Europe moves to the Right.

0:00 Speaker 1 With us today is Mario Economo, and he is a banker. He worked in New York, London, Zurich and money center banks, and he gives us a review on Europe every few weeks. Mario, tell us is any update what’s going on in Europe with the economy, with the weather, with what the heck is going on? Tell us?

0:27 Speaker 2 Good morning, Cats, roundtable. So let’s start off with something today that affected the US, and specifically that of the recent downgrade by Fitch of the US debt. This is a very interesting and negative thing in my opinion. The reason I say it’s negative even though many people are shrugging their shoulders and saying it’s really not that big

0:48 a deal, and in fact is because if it wasn’t a big deal, and if there was no importance to something being downgraded, then the downgrade wouldn’t exist. Now, the fact that this downgrade has happened, apart from the fact that it’s going to actually have a negative impact on the local economy in the US because it’s going to

1:06 make borrowing costs higher for many companies, which of course will pass that on to the consumer, it’s also interesting to point out the impact that it’s going to have on Europe. Let’s not forget that Europe is relying on the US at the moment for one hundred percent of its defense against any potential Russian aggression. So when the

1:27 European economies and specifically three Germany, Holland and Luxembourg have triple A ratings and the US rating is below that rating, it’s interesting to see how they’re going to feel about their defense being extended to the protection rather being extended to the umbrella of US defense. Personally, I’m not sure how you can actually downgrade the US and keep Germany

1:53 at a triple A rating, especially when Germany is not in control of both its fiscal policy as well as its monetary policy. As we all know, Germany’s monetary policy is dictated by the European Central Bank. So I don’t think the downgrade makes sense. It is negative and it will be interesting to see how the Europeans react. Ideally,

2:14 the Europeans should react with some form of leadership, but we’re not seeing that in Europe at the moment, and the only person who did show some signs of leadership in the European Union was President macrona France, but he’s mired in his own problems politically at home as well as we’ve now seen in the Sahel in Africa where

2:34 many countries are actually pulling back from France. And recently we saw a coup in the country of Niger where the people and the government is demanding that France leave. It vacates the country with its military forces and they are actually welcoming with open arms of the Russians. So I think the downgrade in the US is an unfortunate

2:57 event and it’s going to play out there will be a negative impact. I’m not sure what it’s going to be over the longer term in Europe, but I think that as a European it does concern me. If I’m looking to the US for my defense that the country’s debt rating has been downgraded, well.

3:17 Speaker 1 Again, I’m not sure how significant that is. If you didn’t known US dollars, what would you like to own? And that’s the what I would I look at, and anybody with significant money moving money around. I mean, I don’t want to own yen. I really don’t want to own German euros. I mean what would you own?

3:44 Speaker 2 I think the combination, I think the combination, I mean what we’re seeing what’s happening in the commercial real estate market in the US is not good right now, and that’s being driven by the high interest rates, another unfortunate event.

3:56 But if we consider the fact that the US has also been downgraded, and now let’s assume you are someone who’s sitting in Europe and you’re actually looking to invest in something in the US. On the commercial real estate front, this downgrade will actually increase your borrowing costs, it will increase your carrying costs. So I’m not sure it’s not

4:17 going to have any impact whatsoever on investment decisions. I think it’s something we’re going to have to wait and see. But let’s move on now to a couple of other things. And specifically, last week we saw there was a Russia’s National Navy Day we’re in President Putin did announce the building of another ten of Russia’s state of the art frigates,

4:39 the ones which carry the hypersonic missiles. I thought that that was an interesting announcement for him to make. Clearly, the country Russia is putting a lot of money in the production of various defense systems, whether it’s ships or planes or missiles. They’re continuing to develop and build at a time, and everybody thought they didn’t have the money

5:02 or the access to capitol to do that. We also know that the English are training the Ukrainian Army so that they’re part of the counter offensive in December will be the ability to retake the Crimea. Now this is interesting because this flies in the face of an article I believe it was in the New York Times, which

5:24 is saying that many of the Ukrainian troops that have been trained by the West, by the US, by Britain are failing on the battlefield, and therefore the Ukrainian troops themselves are now resorting to other approaches, more traditional approaches with respect to how they’re used to fighting wars, to try and to turn the tide with respect to this

5:45 counter offensive which has stalled. And I say the counter offensive has stalled because if we look at the three lines of Russian defense in the Dombaths, the Ukrainians at this point have failed to even breach the first line.

5:58 Speaker 1 Well, the truth, the truth is, we don’t really know what the truth is.

6:04 Speaker 2 The truth is they haven’t breached the outer most the third line of the Russian defense. So if they do breach the third line, they’re going to have to go through the second and the first line.

6:17 Speaker 1 And don’t forget, with the price of oil being eighty dollars, Russia has all the money they need to wage a war. So by not opening up the spigots in the United States and lowering the price of oil, we’re making Russia richer and the ability to wage war.

6:37 Speaker 2 Well, again, that’s not something that europe can control. That’s only something you folks in America can control and can decide on with respect to policy and who you want in your White House and in your government.

6:46 Speaker 1 There we got a minute left, Mario, what do you want to tell you American people.

6:51 Speaker 2 Let’s just touch on one more thing, and that is specifically that President Artaban of Turkey has asked President Putin to reconsider and rejoin the Weak Deal, to which of course President Putin has said he will not join. President Putin has also not given President Aragon of Turkey a date for his visit. There was a visit that was

7:08 supposed to happen by President Putin to Turkeia. That visit now is essentially on hold, and it is believed it’s on hold because President Putin has not forgiven President Aragon for releasing those five ABSOLV Battalion POWs that were in Turkia back to the Ukraine. And one more thing we know there was supposed to be a visit by Egyptian

7:32 President ALCSI to President Aradgon in Turkeia, and President ALCSI has canceled that visit to Turkeia. He cited President Aradgon’s close ties to the Palestinians, but many people suspect it also has to do with the fact that President LCSI was in Saint Petersburg recently at that conference, President Putin had in Russia, and they’re saying, understand.

8:01 Speaker 1 Mario, we’re at a time. Thank you so much for bringing all Americans up to date, and we’ll catch up with you again real soon.

8:09 Speaker 2 Okay, thank you, Enjoy your day. Thank you,