[world trade] the fundamental interconnectedness of all things

I should have called this blog the fundamental interconnectedness of all things because it keeps cropping up in the most interesting ways.

It doesn’t take a great deal of research, you know. It really doesn’t. You just follow your next lead, see something interesting, follow that, then combine or filter it all through your own knowledge and experience. The essential problem is that you always end up with the same three questions:

1 Can I go any further down this track;
2 Can I publish anything about it, even if I do;
3 So what?

It began with a look at speculative capital and the fall of Enron. By a convoluted route, this led to the July 25th Fitch upgrade of Russia:

Russia’s sovereign rating was raised from BBB to BBB+, the highest investment evaluation assigned to the country. Standard&Poor`s and Moody`s are expected to follow. Standard & Poor`s and Moody`s currently rate Russia BBB and Baa2 respectively, which corresponds to the second stage of investment level.

These positive factors are listed for Russia:

· continuously high prices for crude [I touched on this in an earlier article]
· possible settlement of Paris Club debt [no comment]
· sizeable gold/foreign exchange reserves
· stabilization fund

Constraining factors include legal regulation problems in the country. Er, yes, we all know about those. So, cutting to Fitch itself, part of its explanation says:

“Enduringly high commodity prices are strengthening Russia’s macroeconomic and financial position at a remarkable pace, further reducing the likelihood of any future risk to sovereign debt service.”

Fitch said the rating actions reflected its view of the Russian authorities’ improved capacity to support the banks listed below if required:

· Russian Agricultural Bank, upgraded to IDR BBB+ from BBB with a stable outlook.
· Sberbank savings bank, upgraded to IDR BBB+ from BBB with a stable outlook.
· Vnesheconombank (VEB), upgraded to IDR BBB+ from BBB with a stable outlook.
· and so on.

Basically, I was looking around for details of one particular bank. So this took me to the Fitch site and it was therefore just a hop, step and a jump to Fimalac SA.

This immediately brought to view one interesting name - Véronique Morali, whose claims to fame include:

· Former Tesco director
· President, Force Femmes
· Co-opted to Fimalac by Marc Ladreit de la Charriere

That gentleman’s name itself is found on the board of l’Oreal, of which a great deal has been said by others who have been largely discredited, of course. This, in turn, then takes us to a meeting way back in 1991, when the following august people were present:

Queen Beatrix, Prince Bernhard, Lord Black of Crossharbour, Nicholas Brady, Gordon Brown, Lord Peter Carrington, Bill Clinton, Marc Ladreit de la Charriere, Arthur Dunkel, Lawrence Freedman, Fritz Gerber, Katie Graham, Hank Greenberg, Henry Kissinger, Veronique Morali, David Oddson, David Rockefeller Sr, Queen Sophia, Michael Wilson, Grant Winthrop, J D Wolfensen

That’s the point where I stopped but isn’t it great that Russia has so assiduously attempted to pay off its outstanding external debt?