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When the Polish EU Presidency and the European Parliament in October 2011 clinched a deal that beefed up standards for the practices of short-selling and trading in credit default swaps (CDS), a financial product insuring against default, there was hope that our leaders had understood and brought change.

Finance Commissioner Ollie Rehn has expressed himself as being "quite optimistic" that the negotiations for Private Sector Participation (PSI) in the 'haircut' of the Greek sovereign debt will be swiftly concluded.

'Could Greece’s next rescue payout go straight into the pockets of London hedge funds?' asked the International Herald Tribune (IHT) on its front page of 11 January 2012. Across the North Sea in Germany, negative sentiments over further bailouts and rescue missions for the financial sector are gaining ground not only...

LONDON – Europe is now haunted by the spectre of debt. All European leaders quail before it. To exorcise the demon, they are putting their economies through the wringer.

Greece and its private lenders, aka the banks, made good progress on 19 January, in negotiating the terms for the Private Sector Involvement (PSI) scheme, which is intended to reduce the debt burden of the crisis-stricken country by at least €130 billion.