Showing posts with label Basa Press. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Basa Press. Show all posts

Monday, June 4, 2012

This is the end result of the European welfare state. People in Europe work too short hours in jobs from which they cannot be fired or laid off from. European vacations are too long. Free medical care encourages people to overuse the system. People retire much too young with absurdly high pensions. Badly-run companies are given huge subsidies and the rise of new competitors is made completely impossible. Religion and the work ethic are gone, replaced by the crass selfishness and lack of community pride which are a characteristic of socialist societies. Education has turned into boring political propaganda with most people left semi-literate and completely ignorant of their national traditions and duties as citizens at the end of the process. Families have gone for generations living on the dole. Unions have made manufacturing increasingly costly and uncompetitive. All of these costs are protected by robust interest groups who will ruin any politician foolish enough to suggest even the mildest reform. A Soviet Union-style collapse is the only option....The EU, and its Euro, appear at bottom to be failing and failed Grand Projects of the French, whether viewed in 1956 or 1992 or today. And this is only the latest Grand Failure in a 500 year history of Truly Grand Failures.
Somehow the very best talent put forward by French statecraft during any of the recent centuries results in debacle.
Consider the leadership opportunities available to Louis XIV including the Spanish Succession, all squandered.
Consider France's failure to populate its North American holdings, resulting in the loss of 1/3 of an entire continent. Its concurrent failure to defend holdings in India is almost as grand and unnecessary a collapse.
Consider the French Nation's wanton destruction of its own Revolutionary potential.
Consider Napoleon's ludicrous invasion of Russia.
Consider Sedan.
Consider the Versailles Treaty.
Consider the Maginot Line.
Consider the complete collapse of French Africa, including Algeria.
There is something restless about French statecraft that, seeks self-immolation.

Friday, June 1, 2012

European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi says that eurozone leaders must decide what they want the bloc to look like in the future, because the current set-up is "unsustainable". He said that the ECB could not "fill the vacuum" left by governments on creating growth or structural reforms. EU economics commissioner Olli Rehn said more austerity was needed if the eurozone was to avoid disintegration. New figures showed eurozone inflation slowed more than expected this month. Inflation in the 17 countries that use the euro eased to 2.4% in May from 2.6% in April. The figure is still above the ECB's target to keep inflation below 2%, but the lower-than-expected number could fuel calls for an interest rate cut next week.
Worries over the eurozone debt crisis - and in particular Spain's banking sector - have been hitting markets all week. However, the markets were enjoying a respite on Thursday. The euro - which had fallen to near two-year lows against the dollar at $1.2358 - recovered slightly to $1.2410. European stock markets were mostly positive, with London's FTSE 100 share index up 0.8%, and the Frankfurt and Paris indexes registering similar gains. The pressure on bond yields also eased slightly, with Spain's 10-year bond yield - the rate of return demanded by investors - falling back to 6.61%, having reached 6.79% on Wednesday. In other figures released on Thursday, Germany's unemployment rate fell below 7% as Europe's biggest economy continued to perform strongly. The jobless rate dropped to 6.7% in May, from 7% in April, as the number of people unemployed fell by 108,000 to 2.86 million. However, there was more bad news from Greece as figures showed that Greek retail sales volumes fell by 16.2% in March compared with a year earlier. This followed February's decline of 12.9%.
Angela Merkel says Europe should be ready to consider all options to stop the debt crisis - but wouldn't comment on a banking union in the eurozone. She said member states should be ready to hand over more powers to the EC: There are integration steps which will require treaty changes. We are not at that stage today but nevertheless there are no taboos. I have always said we need more Europe and that means eventually giving more competences to the European Commission. We have to think about how we move forward over the next five to ten-year horizon. And if we are constantly coming up with new taboos, it won't work. An odd move here from Bankia. In an attempt to hang on to deposits it's offering a free Spiderman towel to young savers if they can put away €300 by the end of the month. There were reports of a bank run earlier in the month after the state takeover of the lender was announced.
WELL....The simple truth is that European Nations face solvency issues thanks to structural deficits, which means the ECB is broke. The EFSF has never been adequately funded, nor can the IMF come up with enough money to bail out every bank in Europe, therefore, eventually, the currency will be abandoned. The Euro exists currently only because of US Currency backstops. By the same token, here in the US, sooner or later bond clamping will fail, and cuts will be occurring here as well. The only thing that remains up in the air is the timing, not the eventuality....BBC is reporting that the head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, declared the Eurozone is "... unsustainable..." and that the ECB cannot ..."fill the vacuum..." left by the failure of Eurozone to take necessary action on austerity and structural reforms.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

BLACKMAIL ON THE PART OF GERMANY

Euler Hermes, which is majority owned by the German insurer Allianz, is acting on fears that the stricken eurozone member may be forced out of the single currency, limiting the ability of Greek importers to pay their bills. “Euler Hermes has decided no longer to cover deliveries to Greece for the foreseeable future,” a spokesman said. The company said existing contracts would be honoured but no new Greek business would be underwritten. The insurer said it would reconsider its decision “as soon as the situation improves.”
The move reflects the widely-held view that Greece is likely to exit the eurozone, after politicians failed to form a coalition government, prompting a second election on June 17.  The fear is that Greece will elect politicians unwilling to press ahead with the scale of austerity demanded by fellow eurozone members and the International Monetary Fund as a pre-requisite for continued bail-out funds, hastening an exit from the single currency.,,,AND THIS AMOUNTS TO BLACKMAIL ON THE PART OF  GERMANY  (The today's IVth. Reich)

I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Greece has already started printing Drachmas in secret and that Germany had been printing DMs

The Pew Global Attitudes Project polled 8,000 people in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, Poland, Britain and the Czech Republic from mid-March to mid-April and identified unprecedented levels of discontent with the EU. "The European project, which began with the creation of a small common market in 1957, grew to a larger single market in 1992 and then created the single currency in 2002, is a major casualty of the sovereign debt crisis," the report concluded. "Majorities or near majorities in most nations now believe that the economic integration of Europe has actually weakened their economies." At a time when the EU is pushing closer to an economic and fiscal union for the eurozone, popular opinion is pulling the other way. That contradiction has led to electoral upsets across Europe, from Greece to the Netherlands and France in the past three months alone. Majorities in most countries now blame EU integration for damaging their economies, but the figures hit 70% in Greece, 63% in France and 61pc in Italy, all countries once regarded as staunchly pro-European. Just one third of the people – 34% – believe that economic integration, a central plank of the EU's raison d'etre, is a benefit.
De La Rue, the money printer, failed to dampen speculation that it has been secretly awarded a contract to start printing drachmas the moment Greece is forced out of the euro. The company said that its order book had increased by 14pc, to £248m, but its policy was to never reveal which specific contracts it was working on. The chief executive Tim Cobbold said: “We have people in every region in the world. We are very close to all geopolitical conditions that develop.”
He said, however, that in most circumstances it took six months between an initial order being placed by a central bank or government, and the notes being delivered. This was the time it took when South Sudan introduced the South Sudanese pound after it gained independence last year.
To print a new currency in the space of a couple of weeks “would be impossible”.
Sergey Shvestov, the vice president of Russia’s Central Bank, said that Greece already has a plan to introduce its own currency, in parallel to to the euro. He said it with high certainty.
Making contingency plans for different options is the right thing to do for anyone, but saying it about Greece and with such a degree of certainty is new.
Shvestov didn’t want to share more details, but said that leaving the euro-zone is a necessity for Greece. He said it would be a “good example” for other countries.
The Russian Center for Strategic Studies in Moscow said that a Grexit will ignite a global crisis affecting the price of oil. They see a a chance of more than 50% that Greece will leave the euro-zone and that it will cause other countries will leave as well. El Economista brings this report. Rumors about fresh polls show that anti-bailout SYRIZA is in the lead, with 30% support. The situation in Greece is so bad that the country may leave the zone even if pro-bailout parties win.
EUR/USD is struggling between 1.25 and 1.26. Is another fall coming?

Sunday, May 27, 2012

There has been very little democracy about EU ...

The European Commission is run by 32 people, all of whom are now billionaires (Vivian Reding was the last one into the billionaires club). ...Not a single one is competent in any way....Note that none of them come from a major country - it's all rats and mice stuff - making it easier for France at first and Germany now to tell them what to do.
Democracy? The EU spends a fortune keeping democracy or democratic expression in check. We have allowed the EU to become a machine that serves itself and many thousands of well paid staff - keeping themselves occupied by standardizing everything right across the region via endless regulations. There has been very little democracy about this - save for occasionally carefully calculated rubber stamp exercises - usually by those desperate to get their snouts in the trough. Politicians at the national level have, without the authorisation of the People, serially signed away more and more of the sovereignty of their countries. Snatching back currency sovereignty would be a reversal of this process. You can expect the machinery of the EU to move Heaven and Earth (and every allegedly fixed goalpost the EU has) to avoid it happening. The EU is designed as a one way street. Democracy is greatly feared by these politically elite puppets - Democracy spells the end of their Princely style and worse, Democracy would challenge the source of their wealth and why the Commission found it necessary to protect themselves and their ill-gained personal assets with a Law which prohibits any examination or investigation of them. They are immune to prosecution for any and ALL crimes and misdemeanors.  The last Commission was ignominiously forced to resign en masse - because - they stole £1.4 Billion - yes billion.   Not a penny was recovered.  Not a prosecution was enforced.  They got away with grand theft Scot free....Most of them still work within the EU Commission.
"The European Union has abrogated the Rule of Law for the good of the State. This is the second such abrogation with the first being the exemption of certain European institutions and the IMF from the Private Sector Involvement of Greece. Greece may be a one-off exemption as they claim but we now have a second instance where jurisprudence has been overturned for the good of the nations of Europe. This is not Socialism or Capitalism but rather some sort of Fascist governance which I publically decry as the echo of the jackboots sounds across the Continent once again."

Monday, May 14, 2012

The average European (Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, Irish, Italian, even British and German) before paying one more coin to the government in taxes, need to ask for a full, popular and independent audit of all expenditures decisions which bring us to the present disaster. States lost their credibility. ... We need a big TRIAL, Nuremberg style. To find responsibilities for the present mess. All those rendered guilty for corruption and robbery expeditiously judged and jailed. Traitors, who plotted the enslavement of its own people by opaque schemes and treaties, irresponsible debts and high regulation and taxes, associated with foreigners powers and multinational interests, judged and publicly executed. All debts related with the submission of the nation canceled and remaining sound debts paid for the society even with utmost sacrifice. Otherwise people will not be cooperative with the current state of affaires. We need a new era of clean people, clean policy and clean money before we move to the next step. Let´s sort out who is who first. I think it would be a good idea to let the people get what they asked for. They want a socialist government and now it is time to reap the rewards. In a few weeks they will be broke and unable to borrow more money. Instead of cuts they will have nothing. It sucks but sometimes people can only learn the hard way....It is easy to blame the Greek man in the street for th e failures of his government to collecttaxes and t toleraate forms of corruption> votes or no votes he man in the street has little control over his governemt. So let us put the blame where it ddoes lie.
1. The greek government of the day who lied their way into the Eurozone in the first place.
2. Goldman sachs who created the fiddles whicj allowed thenm to lie their way into th eeurozone
3. The euro zone experts who should have been fully aware of the potential greek difficulties and did nothing.

Sunday, May 13, 2012


S&P said this money crunch is likely to only be the start of a wider credit crisis as national austerity programmes and sovereign debt fears combine to put "refinancing needs in jeopardy". On Thursday, the Dutch central bank said it thought Europe was on the brink of a "lost decade" of low economic growth as the region struggles to get its finances in order. Against this backdrop, eurozone and British companies will have to have to deal with managing the £7.1 trillion debt pile they have accumulated, equivalent roughly to 80pc of the region's economy. The vast majority of the debt to which S&P refers is standby lines of credit to Britain's largest companies. The FTSE is not over-geared, companies haven't borrowed outside their means and there is no great "wall" coming. Corporates have been feverishly hoarding cash and de-levering over the last 3 years in full expectation of another recession....Most of the debt facilities will simply be rolled by existing lenders at or before maturity as they always do, probably at higher margins. The problem here is that some of the lenders who are looking to reduce their balance sheets will find it harder to support smaller businesses (and by that I mean FTSE250 companies, not SMEs) at the stupidly low margins that they are currently charged. Pricing will therefore go up in order to compensate for the increased capital requirements which the regulators have rightly imposed on the banking sector. A few will really struggle and they might need external support.....A little less headline grabbing and a few more facts might actually bring some reasoned argument.

Friday, May 11, 2012

I say....

I've been scriblling about the super amounts of money that European taxpayers have been paying out every year in interest payments to the banking sector - €5.6 trillion since 1995. This has to be one of the longest running extortion rackets in history. Remember that the banks lend money to governments that they don't actually have - they use the magic conjuring trick of fractional reserve banking to create the "money" out of thin air. They then charge taxpayers interest despite the fact that lending to governments must surely be one of the safest bets around....The figures for long-term interest rates in the European Union can all be found on the ECB's website. If you click here, you can see the figures for the last year or so. But I've just discovered that you can easily generate graphs showing the interest rates for all EU countries since as long ago as 1993. First, here is the official ECB graph showing interest rate variations for the 17 Eurozone countries.
Intringuingly, there was a moment back in 2007-2008 when all the countries were paying the same rate of roughly 4% - it was a good time to be in the Eurozone. But since then, the rates have gone all over the place with Greece, Portutal and Ireland being forced to pay extortionate rates - so high that they might as well pay using a credit card. Some countries, such as Germany have done very well since their rates are now down below 2%. This gives them a fantastic competitive advantage. Could that explain why they are so keen on maintaining the status quo?

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Time to cash in your chips....

Time to cash in your chips ---Hollande based his manifesto upon "re-negotiating" the Treaty! Perhaps he should have had a word with Mme Merkel beforehand - as it now seems that it has backfired on him. There you go - people WILL believe what they want to hear - we're stuck with him for 5 years now - just look at the Markets - already, and it's only been 24 hours!There is little prospect of the German chancellor putting her hands up and losing the economic war she has been waging with her eurozone partners for two years now. Austerity Rules OK might be the graffiti shorthand for the debt and public spending reduction programmes that have formed the core of the Merkel approach to keep the eurozone intact and the markets on side. The message that came through strongly from France and Greece at the weekend was that austerity does not rule OK. Mrs Merkel was effectively told to "get lost" by one of the new political leaders in Greece – Syriza party leader Alexis Tsipras – who's plea was to end the "bail-out barbarism". Mrs Merkel or the markets are more likely to tell Greece to "get lost". The Euro is a disaster. The fact that the EU collectively are in denial can only make the disaster worse. Except they will not because the disaster is already as bad as it can get. Europe is going to enter a massive dislocation which will leave it irrelevant in the world. The UK will probably get dragged along unless UKIP makes a (literally) unbelievable breakthrough and we cut our bondage ties to Europe. It is over guys. Time to cash in your chips (investments, pensions etc) and depart to a foreign clime. Leave the young to suffer under the debt burden we have left them. But do not bank on their continuing to pay your pensions for the next half century. It is not going to happen.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Poor manufacturing data from Italy, Spain, France and Germany erodes early gains on European markets, while eurozone unemployment hits a record high of 10.9pc.....Unemployment in the eurozone reached a record high again in March as spending cuts continued to hit the working population. For all 17 nations in the eurozone, the jobless rate rose again to 10.9%, the highest since the euro was formed in 1999, Eurostat said. For the eurozone, 17.4 million are now looking for work and more than 3 million of those are under 25. Italy's unemployment rate reached a 12-year high, up to 9.8%. And in a surprise move, the jobless rate in Germany rose to 6.8% in March, official figures showed, having been expected to stay at the previous month's 6.7% after six months of declines. The number of Germans out of work is now at 2.87 million.For the whole of the European Union, including countries such as the UK and Denmark, the jobless rate is 10.2%.
Austerity or growth ... Last week, Spain said that the number of job seekers rose for the eighth month in a row in March to hit 5.6 million, a record rate of 24.4%. Spain has the highest unemployment rate in the European Union and it is expected to rise further this year. Spain and Italy are both in recession and have seen borrowing costs rise, raising the prospect that they may need help or even bailouts. A debate is raging in Europe about whether politicians have prioritized austerity at the expense of economic growth, making recovery even harder for themselves.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Merkel faced trouble at home as opposition politicians joined Mr Hollande in his bid to make the austerity pact more flexible. They complain that the "one-size-fits-all" rules do not suit Germany's individual states and municipalities. The question of how to address the eurozone's debt burden is toppling governments across Europe. The three-month-old Romanian government fell on Friday as it lost a no-confidence vote over state asset sales. Against a backdrop of rising concerns, the pound hit a two-and-half-year high against a basket of currencies tracked by the Bank of England. Italy, the eurozone's third largest economy, paid more to get auctions of its government debt away on Friday morning. It paid yields, or implied interest rates, of 5.84pc on its 10-year bonds, up from 5.24pc last month. Separately, Ireland slashed its growth forecast for this year from 1.3pc to 0.7pc.

MADRID - Spanish officials moved to shore up confidence in the ailing local economy after new data showed unemployment at an 18-year high, after credit-ratings firm Standard & Poor's slapped Spanish government debt with a two-notch downgrade. Spain's statistics bureau Friday said the country's jobless rate rose to 24.4% in the first quarter, from 22.9% in the fourth quarter of last year, inching toward its highest level on record. More than half of workers under 25 years old were without jobs. In the first quarter of 1994, Spanish unemployment reached 24.6%. Spain's government said its program of economic reform will benefit the country after it was hit by a credit rating downgrade by Standard & Poor's and figures showed unemployment had hit an 18-year high. "The figures are terrible for everyone and terrible for the government," Foreign Minister José Manuel Garcia-Margallo said in a radio interview. "Spain has been, and is, in a crisis of huge proportions." Spain's labor market has been hard hit by the collapse of a decadelong housing boom and by budget cuts that are removing tens of billions of euros from the economy. In addition, rigid labor laws make it easier to dismiss workers than to adjust their wages or change their duties. Spain's unemployment rate is more than double the 10.7% euro-zone average, and now totals about 5.6 million people.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

The euro zone fiscal compact has lost what remained of its credibility

(Reuters) - Dutch Queen Beatrix has asked for parliament to be dissolved so that elections can be held on September 12, leaving the country open to months of political and economic uncertainty after the government collapsed in a row over budget cuts. The triple-A rated Netherlands has been one of the euro zone’s most stable countries but has been plunged into a political crisis, worrying financial markets focused on the region’s debt troubles. “The euro zone fiscal compact will lose what remains of its credibility if even one of the AAA members is politically unable to implement the austerity measures required to adhere to this rule,” Rabobank said in a research note. After losing his main ally, care-taker Prime Minister Mark Rutte is desperately trying to find support from opposition parties for budget cuts to put the country on track to meet the European Union’s deficit targets. The largest opposition parties on Tuesday refused to back his 14 to 16 billion euros package of cuts, and now he has less than a week to win support from smaller parties so he can present his plans to the EU by April 30. With doubts growing across Europe about the price of austerity, parties to Rutte’s left said trying to meet the EU’s deficit target of 3 percent of gross domestic product in 2013 would hurt the economy and the Dutch people. A statement issued by the prime minister’s office said the Queen of the caretaker government requested the dissolution of the House of Representatives, to allow elections to go ahead on September 12. Rutte’s centre-right government tendered its resignation on Monday after only 18 months in power and the elections will be the fifth in ten years. Rutte’s two-party coalition had relied on the Freedom Party headed by Geert Wilders, the eurosceptic, anti-Islam politician - to get legislation through parliament, even though the Freedom Party remained outside the government.  But Wilders withdrew that support at the weekend after seven weeks of negotiations on the extra budget cuts, without which the deficit is forecast to reach 4.6 percent of GDP next year.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Britain will grow by 0.8pc this year, the IMF said in its World Economic Outlook, drawing its prediction into line with the Treasury’s Office for Budget Responsibility. The Bretton Woods institution’s forecast for the UK is now better than in January, when it was slashed to 0.6pc, but worse than September’s estimate of 1.6pc. Its 2013 forecast was unchanged at 2pc. The UK’s improved prospects reflected a sunnier outlook for the global economy as a whole. The IMF said there had been a “reacceleration of activity” and that “high frequency indicators point to stronger growth”. It added: “Growth in the UK, where the financial sector was hit hard by the global crisis, will be weak in early 2012, before recovering.” I wonder what the report would have been if Osbourne had said NO to the IMF? They've had another £10 billion, I'd like to know where the money's coming from? Yet, in today's Times, there is an article on Food Banks, where the unemployed and some working people, who are lacking basic things have free food. In this nation, where we keep lending to others, give £29 billion per year in foreign aid, yet we have our own who don't have enough money to feed themselves. Its a national disgrace. And if anyone accepts it then they too are a disgrace. We will see things get much worse when the new benefits set in and the rest of the cuts take place. We may even see soup kitchens appear on our streets. Who can we blame? Well I don't blame the unemployed who may have worked until this crisis, I don't blame the sick and the disabled who have been targeted by this government. I don't even blame the rich who have had tax cuts, if they are offered anyone would take them, that's human nature. However, I do blame this government and past ones who have brought this country down to this level through their policies and actions. The political elite, who have no idea what they have done to people in this country and don't even care in many cases. So, what can we now do while we are in this mess?I wonder what the report would have been if Osbourne had said NO to the IMF? They've had another £10 billion, I'd like to know where the money's coming from? Yet, in today's Times, there is an article on Food Banks, where the unemployed and some working people, who are lacking basic things have free food. In this nation, where we keep lending to others, give £29 billion per year in foreign aid, yet we have our own who don't have enough money to feed themselves. Its a national disgrace.

Monday, April 16, 2012

IMF ....explained ...

IMF in context (explained) : As of mid 2008, the IMF had around $1,6 billion in the bank. Compared to the sums involved in the designed financial collapse, this represents a grain of sand on Peblle Beach. There was a story about the IMF selling off 400 tons of gold. We don't know if this was real gold, tungsten coated bars, or pure make believe gold?? There were stories floating around that India would pay hard cash for this imaginary gold, but then all went quiet.....Whatever reserves the IMF has acquired since the designed financial collapse, they are digitally created Monopoly Money reserves. The IMF is a global extortion racket...they force cuts, force payments to bust banks, in exchange for Monopoly Money created out of thin air, that states will pay back with REAL money, plus interest....nice business !!!...The US is already broke. Britain is broke and Canada wants to stay solvent. Why would anyone in their right mind impose more sacrifices on their own people to prop up an insane political project like the Euro?The argument that it is in their own self-interests doesn't wash as there will inevitably be a day of reckoning for this mess and delaying it will make the pain worse all around, not better; so its time for Europe to bite the bullet rather than taking everyone else down with them.....And... the news item : Global politics and economic theory don’t lend themselves easily to punch lines. But in January this year, Christine Lagarde managed to inject a little light relief into proceedings at the World Economic Forum. Holding up her Louis Vuitton handbag, the new managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) turned to her fellow power brokers in one session and said: “I am here, with my little bag, to collect a bit of money.” The joke broke the ice and the room rippled with laughter. But, beneath the disarming charm, Lagarde was deadly serious. For months now, the IMF has been trying to coerce its 187 members into committing as much as $600bn (£378bn) more to the fund to build what she described at the Brookings Institute in Washington last week as a “global firewall” to defeat once and for all the European sovereign debt crisis.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Welcome to a new world of chaos !!!!!

When European politicians use the concept of "merit" as a subset of "democracy", most of us buy into that as we see it (at face value) an argument for the best people in the respective political jobs. The "Meritocracy Party" (yes there is one, but individual members remain anonymous) advocate a meritocracy in which there aren't political parties, there's a 100% tax on inheritance, to vote you must be qualified (i.e. have a Finance Degree to vote on a Finance Minister), they want to do away with democracy and free market capitalism. The "Meritocracy Party" bastardize the word 'Meritocracy' placing a different meaning on the word to which the person in the street does. I have come to realize that the Europrat believes in the meaning of this bastardized use of "meritocracy". To the Europrat it doesn't really mean the best person based on qualifications, talent and experience. To them it means a derivative of communism. There are just too many similarities between what the Meritocracy Party stands for and the behavior of the Europrat. I suspect many of these Europrats are anonymous members of the Meritocracy Party. They argue for the replacement of free market capitalism with what they call "social capitalism".. It appears to me the Europrat is pushing for a kind of "social capitalism, which no doubt will replace personal property rights.
"My take on this is simple….Bernanke thinks QE3 isn't going to help, so why do it? He’s expecting nature to take its course. I'm sure he didn't tell the Committee members that, but you know, he gets a bad press for nothing sometimes. I think he knows that Europe is out of control, and he’s sure that American politics will screw things up there too. He’s been consistent since last Spring on giving warnings and expressing doubts. He’s one "helluva" good barometer.”....the Fed is secretly printing money like crazy and throwing it at Western Banks desperate to stay alive. Both the US & EU are fucked beyond recognition. If they stop the money printing, the banks die and then so does Western civilisation as we know it. If they continue against the back drop of a growing powerful East and declining oil then energy costs skyrocket which also destroys Western oil based economies. The game is over for the West. The elite will then seek to save themselves as the masses start to panic. You want evidence of this? Witness what happened the other week when the politicians mentioned there may be a slight shortfall in fuel. What did the average idiot do? Panic like crazy, fighting at petrol stations. One idiot burnt herself in her own home. Welcome to a new world of chaos !!!!!

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti is still whistling to keep his spirits up - he's announced his jobs market reform bill tonight, the most controversial of all his austerity and economic reform measures. He called the bill, which will go before parliament in the coming days, "historic" and said his aim was to end the "dualism" between well-protected employees in jobs and first-time applicants trying to break into the market, by making it easier to hire and fire staff. He said: This is a turning point for the labor market. Now he just has to persuade the unions, who hate the changes with a passion - Italy's largest union, Cgil, has pledged a general strike.

Saturday, March 31, 2012

The Copenhagen meeting degenerated into acrimony and some chaos when the Austrian finance minister, Maria Fekter, upstaged the eurozone leaders by first announcing an €800bn firewall. The deal agreed on Friday conformed to German prescriptions for a minimalist bailout fund, a recipe that the European commission in advance described as inadequate to the challenges confronting the euro. Ministers endeavored to impress the bond markets, the Americans, and the Chinese, trumpeting the agreement as worth "more than a trillion dollars" in the hope that this will press the big IMF donors into doubling the monetary fund's reserves to a similar figure next month. "We are now in a strong position for discussion on the IMF in April. It is a good signal," said the French finance minister, Francois Baroin. "All together the euro area is mobilising an overall firewall of approximately €800 bn, more than $1tn," said a Eurogroup statement. Jena-Claude Juncker, the veteran Luxembourg prime minister who has been chairing the eurogroup for eight years and whose term expires in June, threw a wobbly and abruptly cancelled a media conference at which he was to unveil the decisions. The new money comes in the form of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the permanent eurozone bailout kitty and embryonic European Monetary Fund which starts in July. The ESM's launch has already been brought forward and ministers on Friday also agreed to speed up the process of paid-in capital to get the fund fully operational within two years. Its lending capacity was capped at €500bn, as has long been planned. Friday's agreement represented yet another win in the long-running euro saga for Berlin in dictating the terms of the eurozone's response to the crisis. France and others had argued for a trillion-euro firewall. Germany insisted the permanent fund should not exceed €500bn and on Monday conceded the €200bn of current bailouts could run concurrently. "The euro area made substantial progress over the past 18 months to address the challenges stemming from the sovereign debt crisis," the ministers declared. "Important improvements were made to improve the governance of the euro area … robust firewalls have been established. This comprehensive strategy has paid off." I may have missed a statement somewhere, but I'm not aware of either Barroso or Rehn saying any such thing - the calls for an (even) bigger firewall, at €1 trillion or so, were from the head of the OECD and the French Prime Minister Barroin, I think. That's not the way the German press reported the concession, about ESM and EFSF to run concurrently, that Germany made on Monday. Lots of talk about "climb-downs" and "bowing to unprecedented international pressure" and so on.
Mircea Halaciuga, Esq.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

At a business forum in the southern province of Guangdong during a state visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Mr. Wen said China is "willing to cooperate with Europe to fight the current crisis." German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited a factory in Guangzhou on Friday during the German leader's diplomatic visit. "Some people say this means China wants to buy Europe. This is a concern and doesn't fit reality,'' he added. "China doesn't have this intention, and doesn't have this ability." Mr. Wen didn't elaborate on the concerns that he was referencing, but he may have been alluding to a common analysis that European governments will need to offer political concessions to China to secure aid in overcoming the euro-zone sovereign-debt crisis. On Thursday, in a joint appearance with Ms. Merkel, Mr. Wen dangled the possibility of increased Chinese investment in Europe's bailout funds. But he stopped short of outlining any specifics, merely staying that China was "investigating and evaluating ways" to become "more deeply involved" in Europe's twin bailout funds, the European Financial Stability Facility and the not-yet-established European Stability Mechanism.


GERMANY’S leading bank Deutsche Bank has reported an increase in profits for 2011 despite a fall in after-tax earnings in the fourth quarter. Net profit stood at €4.3bn last year, up from €2.3bn the previous year but earnings dropped at the end of the year. "Once again, Deutsche Bank has proved its ability to deliver substantial earnings in challenging conditions," said chief executive Josef Ackermann. "In 2011, our classic banking business produced record earnings, thus counterbalancing the impact of weak markets in investmment banking. We also significantly strengthened our capital base, boosted our liquidity reserves and reinforced our funding position.". Mr Ackerman scheduled to step down in May after 10 years at the helm.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Anger in Athens over leaked German plans

Troubled waters - Greek officials launched a behind the scenes attack on European Union and International Monetary Fund negotiators as talks in Athens over the country's mounting debts appeared to stall. Prime minister Lucas Papademos told aides that a crisis meeting of party leaders would be called as early as Thursday to thrash out a response to an increasingly intransigent negotiating team sent by Brussels, which is demanding severe austerity measures before sanctioning a further €130bn (£109bn) of bailout funds. Papademos, the economist temporarily heading a transition government in Athens, wants party leaders backing his administration to make further concessions to bring talks to a swift end. Papademos and his team of aides returned in sombre mood on Tuesday from a round of talks in Brussels and Frankfurt at the offices of the European Central Bank (ECB), despite relief that a German proposal to install an EU commissioner in Athens, with special oversight of Greek finances, had been quashed. While the rest of Europe reluctantly bowed to the German agenda, Berlin, however, found itself increasingly alone on how to fix Greece. Anger in Athens over leaked German plans last week that Greece should surrender power over its budget to the EU since it was incapable of delivering on its bailout pledges mushroomed into strong criticism from some of Berlin's habitual allies. .... Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the Danish prime minister who has just taken over the EU presidency, said that Brussels would defend Greece against any assault on its democracy, a reference to the German demand for Athens to forfeit control over budget policy. The Austrian chancellor, Werner Faymann, who has been on the German side of the creditor-debtor argument for the past 18 months, was also critical of Berlin. Jean Asselborn, Luxembourg's foreign minister, went further. "It's not in order that German politicians say that we need commissars and that Greece be put under supervision … The biggest country in the EU, Germany, should be more careful."

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Germany - completely schizophrenic: - 78% still mourn the DMark ; 80% are against Club Med bail outs ; 66% want to keep the euro ?!?!?!

Lenders are already attempting to reduce their balance sheets by selling trillions of euros of assets, as well as so-called "liability management" exercises to cut the size of their debt piles. BNP Paribas, Lloyds Banking Group and Santander have all attempted with varying degrees of success to buy back or replace junior debt in an attempt to strengthen their core capital rations. However, Societe General analysts noted that these programs would not be enough to close the capital shortfalls worrying investors. The European banking system is a 31 trill.$ monster.The US printed some 16 trill from the beginning of the crisis to save the much smaller Wall Street . I assume that for saving the EU banking system and that includes the UK,the ECB and the BOE would have to 'create' money in a amount similar to 50% of world GDP.The moment France goes, 380 bill. black hole opens in Frankfurt and when Germany goes down,the city crashes as Britain holds some 400 bill in German debt. The world faces a cascading default in the largest economic unit on the globe. Frankly there is nothing that Paris,Berlin,London or Brussels can do about it, except for a complete reset of the system next year. Germany is however ahead of the curve since it endured 3 currency reforms in the past century and they realize when things are headed in that direction. So do it like us and go on a shopping therapy just before the crash,while you can still get something for the cash. I guess German angst was changed for escapism. The nation is completely schizophrenic: - 78% still mourn the DMark ; 80% are against Club Med bail outs ; 66% want to keep the euro ?!?!?! In the meantime, funding market conditions for euro zone banks continued to deteriorate last week despite the introduction by the European Central Bank of two long-term refinancing operations (LTRO) providing three-year funding. Euro zone banks shortage of collateral to borrow against, led the central bank to widen the pool of assets that "It" will accept, however analysts warned the move could be a "fast-track to destruction ". Excess bank usage of the three-year LTRO runs the risk of creating more banks who are dependent on ECB funds – ie. the classic model of "zombie" banks, said an analysts at Barclays Capital. A "zombie" bank is defined as one which relies on central bank funding to survive.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

The eurobond battle rages on

IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said: The Fund has been asked to enhance its lending toolkit to help the membership cope with crises. We have acted quickly, and the new tools will enable us to respond more rapidly and effectively for the benefit of the whole membership. The reform enhances the Fund’s ability to provide financing for crisis prevention and resolution. This is another step toward creating an effective global financial safety net to deal with increased global interconnectedness. No potential customers for the IMF's new lending facility have yet been named, but as Italy and Spain continue to struggle with their cost of borrowing they would seem like ideal candidates. The IMF has said it will work with countries that have "relatively strong policies and fundamentals", which seems likely to rule out Greece. The fund would allow a country to borrow up to five times the value of the country's IMF quota, or permanent contribution, over six months. Based on its IMF quota, Rome could potentially tap the new IMF fund for some €45.5 billion, while Spain could get €23.3 billion. More on the IMF's new lending facility, which is aimed at helping "bystander" countries protect themselves from contagion. According to a statement released this afternoon the new tool will be used to aid countries with "relatively strong policies and fundamentals" but whose economies are endangered "during periods of heightened economic or market stress"....The "idiocy" of the day : A cunning ruse from EU Commisioner Olli Rehn - to try and win round a sceptical German public, he has renamed "eurobonds" - debt which would be issued jointly by all 17 nations using the euro rather than by Greece, Germany etc individually - as ... "stability bonds"... hahaha (what an imbecile) - Catchy... And unusual for a European Commissioner to suggest the euro has become such a tainted brand that it's better off airbrushed from any financial dealings... The eurobond battle rages on today. Sarkozy, Cameron and the EC have been pushing for them hard, claiming they are the solution to the debt crisis. EC President Barroso even rebranded them "stability bonds" yesterday, not that it seemed to sway a cynical Angela Merkel. She continued her resistance to the plan, joined by Jean-Claude Juncker and Herman Van Rompuy (onother narrow minded fella'), saying: If at all, this discussion belongs at the end - so I don't find it particularly fitting that we are now once again conducting it in the middle of the crisis, as if it were the answer to this crisis. In the long term, it isn't.