Olli Rehn -- "the most incompetent of all" commissioners -- the European Union Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner, on Thursday praised the ECB's radical action to pump liquidity into the banking system through billions of euros cheap loans. "The risk of a credit crunch in the European economy has been prevented," he said. But with deposits at the ECB nearly three times the level reached when Lehman Brothers collapsed, the latest figures pointed to the spectre of a freeze that could be even worse than 2008. ...The eurozone's economy shrank 0.3pc in the last three months of 2011, according to the second reading by Eurostat. The Brussels agency said over the whole year, the combined GDP for all 17 members grew 1.4pc compared with 1.9pc in 2010. But the impact of the debt crisis was plain. For instance eurozone exports fell in the fourth quarter - for the first time in two and half years. The Stoxx Europe 600 index closed down 2.7pc on Thursday; France's CAC slumped 3.6pc; Germany's DAX, Spain's Ibex and Italy's FTSE MIB fell 3.4pc. In London the FTSE 100 shed 1.9pc. Gold was pushed up through $1,690 an ounce. It really is time to call it quits! To continue to bail out banks that do not deserve bailing out with tax payers money is a huge misallocation of resources and an outright crime againsts the ordinary citizen. Bailing out coutries like Greece, is just taking the game to its extreme. --- This crazy game has to come to an end and now. The debts are quite simply going to have to be written off and the banks can fail. My commentary is this: SO WHAT? A legion of banks have failed in the past so why are they all too big to fail now? The bankers should not be allowed to loan money with the surety that they can gamble and never lose like weighted dice. --- Furthermore, this entire credit driven debt charade has to come to an end for the good of all the world's people. We cannot continue this mass transference of wealth from the poor to the super rich to create yet another group of financial Kings, Czars, Emperors and Pharoahs. Loading every human being to the hilt with debt is quite simply downright evil. "Lobster potting" people with mountainous debts from the age they turn into adults until, quite literally, you bury them is as morally decrepit as it is totally wrong. What kind of world do these greedy plutocrats want? Obviously, not one where they have any concience orconcerns over the less fortunate of the planet! --- Perhaps as a man or woman gets richer, wealth is not enough and then power drives them all crazy as they all vie to play with the planet. Well so far every despot and dictator has acheived little other than ruin and disaster for the human race. What we need is a dilution of power not further concentration as a one world Government and currency.
11 comments:
What is more 'useless' than something with no value?
Something with an 'implied' value.
Why?
As in the end, it will take back 'more' than what it was ever able to give.
Such is government issued, fiat, toytown currency.
''European stockmarkets plunged as Greece threatened its international creditors with a default. ''
Really!?
Only last weekend we were informed that the International Banks that actually take the decision to declare a 'credit event' / default had rejected a Greek default!
Here's one news report on that non 'default' - 'event':
''The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) said that new Greek legislation forcing all bondholders to accept losses and steps by the European Central Bank to avoid losses on its Greek bonds, did not equate to a 'credit event'.
'It means payments of credit default swaps (CDS) - insurance mechanisms against default - totalling about 3.2bn euros (£2.7bn) have not been triggered.
'Sky's economics editor Ed Conway said the reason for the decision was purely down to the fact that private bond-holders are yet to actually suffer their losses.
'He gave this analysis: "It (Greece) is by almost every other standard in default.
"The question I think is one of timing. ISDA cannot declare that a 'credit event' has happened until it's actually happened." '
This is a joke....clearly there are massive financial entities that have been bystanders with no vested interest in Greece...EXCEPT that they have written paper that guarantees paying out losses to holders of Greek debt. They have made huge premiums through this endeavor...but do NOT have the collateral to back the insurance that they have written.
Under no circumstances do they want a technical default...since such an action will trigger their requirement to pay out.
Since this is in terms of derivatives upon derivatives...the end result will be catastrophic.
It is the old 'game' of greed....in this case using synthetic derivatives to create income with an assumption that there will never be a need to pay out.
This is corruption of the highest order and governments the world over are complicit in this monumental scandal
This is a joke....clearly there are massive financial entities that have been bystanders with no vested interest in Greece...EXCEPT that they have written paper that guarantees paying out losses to holders of Greek debt. They have made huge premiums through this endeavor...but do NOT have the collateral to back the insurance that they have written.
Under no circumstances do they want a technical default...since such an action will trigger their requirement to pay out.
Since this is in terms of derivatives upon derivatives...the end result will be catastrophic.
It is the old 'game' of greed....in this case using synthetic derivatives to create income with an assumption that there will never be a need to pay out.
This is corruption of the highest order and governments the world over are complicit in this monumental scandal
The above sentence "Private creditors have until Thursday to accept an offer to swap their bonds for new ones that will be worth less" should actually read "Private creditors have until Thursday to accept an offer to swap their bonds for new ones that will be worthless".
hink how pointless 1000 euros would be if Germany, Finland etc revert to their own currencies leaving a club Med euro, its the only real chance for the euro to survive in any form, however pointless.
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pikausernames
Yesterday 11:57 PM
For Germany and Finland to leave the Eurozone would be very expensive...I'm not sure they can afford it, in a way it's like Great Britain that yes would like to but no better think about it, yes let's do it slowly, no let's stay in, yes we'll have a referendum, no it'll be tomorrow...
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petermac
19 minutes ago
Expensive to leave but also expensive to stay and bailout others!
Your scenario is correct there is no great leadership and decisiveness being displayed by any European leader.
Would however keep an eye on Finland, they could move and the rest would follow like a pack of sheep
If you just times every thing by -1, then it will leave the 1% with all the debt and the 99% with enough cash to get the world moving again, should not the 99%'s needs be more important than the 1%.
It would only require multiplying every thing by minus one.
A group of hedge funds in the USA represented by the US law firm Bingham McCutchen are holding out stubbornly and not prepared to take a haircut with Greek debt swaps according to the German press (FAZ).
source: http://www.faz.net/aktuell/fin...
Whereas yet another group of US hedge funds represented by Greylock Capital Management in California have agreed to a debt-swap on Greek debt yesterday.
Thursday evening is the deadline for deal or default for Greece.
It looks like Bingham McCutchen will be getting a phone call from a concerned U.S. treasury official very soon
Of the total privately held debt, 177 billion euros of bonds are written under Greek law. Greece is hoping that at least 66 percent of bonds, or 117 billion euros, will be put forward for a haircut. If this happens, Athens will be able to activate the collective action clauses (CACs) that allow it to impose the debt swap on the remaining bondholders. The Greek government believes the take-up rate will be between 75 and 80 percent.
Greece’s Public Debt Management Agency (PDMA) issued a statement Tuesday making it clear that Athens has no intention of honoring any bonds that are not volunteered for a haircut. “Greece’s economic program does not contemplate the availability of funds to make payments to private sector creditors that decline to participate in PSI,” it said.
Sources told Kathimerini that holdouts will either be offered a much more onerous deal than those who take part in the restructuring or they will not be offered new bonds as sweeteners.
Nevertheless, four pension funds, which hold about 2 billion euros of Greek debt, said they would not take part in the deal. Eight funds that own 2.7 billion euros of debt said they would take part in the restructuring.
Kathimerini understands that there is a possibility that bondholders may be given longer to consider whether they will take part in the restructuring, but Public Debt Management Agency head Petros Christodoulou denied that the date was being pushed back. “I confirm that the deadline is March 8,” he told Reuters.
“With the successful completion of the bond swap, we will begin a new chapter for our country,” Bank of Greece Governor Giorgos Provopoulos said after seeing President Karolos Papoulias.
Greece’s six biggest banks confirmed Tuesday that they would take part in the bond swap proposed by the government but several pension funds said they would not, despite the government preparing to offer holdouts worse terms than those who join the scheme.
Representatives of National Bank of Greece, Eurobank, Alpha, Piraeus, Hellenic Postbank and ATEbank met with Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos to inform him that they would participate in the private sector involvement plan, or PSI, part of Greece’s new bailout.
The six banks hold roughly 40 billion of about 200 billion euros in bonds that are due for a face value haircut of 53.5 percent. Bondholders have until Wednesday night to declare whether they will take part in the restructuring.
Official figures show that EU countries sold Greece over €1 billion of arms
at the same time as negotiating its first bail-out back in 2010.
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