The Tobin Tax, or Financial Transaction Tax, is controversial within the EU - Britain says it won't sign up for an EU wide levy - and within German Chancellor Angela Merkel's right-wing coalition government where the minority partners, the FDP, are against the idea.

But according to an article in today's Suddeutsche Zeitung, Merkel is now throwing her weight behind a Tobin Tax.

Update: S&P has just announced it is making one more downgrade, to a critical issuer of European debt: the European Financial Stability Fund has lost its AAA rating. In parallel with France, it has gone from AAA to AA+.

Last Friday, Standard & Poor's downgraded several euro-zone countries credit ratings, most notably France, which went from AAA to AA+. The headline the next day Britain's Guardian newspaper was  "Friday the 13th" with its attendant implications of misfortune.

Today, there was no sign of Jason Voorhees ripping up Europe.  The financial markets shrugged everything off. The CAC 40 in Paris finished up 0.9 percent while the DAX 30 in Frankfurt closed up 1.25 percent. The FTSE in London was up 0.4 percent. Not exciting but not negative.

It takes a long time for news to get up the mountain, but it seems to have finally reached the alpine area near Davos: things down below where 99 percent of the world lives are getting dangerous. Things are so dangerous that the one percent better pay attention.

The World Economic Forum holds its annual get together at Davos starting January 25th and in advance it has just published Global Risks 2012, a survey of the views of 469 "experts and industry leaders." It is a bleak read. The report is divided into three case studies titled Seeds of Dystopia, How Safe are our Safeguards?, and The Dark Side of Connectivity.

Pull a quote from any page and you will be sent into a dark tunnel of despair:

Let's start with the good news: Ratings agency Fitch announced France would keep its AAA rating for the rest of the year. A Fitch spokesperson in Paris said, "Fitch maintains its position from December. In the absence of important shocks that could be linked to a strong worsening of the situation in the eurozone, Fitch does not foresee modifying its negative outlook (on the ratings) before 2013."

Now, it's Europe, let's get to the bad news. In London, Fitch's managing director, David Riley, said Italy was the country that was most at risk of a downgrade. "The future of the euro will be decided at the gates of Rome," Riley told reporters.

The country's A+ rating could be lowered as soon as the end of January.