FEU ... if you just want Europe's top 50 stocks

Comments: FEU is not he only ETF for this. FEU quote. SPDR® STOXX® Europe 50 ETF. STOXX® Europe 50.

Investing in Europe

The FTSE 350 Index would be somewhat analogous to the US S&P 500. The FTSE 350 Index index is a market capitalisation weighted stock market index incorporating the largest 350 companies by capitalisation which have their primary listing on the London Stock Exchange. The S&P Europe 350 Index Fund (IEV) holds those stocks (full holdings)

Better off in jail?

Prisoners Fear Freedom in Crisis-Hit Europe
 
Excerpt:

"When you're released from prison you become a social leper...or low-skilled ex-con" he told CNBC.

"If I had a pound for every person I've met who said to me "I thought prison was going to be the hard bit," he told CNBC.

"At least in prison you have a roof over your head and food in your stomach. The moment you walk out of prison you become a social leper, a low-skilled ex-con - you are completely lost and you become nothing."

With 75 percent of employers saying they would reject someone with a conviction, Bath told CNBC that it was extremely hard for ex-offenders to return to the "straight and narrow" and find a job in a society where even the most skilled and experienced workers cannot find employment.

Indeed, with most prisoners reported to be "financially excluded" even before they enter prison and a third having no bank account, according to research by the Civil and Social Justice Survey, the chances of "going straight" and returning to a decent a law-abiding way of life when no-one will employ you is slim, Bath told CNBC.

Comment: Some violent criminals should never be released. Most non-violent (exluding the Thomas Petter / "Bernie" Madoff level of offender) will ultimately be released. Some jobs (I'm thinking the finacial services sector) will not hire ex-cons.

Timeline of Europe's debt crisis

Europe's Debt Crisis


Comment: Timeline of Europe's debt crisis (Greece, Spain, Portugal). Ours (the US) is soon to come!

Irish reject Lisbon treaty

Irish voters reject EU treaty

Excerpt:

Europe was thrown into political chaos Friday by Ireland's rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, a painstakingly negotiated blueprint for consolidating the European Union's power and streamlining its increasingly unwieldy bureaucracy.

The defeat of the treaty, by a vote of 53.4 percent to 46.6 percent, was the result of a highly organized campaign that played to Irish voters' deepest fears about the EU. For all its benefits, many people feel, the Union is remote, undemocratic and ever more inclined to strip its smaller members of the right to make their own laws and decide their own futures.

Although the Irish are less than 1 percent of the EU population of almost 500 million, the repercussions of the vote Thursday - whose results were announced Friday - are enormous. To take effect, the treaty must be ratified by all 27 members of the EU. So the defeat by a single country, even one as tiny as Ireland, has the potential effect of stopping the whole thing cold.

Comment: Lisbon Treaty. Good for them!

European industrialists pained by the dollar’s decline

Europeans Toughen Line on the Dollar’s Weakness

Business / World Business
Europeans Toughen Line on the Dollar’s Weakness
By KATRIN BENNHOLD and STEPHEN CASTLE
Published: December 5, 2007
European policy makers hardened their tone this week on the decline of the dollar, as economists trimmed their growth forecasts for the 13-nation euro area.

Excerpt:

Louis Gallois, chief executive of the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, has become the most vocal among European industrialists who are feeling the pain of the dollar’s decline.

This week, Mr. Gallois said that over the next decade, the consortium’s Airbus subsidiary would be obliged to produce more of its planes outside Europe.

The plane maker, which sells its airplanes in dollars but incurs about 50 percent of its costs in euros, loses 1 billion euros, or $1.48 billion, in profit every time the euro gains 10 cents against the dollar. This places the company at a competitive disadvantage against its American rival, Boeing, whose costs are almost entirely dollar-denominated.

Latécoère, a major French subcontractor for Airbus, has already begun moving some low-value-added work to Morocco, Tunisia and Brazil.

Comment: Compare earlier Airbus post!

The EU at 50

The founding nations signing the Treaty of Rome in 1957

Europe, Old and New

Excerpt:

Preparations for the European Union's big 50th birthday party this weekend in Berlin quickly degenerated into a petty brawl over the wording of the declaration for the occasion. Some countries wanted to push the bloc's stillborn constitution, others the euro, still others Christianity. What a fitting tribute to the EU's achievement.

We're not kidding. Such intramural trench warfare, be it over joint statements or milk quotas, is blessedly far removed from the wars that characterized the five decades before the EU's birth. Whatever its shortcomings, the EU can justly claim credit for helping bring peace and prosperity to the Continent's 490 million citizens.

Wiki: The European Union