The nightmare before Christmas: EU summit proposals fail to calm global financial markets

December 12, 2011 – EUROPE – Friday’s European Union summit produced an agreement to pursue stricter budget rules for the single currency area and also to have euro zone states and others provide up to 200 billion euros ($267 billion) in bilateral loans to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help tackle the crisis. But Moody’s Investor Service said it still plans to review the ratings on EU sovereign credit as the agency expressed doubt that the proposed measures will do much to resolve the crisis. That marked a sharp change from Friday, when the market rallied on hopes that European leaders finally had presented a unified front to tackle the problem. “It appears that Europe’s nightmare has not gone away after all, with investors rethinking Friday’s immediately positive response,” Andrew Wilkinson, chief economist strategist at Miller Tabak, said in his morning note. “The single euro currency is once again trawling the depths of despair as investors weigh the prospect of further interest rate cuts as further reason to take pot shots at the unit.” –CNBC  excerpt

Why the Bible says iron will never mix with miry clay. “So the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men (children of the descendents of the countries that sprang from the fallen Roman Empire): but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.” Daniel 2:42, 43