....and a lot of BS - since the "FED" pumped trillions of dollars in the Bundesbank in the last 3 years

Germany has balanced its budget for the first time in more than 40 years, and pressed eurozone partners to follow its austere example rather than try to stimulate their stagnant economies with borrowing or central bank money-printing.   Berlin had aimed to achieve the so-called "schwarze Null" (zero deficit) this year, but strong tax revenues and lower debt service costs due to rock-bottom interest rates helped it meet the goal a year early in 2014, the finance ministry said.   It is the first time Germany has balanced its budget since 1969 .  Chancellor Angela Merkel's government has rebuffed calls from EU partners, led by France and Italy, and international organizations such as the IMF and the OECD to spend some of the fiscal windfall on growth-promoting public investment.   Germany's announcement came nine days before the European Central Bank (ECB) may decide to launch large-scale purchases of eurozone government bonds in an effort to boost growth and avert deflation in the 19-nation currency area. The European Commission set out detailed rules on Tuesday for a planned €315bn investment programme over the next three years, involving no new public money in deference to German objections.  Public investment and structural reforms could win limited leeway for countries breaking EU budget rules, it said. That reduces the likelihood of tough penalties on France or Italy, the eurozone's second and third largest economies, when their fiscal plans are reviewed again in March.   Countries that put capital into a proposed European Fund for Strategic Investment would not be penalized if it tips them over the EU's deficit limit of 3pc of gross domestic product. However, those that already have an deficit in excess of the ceiling would win no indulgence.  The mood of self-congratulation in Berlin over the balanced budget made any easing of fiscal policy seem unlikely, even though the German economy is expected to slow this year. 

Far from using the leeway to invest more in creaking public infrastructure or cut taxes to stimulate weak domestic demand, politicians in Ms Merkel's conservative CDU party said the government should now focus on paying down the country's debt.

People using bitcoins and other virtual currencies are on their own when it comes to losses, the EU banking watchdog said on Friday in a formal warning to consumers on the risks of using unregulated online currencies. The European Banking Authority said there was no protection or compensation for people whose "digital wallets" are hacked, or when a transfer of virtual money goes wrong or a platform is shut. The warning follows a similar announcement from the Bank of France. The EBA stopped short of telling consumers not to use online currency markets but said if they end up out of pocket there will be no safety net like compensation given to deposit holders when a mainstream EU bank goes bust.

"Currently, no specific regulatory protections exist in the EU that would protect consumers from financial losses if a platform that exchanges or holds virtual currencies fails or goes out of business," EBA said in a statement.

Beware of the Anglo-Saxons barbarians - how they destroyed a Christian civilization - they will distroy today's Europe just the same

See also : http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail

Borrowers across the struggling eurozone economies received an unexpected fillip on Thursday when the European Central Bank cut interest rates to a fresh record low, in a bid to stave off a slide into deflation.

After its monthly policy meeting in Frankfurt, the ECB's governing council announced that it would reduce its key refinancing rate to 0.25%, from 0.5%.  While the economy of the 18-member single currency area clambered out of recession earlier this year, Mario Draghi, the ECB's president, warned that the outlook could deteriorate in the coming months.  "The risks surrounding the economic outlook for the euro area continue to be on the downside," he said. "Developments in global money and financial market conditions and related uncertainties may have the potential to negatively affect economic conditions. Other downside risks include higher commodity prices, weaker than expected domestic demand and export growth, and slow or insufficient implementation of structural reforms in euro area countries." As well as the rate cut, which took financial markets by surprise, Draghi said the ECB would continue making low-cost loans to eurozone banks until at least mid-2015, to try to prevent the financial sector from seizing up.

Howard Archer, of consultancy IHS Global Insight, said: "The fact that the ECB chose to act now rather than wait until December when the governing council will have the ECB staff's new eurozone GDP and consumer price inflation forecasts suggests that the bank felt there was a compelling case for prompt action."

With inflation running well below the ECB's 2% target, at just 0.7% in October, a growing number of analysts have started to warn that deflation – which can be disastrous for economies carrying a heavy debt burden, as prices and wages fall while debt-levels remain fixed – is a real threat. Draghi suggested at his press conference that, "we may experience a prolonged period of low inflation".

Czech's want out of the European Union - the desperation vote...

An election held to resolve months of uncertainty in the Czech Republic has failed to produce a clear winner.  With all the ballots counted, the Social Democrats have the most votes - just over 20% - but they do not have enough to form a government alone.  Analysts say the result could pave the way for another unstable coalition, with the second-placed ANO party in a powerful bargaining position.  The election has come after months of political turmoil.  The centre-right government of Petr Necas was brought down by a corruption scandal in June. If ever there was a textbook Pyrrhic victory, this was it. After seven years in opposition, after seven months of vertigo-inducing opinion poll results, the Social Democrats finished on just 20.45%. No wonder the mood at Social Democrat headquarters was subdued - you'd think they'd lost these elections, not won them, and in a sense, they have. Some believe party leader Bohuslav Sobotka will resign within days.   The real victor was the Slovak-born billionaire Andrej Babis, whose centrist ANO party campaigned against corruption and for change. His second place showing is simply astonishing, and can be read as the voters' resounding verdict on the established political parties. He is being coy about a possible coalition with the Social Democrats - as kingmaker, he can dictate the terms.   So what lies ahead for this Central European nation of 10 million? Almost certainly not a minority Social Democrat government propped up by the political pariahs, the Communists. That ship has sailed. Instead weeks - maybe months - of arduous coalition talks.   The country has been without a proper administration ever since - and is currently being governed by a caretaker cabinet of technocrats.

Tough talks ahead - Correspondents say that this election is likely be followed by weeks of difficult negotiations. The BBC's Rob Cameron, in Prague, says the Social Democrats had hoped to win enough to run the country if they were supported or at least tolerated by the Communists. But even together, they do not have enough votes to form a government, he says.  That opens the way for arduous talks on forming a coalition with some of the other parties in parliament.   Social Democrat leader Bohuslav Sobotka admitted the results of the election were "not what we expected,'' but he told reporters he was ready to start negotiations with all parties.  Our correspondent says the real winner in this election is second-placed ANO, a new centrist party which campaigns against corruption and is run by a food and agriculture billionaire.

World Bank cuts China growth forecasts - America's deadlock isn't the only issue worrying the City today. The World Bank has warned that East Asia's economic growth is slowing as it cut its GDP forecasts several nations, including China.

In a new report, the Bank said weaker commodity prices means weaker growth in the region. It also urged Chinese policymakers to tackle the consequences of recent loose policy and tighten financial supervision.

Here's a flavour:Developing East Asia is expanding at a slower pace as China shifts from an export-oriented economy and focuses on domestic demand," the World Bank said in its latest East Asia Pacific Economic Update report.

"Growth in larger middle-income countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand is also softening in light of lower investment, lower global commodity prices and lower-than-expected growth of exports," it added.

It now expects the Chinese economy to expand by 7.5% this year, down from its April forecast of 8.3%. For 2014, the forecast is cut from 8% to 7.7%.

Talks on forming a new German coalition between Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and their main leftist rivals are under way in Berlin.  Her Christian Democrats (CDU) fell just short of an outright majority at last month's polls, when their liberal partner won no seats at all.   Seven leading figures from the CDU are meeting seven counterparts from the Social Democrats (SPD).   The SPD is seen as their likeliest new partner despite sharp differences.  Also present at the talks are seven members of Mrs Merkel's Bavarian allies, the Christian Social Union.   Key issues are taxation and a proposed national minimum wage.   If a grand coalition is forged by the two main parties, like the one Mrs Merkel led in 2005, it faces the twin tasks of rebalancing the eurozone's biggest economy and winning the support of the German public to tackle the eurozone's debt and banking problems.  The SPD, which has not won an election since 2002, has said that any deal must be approved by its membership.   Keeping its options open, Mrs Merkel's party is also holding preliminary talks next week with the Greens. At the election on 22 September, the CDU took about 41.5% of the vote, the SPD won 26%, the Greens 8.4%, and the former communist Left Party 8.6%.   The CDU's previous coalition partner, the Free Democrats, narrowly failed to cross the 5% threshold for entering parliament.

The 4th. Reich will continue the implementation of the Ribbentrop - Molotov Pact, Europeans are doomed !

Angela Merkel's conservatives won a resounding victory in Sunday's general election, sharply increasing their share of the vote to around 42 percent and putting her on track for a third term.

But she may have to form an alliance with the rival center-left Social Democrats because her junior coalition partner, the pro-business Free Democratic Party, saw its support slump so dramatically that it may not make the five percent threshold needed for parliamentary representation.

"We will do everything to ensure that the next four years will be successful ones for Germany," a beaming Merkel told cheering supporters. "We will now wait for the election outcome, it's too early to say how we will proceed. We will discuss all this tomorrow in our leadership meetings. But we can already celebrate today because we did great."

Her SPD rival, Peer Steinbrück, told supporters: "The ball is in Frau Merkel's court, she has to find herself a majority."

An alliance with SPD, a so-called "grand coalition" of the two biggest parties, would be a repeat of the right-left alliance with which she governed in her first term from 2005 until 2009.

Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union party and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, were at 42.1 percent, up sharply from 33.8 percent in 2009, an ARD network TV projection based on actual results showed after polling stations closed at 6 p.m. CET.

A TV projection by ZDF showed a similar result with the conservatives at 42.3 percent.

"This is the FDP's bitterest defeat in decades," said Christian Lindner, a senior member of the party leadership.

MY POINT OF VIEW : David Cameron is now speaking more like the type of person of Scots ancestry, whom I’ve known throughout my life, in four different countries. I, too, was named after the Old Testament legend. Let us hope this David is able to skilfully negotiate, with his slingshot, an escape from the crushing, networking giant of the Continent, knowing euphorically as the ‘Guy Fawkes Club’ – to put it into context. As every attempt has been made to make the bible look irrelevant in today’s world (just see what Romans Ch1v22-32 says of homosexuality), those directing the course for British governments seemingly more concerned to make it easier for the Anglican church to be gobbled up by the Guy Fawkes Club – which long ago gave up any pretence of following Scripture (apart from the subject of marriage – talk of straining at a gnat...swallowing a camel)! Perhaps David has done a crash course in Comparative Religion, and has noticed how undemocratic it has been, for mostly Romans to have held key positions in government & quasi government organisations since UK membership of the Common Market – if only because no decent, self respecting Protestant could bring his/herself to be involved in the systematic destruction of the English Speaking peoples, to advantage that jealous rabble on the Continent. Which Cardinal was it who said, ‘Secret mines may take the town when open batteries fail,’ – on the very same subject ! At last, David Cameron is speaking like a Prime Minister of the Greatest little Britain of all time! UK only started to prosper, to the benefit of the rest of the world, also, when Henry VIII cut the haemorrhage of resources to Italy, & UK began to stand on her own two feet, trusting only in holy scripture, & herself. Mussolini’s mentoring Hitler was meant to reverse all that, & when it didn’t, citizens steeped in Mussolini’s theory & logic began settling in the nations of the victors after cessation of WW2 hostilities, with Mussolini’s Plan B. Part of that was Franca Arena’s setting up our first ever republican movement in Australia, & Ray Bellisario, family also from Italy, setting up England’s first republican movement since Cromwell, to discredit the leadership which caused Mussolini to lose, while other aspects of his culture were trumpeted as superior both directly & subliminally in influential nations, so that, for instance, cat spew chino & pissa (my spelling) became something considered superior, & with an arrogantly assumed dash of romance attached to it. A sense of inferiority amongst the nationals of some other countries, about their own cultures, only helped feed the appetite for self aggrandisement, of those keen to rebuild a new Roman Empire. To assist in this plan the IRA were entrusted with the removal of those who could have warned Great Britain’s leadership what was really going on: battle experienced heroes like the Queen’s relative, Earl Mountbatten, & Airey Neave, MP. I fear, though, that Cameron’s telling the nation how he would vote in any referendum, will tend to make it a foregone conclusion, as voters seem to follow what is seen as the ‘party line.’ Even the Soviet Union discovered that ‘individualism’ whether as nations or as persons, do far better when left to find their own level, instead of being part of some vast metaphorical farm growing peanuts, with individual humans’ means of self expression being emasculated – as though ‘bigger’ is ‘better !’ The communist experiment failed, so why allow catholic activists promote the lie that the British were better off under the Treaty of Rome? It has been an entirely religion driven exercise, cynically aimed at achieving what Mussolini failed to during WW2.

Quarto RECH - well I wish you stupid Europeans good health and enjoy the german boot on your neck ...

On the "escrow" account:  The European citizens should know, however, that loans to Greece are paid into an "escrow" account and are used exclusively to repay past loans and to recapitalise near-bankrupt private banks. The money cannot be used to par salaries and pensions, or to buy basic medicines for hospitals and milk for schools. The precondition for these loans is more austerity, paralysing the Greek economy and increasing the possibility of default. If there is a risk to the European taxpayer losing their money, it is created by austerity.`The Greek message to Angela Merkel, Alexis Tsipras, The Guardian 8/10/12....What is needed is a full implementation of the promise to remove government liability for private financial sector banking debts, not only in Greece but in every EU nation state. This was mooted some time ago only to be followed by political elite class vacillation over whether or not pre-2012 debts could be included. The only way forward for the countries shouldering the burden of insolvent banks is to place responsibility for those debts back onto the banks and make the policy retrospective....Well,....Draghi enters lion's den to sell bond-buying plan (reuters)

Well actually it's just the Bundestag Budget and European Committees, but they're probably happy to be described as "lions". Given the amount of extra paperwork dumped on them by the Constitutional Court regarding EZ crisis-handling, they could do with being pepped up I expect.

It's a good report by Reuters, in any case.

I expect the big questions to be about Spain," said Guntram Wolff, deputy director of the Brussels-based Bruegel think-tank and a former Bundesbank economist.

"There is a lot of opposition to a programme for Spain. They are against it because they fear it would open the floodgates at the ECB. The concerns run very deep, also in the SPD."

Yes, the SPD are fiscal conservatives too.

But amid the concerns, there was general agreement that Draghi had done the right thing in offering to explain his policies at a time when many citizens in Europe feel momentous decisions are being taken without their input.

"One of the big problems of Europe is that European institutions only talk to voters through national governments," said Wolff. "So it's important to have a direct link to the people, and this is a step in that direction."

Yes. Draghi was really quite wise to make the offer to appear before the Bundestag committees.