"DRAGHI SAYS EU BUDGET RULES ARE THERE TO BE RESPECTED" - Draghi also realises that big countries will ignore them with impugnity - just like they did the first time around. France is already in violation and knows full well that the EU and the ECB are utterly importent in the face of that.  Just as they were when Germany - yes, Germany - lead the way in breaking the rules shortly after the euro came into being. All countries remember this, espescially the ones on the receiving end of imperious Germanic lectures about "doing their homework".  Germany has made the classic mistake of doing well when others around it are doing badly, presuming this state of affairs will persist eternally and feeling it has a free hand to treat it's neighbours as it pleases. The moment German needs demand it, the Fiscal Pact will be out of the window; Anegla Merkel would be out of office within weeks if her government were to attempt the sort of austerity it has, in essence, forced upon Greece. The Netherlands were, if anything, even more hawkish than the Germans regarding "lazy Southerners" and wanted things like automatic fines. Then their own economy began to suffer the same problems and they also breached the rules - you don't hear much from them these days. Our Scottish friends may wish to ponder the huge difference in the treatment meted out to small countries as opposed to large ones in the EU. Of course, none of this should be greeted with any Satisfaction in the UK. A recession in the eurozone is bad for us too. Though thankfuly we have at least managed to dodge the madness of dropping a hand-grenade into the economy via a Scottish separation. Now, a worsening recession means there will be less taxable income for governments to fund ever growing entitlements. Add that to a huge pile of moldering away bad debts. What I see is not a solvable problem the way the world works today.

Neither Draghi or any of the bankers even bother to talk about the real problem of not enough regional income and too much government spending. Draghi’s only solution is some form of money printing. Printing money to pay bills might work over the short term. But long term, it cannot. If money printing works in the real world why not print and give every one a billion dollars, euros or yen?

The most Draghi can do is have the ECB print money to service existing bad debts made by banks and governments. But printing money to pay interest and principle on loans is not debt service. That is called money printing, debasing the currency whatever. Yes, governments want to do whatever possible to avoid bad times for its citizens. But, as someone else once said, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Dozens of depositors have withdrawn savings from Bulgaria's third biggest bank despite assurances from the government and the European Union that their money was safe after a similar run shut down another major lender last week.

Bulgarian authorities have arrested four people suspected of trying to destabilise the banking system in a concerted phone and internet campaign. However, the queues forming to withdraw cash have thrown a spotlight on weak economic governance in the EU's poorest state.

A credit line of 3.3bn levs (£1.3bn), requested by Bulgaria, was approved on Monday by the European commission. The EU executive, echoing the International Monetary Fund and economists, said the Bulgarian banking system was "well capitalised and has high levels of liquidity compared to its peers in other member states" of the 28-nation bloc.

President Rosen Plevneliev urged Bulgarians to keep faith with the banks in a national appeal on Sunday after emergency talks with political party leaders and central bank officials. "There is no cause or reason to give way to panic. There is no banking crisis, there is a crisis of trust and there is a criminal attack," he said.

Queues formed nevertheless outside branches of First Investment Bank, although they were smaller than on Friday. The lender says it has sufficient capital to meet clients' demand.

"I am here because I remember what happened nearly 20 years ago," said one woman aged about 60 who gave her name only as Gergana. She was referring to a financial crisis in 1996-7 which sparked hyperinflation and the collapse of 14 banks.

About two-thirds of Bulgaria's banks are now foreign-owned, in sharp contrast to the mid-1990s.

The crisis has rattled Bulgaria's fractious political class, forcing them to bury differences at a time of great political uncertainty and last week they agreed to hold an election on 5 October.

An interim government will be appointed on 6 August to steer Bulgaria until the election.

Medium-sized and small firms in China are continuing to struggle to grow, adding to concerns that the Chinese economy is losing steam.

HSBC's China manufacturing PMI survey, which focuses on smaller private companies, showed that activity contracted for the third month in a row in March, at the fastest rate in eight months.

It fell to just 48.0 in March, down from 48.5 in February, showing "a moderate deterioration of the health of the sector". Any reading under 50 shows a contraction, and this is the biggest fall since July 2013.

Firms reported that output and new orders both fell, at a faster rate, while workforce numbers also fell. The survey suggests that China's domestic economy is still cooling, as new business from abroad rose for the first time in four months.

Hongbin Qu, chief economist at HSBC, argued that China's government needs to take further stimulus measures soon:

“The final reading of the HSBC China Manufacturing PMI in March confirmed the weakness of domestic demand conditions. This implies that 1Q GDP growth is likely to have fallen below the annual growth target of 7.5%. We expect Beijing to fine-tune policy sooner rather than later to stabilize growth.”

Here's the details: Key points

• Both output and new orders contract at faster rates...
• ...while new export orders return to growth
• Input costs and output charges both fall sharply

HSBC's Chinese manufacturing PMI Photograph: /HSBC

Confusingly, the 'official' Chinese PMI survey was a little more positive - inching higher to 50.3 in March from 50.2 in February. That may show that the biggest Chinese firms, and those under state control, are performing better.

But economists had hoped to see a stronger reading, as the disruption caused by the Chinese new year fades away.

IG's Evan Lucas explained:

The March read was the first read free of the Chinese Luna New Year and despite the constant expansion there are weaknesses across the domestic sector, seeing price and output contracting.

Italian third-quarter GDP revised from contraction to stagnation. The Italian economy did not contract in the third quarter of the year, it was merely flat, according to today's revision of the initial estimate.  The GDP figure has been revised from 0.1pc growth to 0.0pc.  This may not sound great, but it is the first quarter that the economy has not contracted since the second quarter of 2011.  Italy is also outgrowing France for the first time in over two years - France shrunk at 0.1pc in the third quarter...

Meanwhile, Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, has warned that long-term prospects for growth in the eurozone look bleak unless politicians act urgently to stoke domestic demand and tackle youth unemployment.  After months of relative calm in financial markets, and with Ireland due to end its painful bailout programme and end its reliance on the IMF this weekend, some European politicians have declared the worst to be over for the 17-member single currency zone.  But speaking at the European Economic and Social Committee in Brussels, Lagarde warned against prematurely declaring an end to the economic crisis.  "Can a crisis really be over when 12% of the labor force is without a job? When unemployment among the youth is in very high double digits, reaching more than 50% in Greece and Spain? And when there is no sign that it is becoming easier for people to pay down their debts?"  She warned that high youth unemployment could jeopardize the economy's ability to grow in the future, by creating a generation of young people without the skills to take their place in the jobs market. "What is at stake is Europe's potential for growth in the future," she said.  "Unemployment at a young age means a lack of on-the-job training, depreciating skills, and possible withdrawal from the labor market. Experience tells us that long spells of unemployment lead to a less productive workforce down the road."  Lagarde called for a raft of reforms, including fixing the battered banking sector, to "jump-start growth", and warned that with monetary policy all but exhausted, and interest rates already close to zero, governments might yet need to resort to a new fiscal stimulus if recovery fails to take hold.  "In the event growth is low for a protracted period of time and monetary policy options are depleted, fiscal policy will need to provide more support to domestic demand," she said.  In a veiled criticism of Germany, which has tended to rely on an export-led growth model, Lagarde suggested that boosting Europe's growth potential will require stoking demand at home, too.  "Most of the demand for European goods and services comes from abroad, not from within, leaving the economy at the mercy of the ups and downs of global trade. European demand for European products remains lackluster."   After The ECB President Mario Draghi unexpectedly announced a cut in interest rates last month to stave off deflation, Lagarde called for the ECB to "keep interest rates low and convince investors that it will do so for as long as is necessary."  The IMF would also like to see a series of labor market reforms, including making it easier for skilled employees to cross Europe's borders in search of work; cutting employment regulation; and shifting the burden of taxation from income on to consumption, in the hope of boosting future job prospects. "There can be no letting up on reforms until growth has recovered sufficiently to arrest the rise in unemployment and debt", Lagarde said.

Agreement among the WTO’s 159 member economies

Ministers meeting in Bali sealed agreement among the WTO’s 159 member economies for the pact, which eases barriers to trade by simplifying customs procedures, limiting agricultural subsidies, and promoting trade with least-developed nations. 

The deal could boost global trade by $1 trillion and create 20 million new jobs, keeps alive the WTO’s broader 12-year marathon Doha Round of trade negotiations designed to reduce international tariff barriers, well ...I've just found out that governments from the United States to Australia and from Canada to the EU are secretly negotiating trade deals that will give global corporations the right to sue our governments and overturn our laws.

Details have leaked out on what is called the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP) that will massively expand the power of corporations to sue our governments.

Thousands of corporate lobbyists are helping to write these secret pacts -- but we're not allowed to see them. Governments know that we won't like these corporate power grabs, so they're hoping to keep them under the radar until it's too late to stop them. But if we can raise our voices now, we can expose these corporate charters and kill the deals forever.

Two secret new global pacts- the TTIP and TPP -could massively increase the power of corporations to sue our governments when they pass laws to protect our environment or our health. Unsurprised, its just four companies talking to each other - 8 largest U.S. financial companies (JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, U.S. Bancorp, Bank of New York Mellon and Morgan Stanley) are 100% controlled by 10 shareholders and we have 4 companies always present i...n all decisions: BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard and Fidelity - who control the Federal Reserve. The same “big four” control the vast majority of European companies counted on the stock exchange. These same people run the IMF, the European Central Bank & the World Bank. The 10 largest US financial institutions hold 54% of US total financial assets. 90% of US media is owned by 6 corporations. We will tell you what the news is - the news is what we say it is - it turns out it is not illegal to falsify the news. 37 banks have merged to become just four since 1990. We are speaking of 6, 8 or maybe 12 families who truly dominate the world (perhaps Goldman Sachs, Rockefellers, Loebs Kuh and Lehmans in New York, the Rothschilds of Paris and London, the Warburgs of Hamburg, Paris and Lazards Israel Moses Seifs Rome). With Google accounting for over 65% of all web searches in the US and over 70% market share in most other countries, the top 10 owners of Google’s stock are Fidelity, BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard Group, Capital Research, T. Rowe Price, Capital World, Alliancebernstein, Marsico Capital. This is the world we live in.