Kilkenny Reporter newspaper that Ms Siobhan Talbot, Group Managing Director of Glanbia has a remuneration package that increased from €1.02m to €1.62m since she was promoted. It is also reported that the four member executive team share a combined package worth €4.22m I always wonder when I see such figures, where is the evidence of a correlation between super pay packages and performance. It certainly wasn’t evident in banking circles.
Hes also CEO of this company http://www.reynholm.co.uk/index.php
Don’t think he can persuade the CEO of the company I work for to do the same, would be nice though.
It is a wonderful thing for the staff and I wish we could have some thinking like that here.
Anybody got a distribution list for TD’s n Ministers & any ex Taoiseagh & heads of depts & charity organisations. …!!
Whatever about this guy. Any one else remember the lead up to the dotcom bubble bust of the late 90′s.I got deja vu all over again.I remember learning to ‘code’ back in 95. Of course it was just html back them and I already could code C and Basic.I have an odd feeling about all of this.
Tech startups are getting cocky again, then? This has always ended well in the past.
Don’t worry, nobody’s falling for this tech malarkey.
This CEO is making a decision on employee happiness for $70k from a university that pays it’s professors $200K +
Yeah but those guys are really really really happy!!
There must be a snwtch…..sorry catch…..
Guessing by the thumbs down nobody else thinks so.
Really hate yiz all right now . Feckin hoors the lot of yiz !!!!
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