The eurozone’s third-largest economy is being sucked deeper into the sovereign debt crisis, since one of the major credit rating agencies downgraded yesterday its credit rating. S&P downgraded Italy to “A/A-1” from a “A+/A-1+” grade because of “Italy’s weakening economic growth prospects”, with a negative outlook, meaning further downgrades are possible. The move – S&P’s first downgrade of Italy since 2006 – places S&P’s rating on Italy three notches below that of Moody’s, the rating agency that many had expected to cut first.
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According to the New York Times, President Obama will call for a new minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year. The investor Warren Buffett inspired…
Suspected to be too vulnerable because of their “Greec holdings” two of the biggest French banks, Société Générale and Crédit Agricole have been downgraded by the credit rating agency Moody’s.
IREF’s Director for Europe Pierre Garello has been invited to speek about public debt on Bloomberg TV. You can see the interview here.
It seems that the forecast of a 3.5% decrease in Greece GDP in 2011 was too optimistic. The finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said last week that the output is likely…
The upper chamber of the German parliament is due to vote on the new expanded powers of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) on 23 September. At that point, early…
Standard&Poor’s, one of the three major credit rating agencies downgraded on Friday the USA credit rating, previously noted AAA, the highest possible level. The new rating AA+ is translating the worry of experts about the sustainability of US public finances, in the context of ever increasing public spending and public debt above $14.3 trillion. The debt deal signed by the Congress is projecting savings of $1.2 trillion, which S&P estimates to be insufficient.
Switzerland, Luxembourg and Austria representatives recently said they would relax key bank secrecy laws to meet growing international demands for change. Their announcements followed similar moves by Belgium, Liechtenstein and…
The credit rating agency Moody’s said it might downgrade the credit ratings of three of the largest French banks because of their exposure to the Greek debt crisis. According to…
More than 100 member countries representatives participated in the annual meeting of the Global Tax Forum in Bermuda. The Global Forum is charged with the monitoring and peer review of the implementation of the standards of transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes. It became notorious with the publication three years ago of grey and black lists of alleged “tax havens”.