Greece headed toward default; Austria and France to be downgraded by S&P

from the ft...

Greek debt restructuring talks collapse

Talks over Greece’s debt restructuring collapsed on Friday, an unexpected breakdown that makes it increasingly likely Athens will become the first government of a developed country in more than 60 years to suffer a full-scale default on its debt.

In a statement, lead negotiators for Greek bondholders said that the latest offer made by Athens “has not produced a constructive consolidated response” from “all parties” – a clear reference to International Monetary Fund conclusions that bondholder losses must be increased significantly or a second Greek bail-out would have to be bigger than the agreed €130bn.

and then there's this, also from the ft...

S&P set to downgrade two eurozone nations

The credit rating agency Standard & Poor's is set to downgrade two triple A-rated eurozone nations, with one government official naming France and Austria. The other triple A-rated nations, including Germany, are expected to escape downgrade.

This has yet to be confirmed by the agency or the governments.

can't we please just get the global financial and economic collapse over with so we can figure out how to move on...?

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Bush's perpetual confusion isn't a laughing matter

there's clearly something wrong with the man...

"Thank you for being such a fine host of the OPEC summit," Bush said to Australian prime minister John Howard. He quickly corrected himself, "APEC summit," and joked Howard "invited me to the OPEC summit next year. (Such an invitation would be impossible because neither the US or Australia are members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.)

Later in the speech, Bush can clearly be heard on tape thanking Howard for visiting "Austrian troops" in Iraq last year, but White House scrubbers fixed that gaffe for him, changing the official government transcript to "Australian," the Associated Press reported.

an occasional stumble or gaffe is something that happens to everyone... with this guy, however, i get the distinct impression that he's borderline dysfunctional...

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