Norway, Switzerland, Iceland ... the United Kingdom???

Some interesting news coming out of the U.K. these days...

London Telegraph (1/20/13): " Ford and BMW warn against UK exit from EU as David Cameron readies historic speech."

Bloomberg (1/21/13): " U.K. Finance Industry to Cut 43,000 Jobs, CBI Survey Says"

I say never trust the lobbying of large corporations. The UK's got bigger worries than what car manufacturers might want. It's hard to know what Cameron has to say before he actually says it, but I would imagine that he's looking to protect the long-term interests of the London financial sector in anticipation of oncoming banking harmonization regulations coming out of Brussels.

The Swiss have been having their own banking dramas going on with UBS & Credit Suisse since the onset of the global financial crisis, with UBS more or less being tagged a rogue i-bank that is closing down to focus more on wealth management. Credit Suisse is trying to weather the storm and remain a full-size investment banking operation.

I have no idea what this implies for the future regulatory environment of London, but it's interesting to see the beginning shadows of these developments nonetheless.

From Wikipedia's " European Union":

quote:

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Four countries forming the EFTA (that are not EU members) have partly committed to the EU's economy and regulations: Iceland (a candidate country for EU membership), Liechtenstein and Norway, which are a part of the single market through the European Economic Area, and Switzerland, which has similar ties through bilateral treaties.[62][63] The relationships of the European microstates, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican include the use of the euro and other areas of cooperation.[64]

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Note that the British pound sterling was pretty steady, at a worth of about 1.4 - 1.5 Euros before the financial crisis hit, before dropping to under 1.1 Euros around New Year's 2009.



Without all the bailout madness concerning Greece & Spain that occurred recently, the pound got as high as 1.28 Euros during midsummer last year, but has been dropping of late, going from about 1.23 Euros on January 7, 2013, to just below 1.19 yesterday: LINK.

Most of the ~1.5% drop in value of the pound occurred over the 2 or so days from January 16 to January 18, coinciding with the recent rumors about Cameron's upcoming speech.