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

Monday, November 12, 2018

 The Venice Commission passed the report concerning the amendment of the laws of justice and the criminal legislation by the PSD-ALDE majority parliamentary coalition. In its opinion, the Commission expresses its concern over the fact that many of the changes made to the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code in Romania seriously weaken the effectiveness of the criminal justice system when it comes to fighting corruption, violent crimes and organized crime.
The Venice Commission advises Romanian authorities to conduct a global reevaluation of the changes made in both codes through a comprehensive and effective process, which would result in a solid and cohesive legislative proposal which would have significant support within the Romanian society, taking into account the applicable standards and the decisions of the Constitutional Court.
European officials also remind that, through the ruling of October 12th, the Constitutional Court of Romania has established that over 63 articles of the draft law for the amendment of criminal procedure have been unconstitutional and the decision is awaited concerning the objections of unconstitutionality raised concerning the amendment of the Criminal Code.
With some amendments, the Commission has also passed the preliminary opinion issued in July concerning the three draft laws which amend the existing legislation concerning the bylaws of judges and prosecutors, the judicial organization and the Supreme Council of Magistrates. This opinion claims that the amendments made to the laws of justice have e negative influence on the efficiency, quality and independence of the judicial system and negative consequences when it comes to the fight against corruption.
Overall, the European officials are unhappy with the insignificant role the Supreme Council of Magistrates plays when it comes to the appointment of the Chief Prosecutors of the General Prosecutors' Office, the Department for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) and the National Anticorruption Department, thinking that the entire process of appointment and dismissal of these magistrates will be politically influenced by the minister of justice.
Concerning the retirement of magistrates with 20 years of activity, the members of the Commission have established that that would harm the activity of the courts and prosecutors' offices of Romania, because the reduction of numbers would lead to the slowdown of the prosecution of ongoing civil and criminal cases.
The Venice Commission has acknowledged that through Emergency Government Ordinance 92 of 2018 the Government has delayed by a year the retirement of magistrates with 20 years of service, but thinks that it is necessary for the law concerning the retirement of those who have 20 years of service to be abrogated.
The members of this European institution have expressed their concern over the other stipulations of the Emergency Government Ordinance, but they will be included in another opinion which will be issued in the meeting which will be held on December 14th and 15th 2018.
What is certain is that, through his maneuver to draw up and pass the EGO concerning the laws of justice in the beginning of last week, Tudorel Toader has not succeeded in changing the agenda set by the members of the Venice Commission for the meeting of October 19th and to shift the debate on the laws of justice in December.
President Iohannis is asking for the resignation of the Minister of Justice
Immediately after the Venice Commission formulated his opinion concerning the amendments made to the criminal legislation and the laws on the judicial system, president Klaus Iohannis said that the very serious aspects mentioned by the European officials represent an unequivocal signal which the current government needs to take into account to avoid pushing Romania towards a direction that is incompatible with the values of the European Union.
The head of state thinks that it is unacceptable for the entire legislation in this essential sector to be dramatically altered just to protect some political leaders who are in trouble with the law. Iohannis claims that the changes made by the PSD-ALDE law irreparably harm not just the rule of the law but also the citizens' confidence that nobody is above the law, regardless of their position in society, but also the efforts of an entire nation for which the fundamental European values are indisputable.
Klaus Iohannis strongly condemns "the irresponsible behavior of the Minister of Justice which, under the pretense of the implementation of the recommendations of the Venice Commission within the OUG 92/2018, has incorporated completely unrelated provisions, in actuality even their opposite, which would increase the concern of the European partners".
The head of state claims that Tudorel Toader has permanently compromised his credibility and is asking for his resignation as minister of Justice. Klaus Iohannis is also asking the Parliament to take into account the opinion included in the report of the Venice Commission and to reassess with the greatest speed the amendments made to the laws of justice, as well as to the Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes in order for the negative impact on justice and the rule of law to end.
Following the expressed opinion, the representatives of the opposition think that Tudorel Toader should resign as minister of justice, because he has accepted the legislative amendments and because he has drafted, promoted and passed Emergency Government Ordinance 92/2018.
Ludovic Orban, the president of the PNL, said: "Both reports are extremely critical of the changes made. Eight recommendations have been passed and have been discussed the two ordinances for the amendment of the laws of justice in a critical manner. As far as the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code, the report is scorching. We are on the edge and the parliamentary majority needs to wake up. If they don't, I feel the need to warn my fellow citizens of the risks that hover over Romania and over the dangerous consequences which the failure to comply with the recommendations of the Venice Commission might have. The report on the Mechanism for Cooperation and Verification is coming, and that could be devastating for Romania. We are at risk of saying goodbye to Schengen, and to European grants. The PNL is asking for PM Viorica Dăncilă to come before the Parliament and to say whether she pledges to follow the recommendations of the Venice Commission or not. The time for doublespeak is over".
Dan Barna, the president of the USR, has stated that his political party will file today a simple motion of no-confidence against Tudorel Toader, because he views him as irresponsible, and claims that he is trying to fool society about his true intentions. The USR thinks that Tudorel Toader no longer has the moral legitimacy to lead the Romanian judicial system.

Friday, July 14, 2017

PARIS - President Donald  Trump acknowledged that France and the US had “occasional disagreements” but said that would not disrupt a friendship that dates back to the American Revolution. Macron acknowledged sharp differences with Trump over climate change. But he said he and the US president were able to discuss how best to combat “a global threat with enemies who are trying to destabilise us”, with a focus on counter-terrorism. President Trump said that his recent meeting with Putin had led to a ceasefire in a part of southern Syria, and said that he was working on “a second ceasefire in a very rough part of Syria”. He suggested that other parties would become involved in the deal, saying “and all of a sudden you will have no bullets fired in Syria”.  As Trump began his 24-hour tour of Paris, the two leaders’ body language was under close scrutiny. Macron chose to move on from the aggressive handshake he offered the US leader at their initial meeting in May, instead styling himself as Trump’s new “straight-talking” best friend on the international stage. the invitation to the US president to attend this year’s Bastille Day celebrations was in the pipeline long before both Macron and Trump’s election because 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the entry by the US into the first world war.

Sunday, July 2, 2017

Liviu Dragnea "swore", in December 2016, on the electoral program, which then became the governing program and the "Bible of the PSD": he guaranteed, in a TV Show, that he would abide by it or else he would resign. Liviu Dragnea did not abide by the electoral program.
Liviu Dragnea did not resign, instead he changed the government....Along with the government, he also replaced the "Bible of the PSD". The new proposals of the PSD, published on the night prior to the investiture, have overturned the business environment. All the companies in Romania will pay, starting with January 1st, 2018, a turnover tax instead of the profit tax, which will disappear, according to the new governing program of the PSD-ALDE coalition. Also, according to the new proposal, the minimum wage level in Romania in the coming years would be 2,000 lei in 2018, 2,200 lei in 2019 and 2,400 lei in 2020, and for those with higher education it would be 2,300 lei in 2018, 2,640 lei in 2019 and 3,000 lei in 2020. According to the governing program, the solidarity contribution will be introduced starting with January 1st, 2018, as well as an additional tax on consumer products whose consumption has a major negative impact on the health of the population.  Analysts said that the government is blowing up the economy, businesspeople were shocked. The new ministers swore on the Bible to offer all their power for the material and spiritual progress of the Romanian people.  So help them God! 

Thursday, March 16, 2017

The Fed’s chair, Janet Yellen, said a wide range of indicators showed the US economy was in rude health, allowing its interest rate setting committee to push rates back towards historically normal levels. Policymakers voted nine to one to raise rates.
Speaking after the decision, Yellen said she had met Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, “a couple of times” but had only been “introduced” to the president himself.   “I fully expect to have a strong relationship with secretary Mnuchin,” she said. “We had good discussions about the economy, about regulatory objectives, the work of the FSOC [Financial Stability Oversight Council] global economic developments, and I look forward to continuing to work with him.” She said she had had a very brief meeting with Trump “and appreciated that as well”.
Earlier in the day the Department of Commerce said retail sales had inched up by 0.1% in February, and that they had been better than it had previously estimated in January.

Monday, March 13, 2017

BERLIN — Police ordered a shopping mall in the western German city of Essen not to open Saturday after receiving credible tips of an imminent attack.  The shopping center and the adjacent parking lot stayed closed as about a hundred police officers positioned themselves around the compound to make sure nobody could enter the mall. Several officers scoured the inside of the building to bring out early morning cleaning staff.  “As police, we are the security authority here and have decided to close the mall,” police spokesman Christoph Wickhorst said, adding that they had been tipped off late Friday by other security agencies. He did not want to provide further details because of the ongoing investigation.
The downtown mall at Limbecker Platz square will be closed for the entire day. The mall is one of the biggest in Germany with more than 200 stores, according to the shopping center’s website.  In 2016, three people were injured in an attack on a Sikh temple in Essen by radicalized German-born Muslim teenagers.
Germany has been on the edge following a series of attacks in public places over the past year.

Monday, March 6, 2017

Western political and media elites reacted with horror to President Trump’s repeated statements that NATO is “obsolete” during the 2016 electoral campaign. They have also reacted with skepticism to more recent efforts by senior administration officials to affirm the U.S. commitment to NATO while pressing America’s allies to do more for their own defense. The critics forget both NATO’s history and — more fundamentally — confuse means with ends in U.S. national security. NATO is an instrument and, accordingly, something the United States can and should examine and seek to fix when it is not working properly. Mr. Trump has correctly understood that NATO isn’t doing its job.  Post-Cold War history demonstrates NATO’s failure to adapt to changing circumstances and requirements. George W. Bush administration officials appropriately questioned the alliance’s contribution to U.S. operations in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 attacks and NATO’s first-ever invocation of its mutual defense obligations under Article Five of the Washington Treaty. Later, NATO’s 2011 airstrikes against Libya illustrated considerable shortcomings as key allies proved unable to sustain the campaign for lack of precision bombs against a foe barely able to fight back.In 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea, NATO members all too readily opted to respond primarily through coordinated U.S.-European Union economic sanctions that predictably failed to deter subsequent Russian intervention in eastern Ukraine. Former President Obama bears no small responsibility for this, having declared in April 2014 that Russia could not be “deterred from further escalation by military force” at a time when decisive deployments of U.S. and NATO military forces in NATO member states surrounding Ukraine might well have affected Mr. Putin’s calculations. But Mr. Obama was far from alone among NATO leaders in his reluctance do this.  NATO today has three major problems. First, the alliance has spent far more time discussing its membership than its purpose, leaving its goals unclear. If NATO is a defensive alliance, why did it intervene in Yugoslavia’s civil wars of the 1990s and launch airstrikes in Libya? Neither threatened NATO members with attack. If NATO seeks to stabilize Europe and Eurasia, how did NATO officials expect to do that without a security architecture that incorporated Russia on mutually acceptable terms? Conversely, if NATO sees Moscow as an existential danger and aims to contain and deter Russia, why do so few alliance members meet minimal standards for defense spending and military readiness?

Friday, December 16, 2016

Raiffeisen Bank has snuck a gloomy prediction for the Romanian economy in the prospectus of the MedLife IPO, which it intermediates. "Most analysts claim that Romania needs a new stand-by agreement with the IMF", the MedLife prospectus , published yesterday in order to inform the investors interested in the Romanian stock market and in the MedLife shares in particular. The announcement is mind-boggling, especially as politicians and government members assure us that we are going to have economic growth, higher wages and lower taxes. Furthermore, prime-minister Dacian Cioloş has publicly announced that he would challenge all populist laws with the Constitutional Court. "Raiffeisen Bank" has dropped the aforementioned "bomb" in the Medlife IPO, five days ahead of the parliamentary elections. Except it hasn't taken responsibility for it directly, instead alleging this idea is the result of consensus from "most analysts", without naming them. It is not out of the question that "Raiffeisen Bank" just wanted to make noise and draw attention from investors, as the Romanian stock market has failed to become attractive, despite the projects for expansion conducted by the Bucharest Stock Exchange (the Project to remove the barriers to the entry on the stock market) and by the Financial Oversight Authority (the STEAM project, which has as its goal the move up to the emerging market status) and having brought in Pole Ludwik Sobolewski as CEO. Despite all these efforts, the BSE daily turnover only occasionally passes 7 million Euros a day. "Raiffeisen Bank" has stood out lately, precisely by the fact that it has threatened the Romanian government with a lawsuit in the International Court of Arbitrage, as well as following the ruling of the Supreme Council of Magistrates (CSM), which accused the bank of trying to intervene in the ruling rendering process in relation to the laws concerning the banking sector. The bank later changed its tune and sponsored an event of the Romanian government, which was attended by German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble.

Sunday, August 7, 2016

Mehmet Simsek, the deputy prime minister, tried to dispel fears on Thursday that the country would return to the deep repression seen the last time it was under similar measures. "The state of emergency in Turkey won't include restrictions on movement, gatherings and free press, etc. It isn't martial law of 1990s," he said. "I'm confident Turkey will come out of this with much stronger democracy, better functioning market economy and enhanced investment climate." But as he made his statement, the crackdown spread to journalists and human rights lawyers. Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a leading newspaper columnist and lawyer, was arrested at the airport as he tried to leave the country.  Police also raided the printing house of well-known satirical magazine Le Man...On Thursday, Austria became the first country to take diplomatic action over the crackdown, saying it would summon Turkey's ambassador to discuss Ankara's "increasingly authoritarian" behaviour and allegations it had been behind recent Turkish protests in Vienna. Meanwhile, the UK’s Foreign Affairs Committee said it was to launch an inquiry into Britain’s relations with Turkey and the impact of the crackdown on democracy and human rights.

Saturday, April 30, 2016

CARACAS, April 26 (Reuters) - Venezuela's socialist government ordered public workers on Tuesday to work a two-day week as an energy-saving measure in the crisis-hit South American OPEC country.  President Nicolas Maduro had already given most of Venezuela's 2.8 million state employees Fridays off during April and May to cut down on electricity consumption. "From tomorrow, for at least two weeks, we are going to have Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays as non-working days for the public sector," Maduro said on his weekly television program.  Drought has reduced water levels at Venezuela's main dam and hydroelectric plant in Guri to near-critical levels. The dam provides for about two-thirds of the nation's energy needs.  Water shortages and electricity cuts have added to the hardships of Venezuela's 30 million people, already enduring a brutal recession, shortages of basics from milk to medicines, soaring prices, and long lines at shops. Maduro has also changed the clocks so there is half an hour more daylight in the evening, urged women to reduce use of appliances like hairdryers, and ordered malls to provide their own generators.  Regarding the public sector measure, the government is excluding workers in sensitive sectors such as food.  Full salaries will still be paid despite the two-day week.  Critics have derided Maduro for giving state employees days off, arguing it would hurt national productivity and was unlikely to save electricity because people would simply go home and turn on appliances there instead.  "Maduro says that 'we in government don't stop working for a second'. Of course. Except for Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays!" satirized Leonardo Padron, a columnist for pro-opposition El Nacional newspaper, via Twitter. Officials said the El Nino weather phenomenon is responsible for Venezuela's electricity woes. But critics accuse the government of inadequate investment, corruption, inefficiency and failure to diversify energy sources.

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Sterling plunged to a five-and-a-half year low against the US dollar on Tuesday, as the UK's manufacturing sector shrank unexpectedly. Manufacturing production dropped by 0.4pc in November according to Office for National Statistics (ONS) data, compared to a 0.7pc fall in the wider industrial sector. The fall in industrial output was worse than any of the 30 analysts polled by Reuters had anticipated. There figures were described by Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, as "unambiguously rubbish". No surprise at all....What do you expect with an overvalued currency, a global recession, rigged competition from the slave labor Chinese manufacturing system and a UK government hell bent on jobs at any price in the bloated service sector? There is no industrial strategy, vocational training is a mess and unlike Corporatist Germany, government leaves manufacturing industry to sink or swim on its own. We are headed for a full blown Sterling crisis and all those two million new jobs of phone sanitizers, Cab drivers, hairdressers and delivering online shopping will disappear overnight...Figures and statistics are always fiddled...in reality British people have been mislead by the politicians just as people are mislead in nearly all countries on the planet. When lying and morally corrupt politicians are the captains one never knows where the journey will take us. Britain's feel good factors are essentially due to nearly a decades printing of money and of course the false sense of security generated by a.......massively overheated property market...Britain is in effect a nation which doesn't produce very much any more, its a nation of supermarkets and banking and insurance.  Dear Mr. Cameron please lets have a breakdown of how Britain earns its money .Britain has possibly lived above its means since before the second world war.......with a few rare intervals.in between. Billions have been frittered away and yet we do not have a few pounds more for the junior doctors who keep our decrepit NHS afloat. Something seriously wrong here. The markets always know the truth though and the pound is likely to get whacked even more.  Wait till the euro recovers !!

Friday, December 18, 2015

Truth and dicussion...about QE . UE and the Dollar

There is no jobs growth. The total hours worked in the US economy is the same as 15 years ago and most of the other economic indicators have been going south for months. The Fed is trapped and there is no way they can raise rates other than by a purely token amount without sending the whole thing rapidly to the dogs; in fact a recession next year is odds even if the Fed does nothing. We will get Big Bust 2 within the next 18 months...THERE WILL BE NO RATE RISE! Yellen knows full well you can't taper a Ponzi, so unless Goldman Sachs has massively shorted the markets and ordered its central banker minions to hike rates to crash the markets, Yellen will come up with yet another in her endless list of excuses to punt yet again on a rate hike. THERE WILL BE NO RATE RISE. Period. It's not like the Fed has any credibility left to lose. ..According to some soothsayers, there will be a 0.15% Fed rise BUT....after New Year there will be some more easing, say....$50 Billion. This time around the money printing will be in subsidies for the middle income earners. If the FED does not do this there will be turmoil and public protests. The Obama admin does not want this, not after the California shootings and most probably some more in the Christmas holiday season. The Obama gov needs the support of the public NOW more than ever....The Fed exists solely to further enrich the already super-rich. That means facilitating the looting and asset-stripping of the "middle income earners" (a soon to be extinct class) as part of the Fed's "No Billionaire Left Behind" monetary policy. The Fed will NEVER subsidize or otherwise give a damn about "middle income earners," much less savers, pensioners, and non-speculators, with whom it is in a state of undeclared financial warfare...The whole casino economy is built around perceptions. There are no relations between economic fundamentals and the value of the stock markets or the amount of public and private debt. A simple lack of confidence or misplaced rumor can cause a panic among investors. And then there's the trillions of debts owed in US dollars by entities who don't use the U.S. dollar as there native currency., Yellen will not raise rates in the absence of some exogenous event, i.e. a phone call from Goldman Sachs or the bond market going haywire as "investors" belatedly realize Yellen & her central banker cohorts are going to inflate away all government and TBTF banker debts and liabilities. 

Friday, December 11, 2015

The Euro is a project of idealists. But idealists live in a hypothetical world - a place where they desperately want to be, not where they are...This latest move (one of sheer desperation) to prop up the Euro as well as the Eurozone will achieve absolutely nothing, especially if you consider every other move to protect it so far has been remarkably unsuccessful and only achieved economic chaos within the Eurozone, with peripheral effects on the non Eurozone countries within the EU. The EU leaders and the leader of the ECB have learnt nothing from previous experience and simply continue in the same old ways. Far better just to let the Euro go, and return to the former currencies. One size hardly ever fits all, something that is very clear with the artificial political construct that is the Euro.
"Policymakers could have used that period to address the structural reasons for high levels of unemployment, and a lack of flexibility in other markets, he argued. "They could, but given that they (the European Commission) are the most structurally inflexible, bureaucratic, and control and red tape obsessed of the lot (remember "Brussels spouts" ?!), and given that Turkeys never vote for Christmas, they are simply incapable of doing this!  The only hope for all of Europe is that they are effectively abolished from without by one country after another leaving their club to the point where even they have to recognise - once their empire has contracted right back to just those ghastly communist-looking buildings in Brussels - that their raison d'etre has vanished.

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

The Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development (OCDE) has worsened its estimates concerning the growth of the world's economy, for the second time in the last three months, as the slowdown of the emerging markets is affecting other countries as well, such as Germany and Japan.
The OCDE forecasts that the global economy will see a 2.9% advance this year, down from its 3% September estimate, and after the 3.4% growth of 2014, respectively. According to the OCDE, the economic growth will accelerate to 3.3% next year, down from the previous 3.6% forecast.  "The growth outlook for the global economy has worsened this year. The forecast for emerging markets is currently the main reason for the global uncertainty", the OCDE warns: "The difficulties on the emerging markets are greater. If the situation of those countries deteriorates, the growth of Japan and the Eurozone will be affected".   According to the OCDE, the Eurozone will see 1.5% growth in 2015, and 1.8% in 2016.
Another flop for Jean-Claude Juncker's migration initiative as a major bounty fund for Africa raises just €78million - out of a target of €1.8 billion. The European Commission president wanted to raise the money to give to African states in exchange for them accepting the deportation of migrants. But a whip round among member states raised just a fraction of the target, leaving the entire deportation programme in doubt. It follows the flop of the relocation scheme which has moved just over 100 people out of a target of 160,000. I'm told Juncker and Merkel will press for more money for Turkey

Monday, November 9, 2015

Many years ago when Alan Greenspan first proposed using monetary policy to control economies, the critics said this was far too broad a brush.  After the dot.com crash Alan Greenspan loosened monetary policy to get the economy going again. The broad brush effect stoked a housing boom.
When he tightened interest rates, to cool down the economy, the broad brush effect burst the housing bubble. The teaser rate mortgages unfortunately introduced enough of a delay so that cause and effect were too far apart to see the consequences of interest rate rises as they were occurring.
The end result 2008.  With this total failure of monetary policy to control an economy and a clear demonstration of the broad brush effect behind us, everyone decided to use the same idea after 2008.
Interest rates are at rock bottom around the globe, with trillions of QE pumped into the global economy.  The broad brush effect has blown bubbles everywhere. 
The underlying problem is that the global monetary system has failed with too much debt in existence.
The current monetary system has the following characteristics:
1) It is debt based, new money can only be created from new debt
2) It uses compound interest
Compound interest is an exponential function that, without prudent lending, will run away to infinity at some point.  When money creation lies with banks, there is always the over-whelming desire to increase profits by lending out more than would be prudent (their profit comes from the interest received).  The temptation of jam today, makes borrowers forget about the penury tomorrow.
The system relies on prudent lending by bankers who are purveyors of the debt products, e.g. loans, mortgages, etc ...

Friday, November 6, 2015

The Chinese economy has continued to struggle despite repeated efforts to stimulate activity, according to official data, raising the prospect of further measures from Beijing if the country is to reach its growth targets.  China's enormous manufacturing sector surprisingly contracted for the third consecutive month in October, while its services sector - the economy's growth engine - expanded at the slowest rate since 2008's financial crisis.  The figures raise new fears that growth in the world's second-biggest economy could fall below 7pc this year, after official data last month showed expansion of 6.9pc in the year to September. Weak demand in China has already had a huge effect on the world economy, potentially delaying interest rate rises and hitting commodity prices.  The country's central bank has repeatedly cut bank lending requirements in an attempt to boost growth and ward off deflation, but economists suggested the new figures could herald further measures. "As deflation risks intensify, a further RRR cut [the reserves a bank must hold against lending] before end of this year is still possible," economists at ANZ Bank said. Sunday's PMI figures from China's National Bureau of Statistics gave a reading of 49.8 for the country's manufacturing sector, below the 50 mark that separates contraction from expansion for the third month in a row. Markets had widely expected a rebound, with expectations set at 50..."Because of the recent weak recovery in the global economy and downward pressure in the domestic economy, manufacturers still face a severe import and export situation," Zhao Qinghe, a senior statistician at the NBS, said.  Meanwhile, the services sector, which has helped make up for disappointing factory output, saw its slowest growth for seven years. The non-manufacturing PMI fell from 53.4 in September to 53.1. China's official figures for economic growth, which are widely believed to over-estimate the true level, fell to 6.9pc in the third quarter of the year, the lowest pace of expansion since early 2009. This compares to a rough target of 7pc set by Beijing.

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Well, Deutsche Bank, VW, immigrant welcome mat manufacture rates down, Mother Merkel beatification questioned. Bit bumpy huh!...Deutsche Bank has unveiled plans to split-up its struggling investment banking operations as part of a shake-up which will see the departure of a host of senior executives. The bank, which employs more than 8,000 people in the UK, said Colin Fan, who was co-head of the investment bank, has resigned, while Michele Faissola, the head of the asset and wealth management business, will also leave. Stefan Krause, who was Deutsche’s finance chief until earlier this year, is also departing at the end of the month. Stephan Leithner, currently a member of the lender’s management board, is quitting to join private equity house EQT ... The dramatic overhaul is part of a plan by John Cryan, who became co-chief executive in July, to revive the lender’s fortunes. As well as the personnel changes, Deutsche said that its investment bank, which is Europe’s largest, will be divided into two divisions: a new unit called Global Markets, comprising sales and trading activities, and another called Corporate & Investment Banking, incorporating its corporate finance and global transactions banking operations. The shake-up comes less than a fortnight after the bank revealed that it would slump to a €6.2bn loss during its third quarter. The huge loss was driven by a €5.8bn impairment charge that Deutsche blamed on a higher capital requirements, which hit the value of the investment bank, and a write-down of its Postbank business, which is being sold.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

OOHHH - YESSS - Another step in the collapse of the euro....

Poland consolidated its rightwing shift on Sunday as exit polls showed voters had handed an absolute majority in its parliamentary election to Law and Justice, a Eurosceptic party that is against immigration, wants family-focused welfare spending and has threatened to ban abortion and in-vitro fertilisation.  The current ruling party, Civic Platform, conceded defeat following the first exit poll, published by Ipsos moments after polling stations closed at 9pm (8pm GMT), which gave the national conservative Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice party) 39.1% of the vote, putting it far ahead of Civic Platform on 23.4%.  Jarosław Kaczyński, Law and Justice’s chairman and the twin brother of Poland’s late president Lech, immediately declared victory...the result would give Law and Justice 242 seats in the 460-member lower house of parliament, meaning the party could govern alone and that its lead candidate, 52-year-old Beata Szydło, is likely to be appointed prime minister...“If Law and Justice end up governing alone with an allied president, Poland will become another Hungary,” said Prof Radosław Markowski of the Polish Academy of Sciences, a reference to the extremist rightwing views of the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán...Most of Europe is moving to the Right. Euroscepticism and anti-immigration feelings are running at an all-time high.  Even in liberal nations like Sweden where the politicians are grimly trying to maintain open door policies, the ordinary citizens are heading in another direction entirely, and showing their distaste for such policies by burning down refugee camps and (regrettably) going into schools and killing immigrants.  Merkel is becoming increasingly isolated and reviled - even by many German citizens.  If ever proof was needed that multiculturalism is a failed social experiment - we now have it writ large. I feel a BREXIT coming on. And it feels good....HAHAHA...Merkel should threaten Poland with Pexit until they learn to vote in the correct party.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

European justice needs a single European legal space, efficient justice needs simplified procedures.
The European Small Claims Procedure, in use since 2009, is a simplified procedure, based on standard forms, for recovering money owed by someone in another EU country.  New rules approved by Parliament today would broaden the use of the procedure, whilst safeguarding the procedural rights of citizens, by raising the threshold for claims covered by the cross-border disputes procedure from 2000 Euro to 5000. Up to now, the procedure was available only for cases with a value of up to 2000 Euro.  The proposed changes would make the procedure available for more cases, cut court fees and encourage the use of electronic communications, such as videoconferencing, and means for distance payments.  The European Parliament’s vote benefits EU citizens by providing simplified procedures for cross-border dispute resolution. National barriers will no longer be an insurmountable obstacle in judicial matters for individuals, nor, in particular, for SMEs. Electronic communication tools will facilitate the process for those involved.  "Good faith in the execution of civil and commercial contracts will be more vigorously protected and legal security will be guaranteed for the commercial circuit," said Daniel Buda MEP, the EPP Group's spokesperson on the issue.

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Britain is among a handful of shining lights in the global economy this year as the world sees the slowest period of growth since the depths of the financial crisis, according to the International Monetary Fund. The IMF edged up its forecast for UK growth in 2015 amid downgrades "across the board" for advanced and emerging economies. It said China's slowdown, falling commodity prices and an expected increase in US interest rates would all weigh on output.   "Britain is among a handful of shining lights in the global economy this year"  I think someone must be holding this shining light in your eyes. I'd recommend a read of the Whole of Government Accounts for 2013-14, and of course for 2014-15 when they finally come out.  Here's a quick extract from 2013-14 WGA for you. "Assets have increased by £39.8 billion (3.1%) from £1,297.5 billion in 2012-13 to £1,337.3 billion in 2013-14. Property, plant and equipment (PPE) increased by £15.8 billion due to increased assets under construction and new academies; financial assets increased by £17.6 billion due to increased loans and advances to banks (repos) and trade receivables increased by £10.2 billion due to increases in taxation due.  Liabilities have increased by £263.7 billion (9%) from £2,925.4 billion in 2012-13 to £3,189.1 billion in 2013-14. The key factors behind this increase were an increase in the pension liability of £130 billion (11.1%), followed by an increase in government borrowing of £99.9 billion (10%) and financial liabilities of £17.8 billion (3.8%)."  Assets up by 39.8bn and liabilities up by 263.7bn, that's a net worsening of position of 224bn or so in a single year. Then of course we have the private pension sector whose recognised deficits have increased, according to the PPF, by 320bn over the last two years, primarily thanks to emergency low rates. They are going to need to suck that money out of the wider economy over perhaps the next ten years, as indeed many major companies are already doing.  As to GDP, well we have 8.9% of our GDP being provided by imputed rents, the rent that you'd theoretically have to pay yourself if you didn't already own your property, though it generates no real additional economic activity. Another large chunk of nominal GDP growth come from importing 330,000 people a year that we make no provision in terms of infrastructure or services for, we simply degrade existing ones with the extra load. And the remainder? Well we borrow three or four times the actual organic GDP growth to support it.
I'm not sure we can afford things being this good much longer.

Saturday, October 10, 2015

The Federal Reserve isn't owned by the United States government it's an international business cartel, a privately owned business that generates over 80 billion dollars a year. More money than any company in America. They say that their objective is to reduce inflation, however, the lower interest is, the more people end up going bankrupt after retirement. When you have more bankruptcy, the banks are required to borrow more money from the federal reserve, increasing their profit margin. It seems to only logical that our monetary system should be controlled by a government agency rather than a privately owned business whose prime objective is to make money, and has financial motivation to cause bankruptcy and financial collapse....Markets have been manipulated for thirty years by and for the insiders, creating the too big to fail banks. Data is manipulated by the insiders, the regulators and government to demonstrate that all is well-nothing to see here. The last decade has seen nil interest rates and successive rounds of Quantitave Easing in an attempt to avoid deflation. This policy has totally failed. This leaves only painful policy options going forward. Orthodox economics which ignores the effect of money and debt on economics prescribes minus interest rates and counterfeit currencies. People who understand macro economics have identified the effects of debt, and understand that creating more debt is not a solution. World Debt is at 285% of GDP. Much of it is worthless and will never be paid back-so the action has to be write it off. Starting now...We know rates can't go up by more than 1% due to the quantum of personal debt in existence and the thin layer of surplus cash available for consumption every month.  More than 1% rate rise will signal defaults spiking. Any rise in rate will signal a slowdown in lending which is correlated highly with growth. This is a debt trap. Any inflation and monetary policy has nowhere to go. This is why there is a hang-up on whether to raise rates by 0.25%. Inflation watchers on one side (hawks) and growth seekers (doves). Frankly it's not worth bothering with, as the economy is stagnant at the zero lower bound whilst we operate in an environment of low growth capitalism. To solve the conundrum debt needs to see material reduction to create surplus cash flow, or wages need to increase - neither of which appear on the economic horizon within market fundamentalism.  Radical solutions would be debt jubilee with new controls on bank creation of endogenous money, regulate bank business models, and control spending / consumption to maintain 2% inflation, or increase wages significantly (with investors/ equity taking the hit - a move away from the conception of financial control and shareholder value to a stakeholder model) and drive a demand side response to deliver 'real' economic growth, not zero sum games we see today in stocks and real estate.