Nogger's Blog

03/11/11 -- The Greek finance minister has apparently "broken ranks" overnight with the PM and said that the decision whether or not to accept the bailout package should not be put to a public vote.

Erm, surely the finance minister is part of the Greek cabinet? The same cabinet that gave the PM their unanimous backing to referendum just yesterday? Confused, I know I am. Said referendum is being pencilled in for Dec 4th apparently, so that gives us yet another month of dithering. Great. They can't even ask Jim to fix this one any more.

Merkel and Sarkozy have said that Greece can whistle for it's next EUR8 billion in aid until this one gets sorted. Quite right too. Those two seem to be spending a lot of time together these days don't they? Late night meetings. One thing leads to another. Imagine what the offspring of that copulation would look like. Urgh.

Moving on, the BBC this morning say that: "The US administration has made it clear in recent weeks that it wants the eurozone to put its house in order urgently." The cheeky buggers. Pot, kettle, surely Mr Obama.

The G20 meeting gets underway in Cannes today. We can expect more hot air but will we get any cohesive action? Probably not. I blame the parents.

The Beeb also tell us that the National Institute for Economic and Social Research reckon that there's a "strong chance" of a UK recession in 2012. You don't say, and there we were thinking that everything was rosy.

The overnight grain markets are mixed, with beans around 4-5 cents higher and with corn and wheat a cent or so either side of unchanged. NYMEX crude is a dollar lower at USD91.50/barrel. European stocks have opened lower.