"The link below is for last Thursdays Don Coxe audio (10th Nov), in which he presents his interesting thoughts on the Euro, in fact about 80% of the audio is on the Euro, which may be of interest to subscribers.

"Essentially, Mr Coxe's view is that the Euro must weaken before we can look forward to a reliable bull run in equities and he explains at some length why he thinks this is so.

"If you get a chance to listen and you have time, it would be nice have your take on Mr Coxe's view."

David Fuller's view Thanks for the Audio above. Don Coxe takes what I would describe as the Anglo Saxon view of the euro - that it will break up or at least be rendered down to an inner core of countries capable of living in a currency union with Germany.

I regard the euro as a political construct, so its future depends on the political will of European leaders. I think Don Coxe and most British commentators underestimate the political will within Europe to make the euro a viable project. Europe's leaders know what they need to do and Eoin provides a good summary in answer to the same email below.

With Italy's problems of debt and a lack of growth in the spotlight recently, this article on Mario Monti by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard for The Telegraph is informative. Here is a section, posted without further comment:

Mr Monti's hand is not quite as weak as it looks. The Italian state is a Christmas tree of valuable assets, owning 4pc of the oil company ENI, 31pc of the utility ENEL, 33pc of the aerospace group Finmeccanica, 100pc of Poste Italiane.

Company sales could generate €45bn quite easily and Mr Monti is already a convinced privatiser. Whether he can convince the centre-left in parliament to back such sales is an open question.

State assets total €1.8 trillion, roughly the same as public debt of €1.9 trillion. There is vast private wealth, by some estimates near €8.6 trillion, making the Italians much richer per capita than Germans or Americans.

The task for Mr Monti to carry out an "internal bail-out" by extracting a sliver of this national 'ricchezza' to rescue the state.

A variant of this was tried in July 1992, when bank accounts were raided by forced levy. Mr Monti will be less capricious. He is a stickler for due process. Options include a tax on residences and a wealth tax that might bring in €100bn.

Unlike Greece, Italy already has a primary budget surplus. It will be 0.5pc of GDP this year and 4pc by 2013 if the overall budget is balanced by then. This is the best in the G7 bloc.

The IMF's debt sustainability indicator places Italy top on the good conduct list at 4.1, ahead of Germany 4.6, France 7.9, the UK 13.3, Japan 14.3, and the US 17.

Italy's public debt of 120pc of GDP is in a sense offset by very low household debt of 42pc. Total private debt is 129pc, compared to a eurozone average of 169pc.

Here is an interesting development on the political front reported by Bloomberg: Merkel's Party Votes to Allow Exits From Euro. Here is the opening:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party voted to allow euro states to quit the currency area, endorsing the prospect of a move not permitted under euro rules.

The resolution, which requires the assent of Merkel's two coalition partners before becoming policy, is part of Merkel's push for closer political ties and tighter budget rules in the European Union, with euro countries setting the pace. The drive is her answer to the debt crisis that began in Greece in 2009 and last week toppled governments in Athens and Rome.

"We're not throwing anybody out," Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said in an interview with broadcaster Phoenix from the CDU national congress in Leipzig today. "But if a country can't carry the burden or doesn't want to carry the burden, and the Greek people have to carry a heavy load, then we have to respect the country's decision."

I have said for years that the euro would survive if Germany wished to remain a member - it does, not least because the Deutsche mark would soar, making the country's exporters less competitive.

I have also said on many occasions that I never assumed that the euro was a club which countries could join but never leave. Psychologically, by acknowledging that Greeks have the democratic right to leave the single currency, should they wish to, Germany may have actually stiffened the resolve of Greeks to remain in the euro. We will see.