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Today, Belgium has been without a government with full authority for more than 527 days. Things are getting worse by the minute:
Dexia – which has been nationalised on taxpayer’s expense – is trading around €0.30 a share;
Belgium’s interim government (which does not have full authority) finally realizes that the price paid to the French for the Belgian part of Dexia is way too high (€4 billion) and, worse, that the guarantees provided by the Belgian taxpayer are unrealisable (almost €55 billion). Therefore, they are looking to re-negotiate parts of the deal with France. Why the French would be willing to accept other terms (and risk their AAA-rating) is a mystery for me;
This morning, Tijd.be calculated that the sum of all guarantees provided by Belgium to its banking sector amounts to an astonishing €130 billion. To put this number in perspective: Belgium’s GDP in 2010 was approx. €353 billion . Let’s hope not all of these guarantees will be claimed, otherwise…
Elio Di Rupo (Parti Socialiste) – who was trying to form a new government – offered his resignation to our King Albert II on Monday after criticism from the Liberal party (OpenVLD) and other stakeholders (among others: Belgian entrepreneurs) that the proposed reforms are too much “taxing” and too little “reform”. This criticism has many followers in the Flemish part of Belgium, much less in the French part (Wallonia). So, after 527 days, it seems like not that much has happened, apart from endless talks about topics which do not impact the everyday lives of the Belgians;
The yield-spread between German/Belgian 10-year bonds is rapdily increasing (300 basispoints +) and our current 10-year yield is exploding higher (as we speak: approx. 5.14 per cent);
After Dexia’s share decline brought down Arco (a cooperative related to the Catholic trade union and labor movement which only a couple of weeks ago went bust but, nevertheless, got bailed out by the Belgian taxpayer although technically these were “shareholders” and not “savings-accounts”), today, it seems other cooperatives are getting into serious trouble due to the declining shareprice of the bank in which they were invested. CERA, cooperative which owns shares of Belgian bank and insurance company “KBC Bank” is currently considering if they will apply for a government guarantee. CERA is virtually bankrupt as their KBC-holdings are valued at 31 EUR on their balance sheet while KBC is currently trading around €8.80.
Conclusion: although it’s always darkest before dawn, I hope our political “leaders” will soon find the courage to take the highly necessary measures:
to modernise the decision-making-procedures of this country;
to put a cap on government spending and reduce our national debt ASAP;
to find a solution to our very costly social security system (restricting unemployment benefits in time would be a good start);
to re-energise our country: we are way too depended on foreign nations for our energy supply;
to stop giving guarantees to each and every financial group which gets into trouble;
to offer a perspective to its citizens which is worth some sacrifices;
to stop talking about “solidarity” when all they mean is “those who want to work will be taxed so we can give it to those who do not (want to) work”;
to encourage and reward entrepreneurship (“Some see private enterprise as a predatory target to be shot, others as a cow to be milked, but few are those who see it as a sturdy horse pulling the wagon”, W. Churchill);
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@Robert Halvey: Looking at the latest immunisation rate for MMR in infants, it’s 89.9% for 3Q 2023, vaccination rates must be c. 95% to prevent outbreaks. Also, vaccination rates are trending down for all childhood vaccines, not just MMR. They’ve been slowly since a peak around 2012-2014. There’s a spreadsheet on this page that can be downloaded, contains detailed stats and charts. The immunization rates for all vaccines are below the 95% recommend mimum. So we’re not just risking measles outbreaks.
@Kevin Collins: those same anti Vax people that wouldn’t put the C19 crap into themselves. I will only take a vaccine that has gone through all the tests over 10 or 15 years before release. The flu Vax is tried and tested over decades with tweaks along the way. The C19 Vax was a rushed s h I t show.
@brendan C5: if you don’t view people who reneged on the covid vaccine as anti-vaxers, why have you taken offence at the use of the term? The comment never even mentioned the covid vaccine. Doth protesting too much and all that.
@brendan C5: So, would you have had the ‘flu vaccine 15 years ago, or are you somehow, in your own mind at least, relying on others to be the guinea pigs?
@brendan C5: COVID-19 vaccines are estimated to have 19.8 million lives within the first year they became available.
“Within the first year of COVID-19 vaccine rollouts, it is estimated to have saved 19.8 million lives, and thus far, over 12 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in most countries around the world.”
@P. V. Aglue: Maybe so in North America where people can’t afford private healthcare. But when an established vaccine is free and publicly available, this isn’t about money. It’s more about other reasons why people can’t get to see a GP.
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