Nobody move or your country's credit rating gets it!

Left in the comments by PaulC156, from The Telegraph:

If the International Monetary Fund and its co-conspirators in the Treasury wish to deter undecided voters from flirting with Brexit, they have certainly failed in my case...

The Fund gives the game away in point 8 of its Article IV conclusion on the UK economy. It states that “the cost of insuring against a UK sovereign default has doubled (albeit from a low level)”. Any normal person who does not follow the derivatives markets would interpret this as a grim warning from global investors.

Yes, the price of credit default swaps on 5-year UK debt – the proxy we all use - has jumped from 17 to 37 since late last year. But the IMF neglected to mention that it has risen from 15 to 33 in Switzerland, from 26 to 43 in France, and from 45 to 65 in Korea.

The jump has almost nothing to do with Brexit, and the IMF knows this perfectly well. The French have an expression that will be familiar to the IMF’s Christine Lagarde: ils font feu de tout bois [they are firing on all cylinders].

'Nuff said.

Nobody move or house prices and share prices get it!

Today's scaremongering from the FT, via MBK (as usual):

A vote by the UK to leave the European Union risked triggering “sharp drops in equity and house prices, the head of the International Monetary Fund has warned in a damning assessment of the effects of Brexit.

Christine Lagarde, IMF chief, warned the consequences of Brexit ranged from “pretty bad to very, very bad”, precipitating a protracted period of heightened uncertainty, financial market volatility and a hit to economy.

Appealing to the Home-Owner-Ists is always a good strategy, but actually those are the two least important variables in the economy, they are just a measurement of other much more fundamental things, they are a symptom and not a cause. So output, profits and employment matter - share prices do not.

Moreover, they are just transfers of wealth, if house or share prices fall, tomorrow's purchasers benefit by in £££ the same amount that today's owners have lost on paper.

Currently trailing last in this weeks' Fun Online Poll

The foxiest of silvers and the silveriest of foxes, Mme Lagarde:

IMF Fun

Timeline:

1. IMF Managing Director Strauss Kahn is caught with his straussers down.

2. The UK's "Chancellor of the Exchequer" (that's Finance Minister, in plainspeak) George Osborne recommends yet another French politician for the job as IMF Managing Director (Directrix?).

3. IMF says no changes are needed to UK economic policy*.

* UK economic policy appear to consist of artificially low interest rates, high inflation, increases in the tax burden on the productive economy, a yawning budget deficit and - to top it all - cuts to front line services. Go figure.

Silver Fox tipped to become new head of MFI

Christine Lagard