The International Monetary Fund will sound a fresh alarm over the state of the global economy this week when it reveals its latest forecasts for growth against the backdrop of slower world trade and jittery financial markets.  The expected warning over risks to financial stability and economic growth will underscore fears in the UK that its own economy has slowed in recent months, unable to shake off global pressures.  The IMF’s latest update is expected to reprise warnings about risks from a slowdown in emerging market economies, China’s downturn and lower commodity prices. The Washington-based Fund already cut its outlook in January and recent downbeat comments from its managing director Christine Lagarde were taken by many as a hint that more cuts are to come in Tuesday’s World Economic Outlook.  Lagarde said in a speech that the global economy had lost momentum and that “the recovery remains too slow, too fragile, and risks to its durability are increasing.” She also called on governments to pursue more growth-friendly policies.  “Given comments from Christine Largarde recently a downgrade to the IMF’s world growth forecasts looks to be on the cards,” said Ryan Djajasaputra, economist at the bank Investec.  The new economic outlook, published ahead of the IMF and World Bank spring meetings later in the week, will likely renew warnings over risks the global economy from expected moves by the US Federal Reserve to lift interest rates back to more normal levels.

The period of economic boom has exacerbated the asymmetry between customers and banks, and this aspect has created the need to create an entity that would provide consumers with the option for the alternative resolution of disputes with banks, namely the Center for Alternative Resolution of Lawsuits in the Banking System (CSALB), says Bogdan Olteanu, the deputy governor of the National Bank of Romania (BNR).  The official of the Central Bank said: "The financial sector has made this financial effort that I praise, to find the necessary mechanisms for this structure, to remove the need for consumers to bear any costs"  The creation of the SAL has produced a series of controversies, as many people feel that it is a complicated process.  Bogdan Olteanu said, quoted by Agerpres: "For one of the parties, for the banks, what is so complicated is that there currently is a system that treats them asymmetrically compared to the treatment that consumers get! Yes, that's how things work nowadays, at least in Europe. There is an asymmetry in treatment that balances out the relationship between consumers and banks and it is natural for it to be that way, because there is an asymmetry in accessing information, there is an asymmetry in the processing of that information between consumers and banks, and then the institutional system rebalances the relationship which makes it possible, for instance, for a decision rendered here to be mandatory, while consumers are allowed to challenge it further if they do not agree with it".  In the opinion of the NBR deputy governor, lawyers are against the system because they are losing money the moment consumers decide not to go to court to resolve the lawsuit with the bank and they go to the Center instead: "It is a success and I want to celebrate it. We are among the countries that have succeeded in building such a Center. I hope that next year we are going to find that we have also made it functional. (...) Good luck to banks in scrubbing their reputation of the dirt that has accumulated during the boom period. We are, I hope, on the right path to reestablish this relationship of trust, where citizens go to confidently deposit the money earned through their work with the bank, and other citizens go in with confidence to borrow that money, to use it and then pay it back, so that the depositor can get it back at any time".

The London Stock Exchange’s merger with Deutsche Boerse is coming under fire in Germany, with politicians and industry veterans speaking out against the deal amid fears that Frankfurt’s status as a financial hub will be eroded. As both exchanges canvass investors about their £21bn merger, the decision to move the combined group’s headquarters to London while giving the German bourse’s chief executive, Car­sten Kengeter, the top job has been criticised. Manfred Zaß, a former Deutsche Boerse director, has warned that the compromises contained within the “merger of equals” could damage Frankfurt’s standing, despite Mr Kengeter’s claims that the deal would safeguard the city while enabling both the UK and Germany to compete in global markets. Mr Zass, who left the bourse after its failed bid to buy the LSE in 2005, told a German magazine: “We should not be naïve… With respect, if you know the push and pull behind such a merger, it sounds more like an investment banker fairy story. "The supposed parity – the boss here, the domicile there – creates a recognisably lopsided Frankfurt," he told a German magazine. Deutsche Boerse’s home district is also lobbying to retain the exchange’s head offices. Ulrich Caspar, who sits in the regional parliament in Hesse, has said he harbours concerns about the majority of the enlarged group’s shareholder base coming from English-speaking countries.  “It is the task of the German, Hesse and Frankfurter politicians to ensure that the stock market can continue to develop,” he told the German media.  Mr Caspar was a vocal opponent of Deutsche Boerse’s ultimately unsuccessful plans to merge with NYSE in 2012, part of a global wave of consolidation among financial market operators. Wilhelm Speckhardt, former mayor of the Frankfurt suburb of Eschborn, has described the plan to shift the holding company to London as “an unimaginable catastrophe for the town”.

Mario Draghi signaled that the ECB would be moving away from interest rate cuts towards "unconventional" measures in the future. He also said the governing council did not want to send the signal that rates can go into unlimited negative territory.

Negative rates are seen as a way to weaken a currency and help boost inflation, but Draghi's comments have seen the euro rocket today.  Maxime Alimi, Senior Economist at AXA Investment Managers, says the ECB has now all but given up on trying to manipulate the currency in favour of trying to boost growth through QE.  "The ECB no longer counts on a weaker euro to raise inflation, perhaps for fear of a reaction from the Federal Reserve. Therefore, we do not expect a significant depreciation of the euro, going forward", said Alimi.  "Conversely, the interest rate channel and the portfolio rebalancing channel are coming back to the fore. If our assessment is correct, don’t fight the ECB: European peripherals, high yield and equities stand to benefit."

The crises of mass migration and Greek debt have hit the European Union like an “an out-of-control bulldozer”, forcing its leaders to rethink David Cameron’s call for fundamental reform, the cabinet’s leading Eurosceptic has said.  Iain Duncan Smith, speaking to the Guardian before a Conservative party conference that will see disputes over Cameron’s EU referendum tactics, said the twin crises had changed the debate.  The work and pensions secretary said: “We are getting a better hearing because people are waking up to these things. It is suddenly becoming clear that actually you cannot paper over the cracks and say ‘it’s alright, it’s only the British.’ We still have the crisis over the euro and Greece, and then the rows over Schengen border controls are like nothing I have ever seen. It is massive.”   The two crises had sent “shock waves everywhere”, he said. “Nothing is the same after this thing. The European Union has just been hit by an out-of-control bulldozer that has just gone straight through the middle of them.”

The British pound  saw the biggest decline against the dollar since March 2009, after London mayor Boris Johnson, one of the most popular politicians in the country, said he would start a campaign in favor of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union (Brexit) in the referendum scheduled in June. The pound lost 1.7% at 12:01, on the New York market, to 1.4156 dollars. The pound had earlier lost 1.9% - its biggest decline since March 9th, 2009. All throughout yesterday, the pound fell to 1.4058 dollars - the weakest exchange rate since March 18th, 2009. The British currency weakened against all major currencies yesterday, after having gained significantly at the end of last week. Valentin Marinov, a strategist with "Credit Agricole" SA, states, according to Bloomberg: "The pound is dropping because the agreement achieved by British PM David Cameron in the EU summit (ed. note: - Friday) has not removed the fears concerning a Brexit. The fact that prominent members of the Conservative Party have announced that they are going to be campaigning for Britain's exit from the EU has increased investors' worries over such a possibility". Since the beginning of the year, the pound has lost 4.1%. On Friday night, David Cameron has achieved a special agreement that grants the United Kingdom "a special status in the European Union", but has announced that he has not abandoned the idea of a referendum concerning the United Kingdom's exit from the EU, and set the date of the poll to June 23rd. 

The Austrian authorities have taken yet another step on the mined field of financial "stability" of the so-called hard core of the Eurozone. Amid the nearing of the deadline for the moratorium set on the payment of the debts of Heta Asset Resolution, the bad bank set up for the takeover of the non-performing land of Hypo Alpe-Adria, the creditors have been presented with the buyback terms for the bonds guaranteed by the land of Carinthia. Their total par value is 11 billion Euros, and the "offer" includes the payment of 75% of the par value for senior bonds and 30% of the value of subordinated bonds, which means a total loss of approximately 3.2 billion Euros for lenders. "Creditors that refuse the offer could wait for as long as ten years for a ruling of the judicial system in their favor", said Hans-Joerg Schelling, the Austrian finance minister, according to Bloomberg. Schelling further said that "the offer is excellent", according to Bloomberg, and creditors "should be rational and accept it". For the buyback of the Heta bonds, Austria has set up a special investment vehicle, Kaerntner Ausgleichszahlungs-Fonds (The Fund for the Payment of Compensations of Carinthia). Unfortunately for the authorities in Vienna, the notion of "rational" is understood differently by creditors. "What the Austrian authorities have done is unprecedented in the developed world: they have announced a figure that they consider acceptable and they have asked the creditors to accept the offer", the partner of Swiss company Gold Partners AG who owns 200 million Euros worth of Heta bonds, told Bloomberg. The list of creditors that oppose the offer includes far bigger names however, such as German banks Commerzbank AG and NordLB, as well as PIMCO, the American investment fund manager owned by Allianz AG.  Bloomberg estimates show that the exposure of those who have rejected the proposal of the Austrian authorities is about 5 billion Euros and represents approximately 45% of the total debt, as the terms of the offer are non-negotiable, and its acceptance by two thirds of the creditors involves its unconditional application and for the other creditors as well.

Oops trying to concentrate on some thing else and make a balls up . Was going on to say the Banks and the establishment also knew that austerity wasn't the answer as the collapse in the 1930s proved this The top economist knew this and were saying so .Salmond, who is also an economist was saying so .We should have used the Billions thrown at the banks to implement a strategy in getting the country working and investing in a host of projects . It was an ideological decision rather than one based on sound financial judgment,  and certainly the working class man /woman weren't taken into consideration at all. We could have become the manufacturing country which we once were instead of a third rate Service industry, and economy with a race to the bottom with regards to low wages.

We are possibly on the cusp of another financial downturn although the Banks are still carrying on as before and it seems they never learned any lessons at all from the crash .

It really wasn't rocket science, just greedy bankers and their right wing friends in the Tory party and press who decided the pathway and the stupid Labour party had neither the guts or sense to fight against it. And it looks like Osborne's policies are still failing, although we might be creating jobs it's the caliber of job and the wages that are obviously keeping the country back. AS mentioned before with the 2 million jobs created one would expect a thriving economy, and it certainly doesn't seem that way to the majority of people, and many economist were forecasting this and now the OECD are just catching up.

The Safe Harbour deal was brought before the ECJ after whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the extent of US-led mass surveillance programmes. With American internet services popular among Europeans, the EU side wanted to know if it could still trust the US authorities on data collection.  “The US side has clarified that they do not carry out indiscriminate mass surveillance of Europeans,” said Ansip, adding that the US intelligence activities underwent “substantial internal reviews”. His colleague, justice commissioner Vera Jourova, said the written assurances would include one from the office of the director of national intelligence in the White House.

“This is a unique step the US has made in order to restore trust in our transatlantic relations,” noted Jourova, adding that the EU would “hold the US accountable on the commitments they made”.

The deal sees the phrase Safe Harbour replaced by a new name: the EU-US 'Privacy Shield'.

“We decided to rebrand, rename the scheme,” said Jourova.The framework will also include redress possibilities for EU citizens who feel their data has been misused. “The US will create the role of a special ombudsperson within the US State Department who would follow up complaints and inquiries by individuals on national security access upon referral by EU data protection authorities,” said Ansip.  In a conference call with journalists, US secretary of commerce Penny Pritzker said they were “tough negotiations”.  “It's been a long road but we've turned a corner and now we stand together,” she said, adding that the new framework would provide certainty to EU and US businesses and citizens alike. “This new mechanism will allow the digital economy in both the EU and the US to grow, which is so critical to jobs and economic security,” noted Pritzker. She said she was “confident” that the new deal met the requirements of the ECJ. A senior official at the US department of commerce said the new deal, just like Safe Harbour, was “not a multilateral agreement or a treaty in the formal sense”. This has already prompted some criticism. Liberal Dutch member of the European Parliament Sophie in 't Veld said the “legal status of these safeguards is very unclear”. “The assurances seem to rely exclusively on political commitment, instead of legal acts. So any change in the political constellation in the US may undo the whole thing,” she said. The deal was announced a day after the 10-month race for the White House kicked off in Iowa.  The American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union is happy with the agreement, however.

“This new framework gives business the necessary confidence to continue to invest in the transatlantic marketplace,” it said in a press release. Jourova and Ansip will draft a so-called “adequacy decision” in the following weeks to determine if the US commitments provide adequate protection for European citizens' data. The decision is a legal tool under the comitology procedure, whereby decisions are taken by experts from EU countries. Jourova expects the new framework to be in place in three months.

The EU’s draft agreement with the UK received moderate backing from governments in eastern Europe, who had been critical of British prime minister David Cameron’s plans to curb benefits for EU workers.  Governments across Europe are still studying the small print of EU Council chief Donald Tusk’s proposals for a deal with the UK to keep it in the EU, but gave tentative backing to the plan on Tuesday (2 February)  EU leaders will discuss the draft agreement for the first time on 18 and 19 February.  Tusk’s plan offers Britain a gradual, four-year brake on welfare for EU workers, and cuts benefits for children of EU workers living outside Britain.  Eastern European countries had argued that cutting benefits for EU workers was discriminatory and threatened the principle of free movement. Poland, which supplies the bulk of EU workers in Britain, wanted to see more details before signing up to the plan. “Free movement of workers and services is a fundamental value of the European Union,” Polish 
president Andrzej Duda said Tuesday, Reuters reports. "There is a clause [in the deal] saying that in the case of a sudden influx of wage migrants some payments could be curbed. We will see what the interpretation [of the clause] is.

Cameron will visit Poland  to encourage Warsaw to accept the deal.  “We are analysing the latest proposal thoroughly,” Polish prime minister Beata Szydlo also said. The Polish and Hungarian foreign ministers will meet in Budapest on Wednesday to coordinate their positions. “While Hungary supported Britain’s effort to cut down on the abuse of its social system, the government opposes any discrimination in benefits among workers hailing from the EU,” Hungary’s foreign minister Peter Szijjarto said, according to Bloomberg.  The Czech Republic gave a positive first signal, with state secretary for EU affairs Tomas Prouza telling Bloomberg the draft agreement was a "very good solution" for keeping the UK in the EU. “It doesn’t mean totally closing the UK and it isn’t turning anyone into a second-class citizen,” he added. Berlin has kept quiet so far. But Cameron is to hold talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on 12 February.  Norbert Roettgen, chairman of the German parliament’s committee on foreign affairs, told the Guardian, a British daily, that the draft proposal was a “good and fair compromise, and a convincing outcome that Cameron can present to the British public”. Denmark’s prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen tweeted on Tuesday that Tusk’s proposals were a good basis for negotiations. He will also meet Cameron on Friday.

The European Court of Justice has dealt a blow to David Cameron on the morning of his renegotiation, as its top legal adviser said that France was wrong to jail a woman attempting to get into Britain on someone else's passport.  France had no right under EU rules to detain an African woman who was caught at Calais attempting to reach Britain on false papers.  The case has potentially significant implications for how French and British police guard Calais - and critics will argue the opinion will encourage further attempts to reach Britain illegally.  Sélina Affum, a Ghanaian woman, was stopped by French police at the entrance to the Channel Tunnel while on a coach going from Ghent in Belgium to London. She was carrying a Belgian passport with the name and photograph of someone else, and had no other travel documents. Looks like there is going to be a biff between China and the Wall Street parasites, sorry, investment bankers. Could be interesting to see what the Chinese do as they have clearly identified who is driving their currency down. It is also interesting that they are paying off Dollar debt like the Russians are. This situation is historically unlike what has gone before as the global financial system appears on the verge of splitting and making assumptions about it being the same as before might not be a good idea.

We must decide whether the European Union is worth saving

The present EU is an enfeebled and retarded offspring of the 3rd Reich, but one can still see the DNA traits and family similarities. Like its grand-daddy, this Reich has the Southern countries beholden to Germany as near colonies, it has pan-European rule from an ideological and corrupt bureaucratic center, and above all, a German leader is pursuing a massive utopian, so-called progressive, racial, social engineering scheme, which is being forced down the throats of both Germans and Europeans, which all will eventually lead Europe into an abyss...If the EU is doomed to deflationary underachievement thanks to its structural incoherence, then we are confronted with a land of the living dead in which existence is punctuated only by volcanic eruptions. This does not seem like the worst is over at all....EU = Eternal Uncertainty. When is that simple message going to be articulated? Membership of the Common Market, correction EEC, correction EU has been one long, non-stop wrangle with Brussels, its agenda-driven, calculating jobs worth's and apparatchiks moving the goal posts year-on-year. How can anyone view that as the norm for a  healthy accountable democracy?  The EU is a corrupt concept - through and through - based on the two main losers of WW2 forcing the rest of the continent into an economic and political straitjacket so as to maintain a semblance of peaceful co-existence between themselves.

Liam Fox has launched the national grass-roots campaign to persuade voters to leave the European Union.  In a barnstorming speech to a rally of more than 2,000 people, the former Defence Secretary said he wanted to live in a country that was “an independent sovereign nation” again. Britain used to be “proud” and “free” and in this role saved Europe from its own “folly” in two world wars, the Tory MP said. Dr Fox dismissed his party leader’s attempts to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s membership. He said he was “sad” and “angry” to see “a British Prime Minister take the begging bowl around the capitals of Europe just to change the benefit laws in our country”.  “Insecurity for our country comes from open borders and uncontrolled migration,” he said. “I do not want the mistakes made by Angela Merkel in opening the doors to migrants in Germany to be reflected in Britain’s security. “Germany has discovered in Cologne and other places exactly what it may mean when you do not know who you have allowed into your country.” When these migrants have gained citizenship in another EU country, “they will have the right to enter the United Kingdom if we remain a member of the European Union. That for me is the real security issue at risk in this referendum.” In his speech, which was greeted with cheers and applause, Dr Fox said Britain would never be isolated in the world if it left the EU. He said the UK would remain a member of the UN security council, continue to have a “special relationship” with the United States. “This country has never been isolated. But what we have been is proud, independent and free.” Because of that “we were able to save the European Continent twice” in the 20th century “from their own folly” in two world wars.

The people that run the EU will not allow it to fail.  Look at Greece. The first real chance to stick two fingers up to Brussels, but ultimately, the Greek politicians bottled it under threats and blackmail from the EU.  The same will happen in Spain.  The Front National was shafted in France by a combination of the two major parties in France fixing the electoral system and the EU scaremongering the French public.  Cameron has not bottled it, because he has never tried to stand up to the EU in the first place.  The EU will prevail.  At the first sign of any serious unrest, pressure will be applied behind the scenes on the respective government to send troops onto the streets to restore order if necessary.  The genie is out of the lamp and there is nothing we can do about it short of armed insurrection...The Traverling Circus of the EU  Parliment.

(1) The most outlandish of the European Union’s excesses; a £130 million travelling circus that once a month sees the European Parliament decamp from  Belgium to France.

Over the course of the weekend, some 2,500 plastic trunks will be loaded on to five lorries and driven almost 300 miles from Brussels to Strasbourg. In all, the EU admits that the monthly Strasbourg sitting, which lasts just four days, costs an additional £93 million a year. The Conservative Party in Europe, which is leading a campaign to abandon it, estimates the cost a little higher at £130 million, or about £928 million in the seven-year cycle of an EU budget.

(2) Treasury figures have shown that the annual cost of a MEP sitting in the EU

assembly is £1.79 million each a year, which is three times the cost of a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons. The European Parliament, with 766 MEPs, cost £1.3 billion in 2012 – expenditure that was shared across the EU's members with a share of the annual bill for British taxpayers of £170 million. In contrast, the combined cost of the House of Commons and House of Lords, with 650 MPs and around 720 active peers, was £494 million in the same period.

Part of the difference is salary: MEPs are considerably more highly paid than MPs, with a £80,000 per year, paid with low 23 per cent "community tax rates", compared with £66,396 for elected representatives in the Commons.  But the big difference between MEPs and MPs is the generous, or even lavish, expenses and allowances – entitlements that are worth over £415,000 a year each. One allowance for parliamentary assistants to work in the Brussels or local office of an MEP is worth £213,000 a year.

(3) The European Union is accused of “breathtaking hypocrisy” for continuing to demand that David Cameron pays a £1.7 billion bill despite its own auditors failing to give a clean bill of health to more than £100 billion of spending by Brussels.  According to the annual report of the European Court of Auditors, seen by The Telegraph, £5.5 billion of the EU budget last year was misspent because of

controls on spending that were deemed to be only “partially effective” by experts.  The audit,published this morning, found that £109 billion out of a total of £117 billion spent by the EU in 2013 was "affected by material error”.It means that the Brussels accounts have not been given the all clear for 19 years running.

(4) What right has Brussels got to spend our taxes on feed us Lies on why we should stay in this broken EU, which does not serve the common person in the streets of the UK.  Voters face being bombarded with pro-Europe propaganda in the months leading up to the referendum as there is no limit on how much Brussels can spend on efforts to keep Britain in the European Union, campaigners have warned. The European Commission has formed a task force in Brussels to oversee an

“information” campaign in the run-up to the in/out referendum, which is expected

to be held next year.

Bail ins are coming. ALL major banks are technically insolvent as they have exposure to derivatives and cds than actual assets- if they were normal businesses they would be allowed or forced to fold. All taxpayers are still technically on the hook, previously a government would foot the bill and pass on the cost, now it's depositors actual money at risk, money which in law is a credit to the bank, not legally owned by the depositor- the account holder. Many derivatives contracts are linked to oil prices or interest rates and as the worldwide economy is tanking, and there is plenty of evidence for this, these contracts WILL take down some big players. JPMorgan, citi, BoA, Deutsch bank, and many others use off book accounting to hide their actual liabilities and the whole cabal is fraudulent on an unbelievable scale. When confidence in the system falls, it will collapse and trillions in wealth will be confiscated.

The global monetary system was designed by bankers for bankers and they get a cut at every step in the process.

They are given the privilege of creating money out of thin air (fractional reserve banking), which they can then lend out and charge interest on.

There is only one task they have to carry out and that is to lend the money prudently to people that can pay them back plus the interest.

Could it be any easier, with no manufacturing, supply and distribution chains to worry about?

What are bankers like at prudent lending?

“What is wrong with lending more money into the Chinese stock market?” Chinese banker recently

“What is wrong with lending more money into real estate?” Chinese banker last year

“What is wrong with lending more money to Greece?” European banker pre-2010

“What is wrong with a NINA (no income no asset) mortgage?” US banker pre-2008

“What is wrong with lending more money into real estate?” US banker pre-2008

“What is wrong with lending more money into real estate?” Irish banker pre-2008

“What is wrong with lending more money into real estate?” Spanish banker pre-2008

“What is wrong with lending more money into real estate?” Japanese banker pre-1989

“What is wrong with lending more money into real estate?” UK banker pre-1989

“What is wrong with lending more money into the US stock market?” US banker pre-1929

Globally incompetent at the only job they have to do.

Shouldn’t we be asking why bankers are so useless rather than bailing them out?

Bumper growth will put Britain on course to become the world's fourth largest economic powerhouse ahead of an ageing Japan and Germany in the 2030s, according to the Cebr's latest world economic league table. The total cash value of the UK economy will grow to around $4.7 trillion by 2031, but is expected to be quickly overtaken by Brazil in fourth spot by the 2040s.  UK economic growth is set to hit 2.9pc this year, the second fastest in the advanced world after the United States. It means the economy is now 6.1pc larger than its pre-financial crisis peak. The Treasury said the Cebr's analysis was evidence the Government's long-term economic plan was working.  "With the deficit reduced by almost two thirds as a share of GDP since its peak in 2009-10, an average of 1,000 extra people in work each day, the government’s plan for more prosperous future is delivering for working people", said a spokeswoman. The only thing one can say with certainty is that economic forecasts are less accurate than weather forecasts, and we all know how accurate they are. If one takes France as an example and directly compares it with the UK one will find than France has a better road system, a better rail system, a better education system and a better health system. (It does not have a better political system). You will argue that they are all bankrupt or about to go bankrupt. I will respond 'so what'. I know it's Christmas and they have to fill the pages but this is not only nonsense but dangerous nonsense and I don't like tempting the Gods; nevertheless I hope it's true; but don't count on it.

If the British public were to vote to leave the European Union it would be the modern equivalent of the toppling of the Berlin Wall and herald the beginning of the end for the bloc, says Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s National Front. In a week when Denmark rejected “more Europe” in their latest EU referendum, and David Cameron was rebuffed in Brussels over his demands to cut welfare benefits to newly arrived EU workers, the new, softer face of France’s far-Right is clearly dreaming big. “Brexit would be marvelous - extraordinary - for all European peoples who long for freedom,” she told The Telegraph on Friday on a frantic last day of campaigning ahead of Sunday's regional elections in France where the polls put her party on the cusp of a new electoral breakthrough. “Objectively, it will be the beginning of the end of the European Union,” she adds, “I compare Brussels to the Berlin Wall. If Great Britain knocks down part of the wall, it’s finished, it’s over.”  And if Britain did knock a hole in the European project, then Ms Le Pen, with her hardline anti-immigrant, anti-Europe, anti-globalisation mantra wants to be there in 2017, leading France through the breach. For her, that real road to power begins on Sunday when, if polls are correct, Ms Le Pen’s party could emerge as the first-round winners in as many as six of France’s 13 new “super-regions”, a showing that she is already touting as a launch-pad for a serious run at the French presidency in 2017. In round two, she is widely expected to clinch control of the northern Nord-Pas de Calais-Picardie region. Down South, her niece, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, 25, stands a high chance of clinching France’s second largest region, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur. The FN could also triumph in Alsace-Lorraine-Champagne-Ardenne, Burgundy-Franche Comté and Normandy.

INTEREST RATES SOAR TO 8.3% ON CORPORATE BONDS - Credit Investors Bolt Party as Economy Fears Trump Low Rates.  Debt investors are a nervous lot these days, and new signs that global turmoil is weighing on the U.S. economic outlook are only adding to their angst.  Measures of corporate credit risk spiked immediately after a Labor Department report showed that payrolls rose less than projected last month, wages stagnated and the jobless rate was unchanged. Investors are now demanding more than they have in three years to own junk bonds, which are on track to cap off their worst week this year.  Frustration is growing that even after seven years of easy-money policies, economic growth remains sluggish. While the Federal Reserve is signaling that it’s in no hurry to normalize interest rates, investors are increasingly worried about what the data will mean for earnings at companies that have sold $9.3 trillion of corporate bonds since the start of 2009.

Average borrowing costs for junk-rated companies have surged by 0.4 percentage point this week, to 8.3 percent, Bank of America Merrill Lynch Index data show... There is a RISK OF UP TO 100% LOSS on all stocks and every single stock prospectus out there clearly tells you exactly that.  Anyone who has any funds in stocks who can't afford to lose it all has no business having any funds in stocks.  The party on Wall Street is just about over - The rise in stocks that began in March 2009 is one of the longest stretches without a bear market in quite a few years.  Not only that, but October was the best month for stocks in four years. As you might have expected, this has driven the market’s price-earnings ratio well above average. The current ratio for the Standard & Poor’s 500 stocks is a tad over 22; the average P/E ratio for these stocks since the 1870s is 16.6.  Investors should enjoy the good times while they are still around, for there are increasing signs that the party may soon be over.

 

The successor of Traian Băsescu in the presidential seat has nominated Dacian Cioloş, as the former president had repeatedly announced over the last few days.  That can mean several things: first of all, that Traian Băsescu and Klaus Iohannis think alike (at least in that regard); the second, that Traian Băsescu continues to be very well informed, and third, that president Klaus Iohannis obeys Traian Băsescu.  You can pick any option you want or you can combine all three.  "Tim Budget", like the press nicknamed Liviu Voinea, has been saved from being sacrificed. Meaning that, instead of having the ephemeral glory of serving as prime-minister for two months, he has stayed to share his wisdom with the National Bank of Romania, as deputy governor.   Dacian Cioloş was a European Commissioner for Agriculture between 2010 and 2014, achieving the first reform of the Common Agricultural Policy.  Dacian Cioloş was the minister of Agriculture in Romania between October 2007 and December 2008, in the Tăriceanu government, and has maintained a technocrat reputation. Between 2005 and 2007, Cioloş was an advisor to the Minister of Agriculture, while also representing Romania on the special commission of the Council of the European Union on the issue of agriculture. Previously, between 2002 and 2003, Dacian Cioloş worked for the Delegation of the European Commission in Romania, preparing the SAPARD implementation in Romania. At the time of his appointment as prime-minister of Romania, Dacian Cioloş was one of the personal advisors of the president of the European Commission, Jean Claude Juncker, a position which he was awarded this year. Juncker is considered a grey eminence of the Euro currency system. THE PROPOSED  ROMANIAN GOVERNMENT IS : (note : please  use the translation button on the right side of this page)

 Premierul desemnat Dacian Cioloş a anunţat, astăzi, echipa de miniştri, într-o conferință de presă, la Camera Deputaților.
     Astfel, lista membrilor Guvernului propusă de Dacian Cioloş este:
     Vicepremier şi Ministrul Economiei: Costin Grigore Borc
     Vicepremier şi Ministrul Dezvoltării: Vasile Dâncu
     Ministrul Afacerilor Externe: Lazăr Comănescu
     Ministrul Afacerilor Interne: Petre Tobă
     Ministrul Agriculturii: Achim Irimescu
     Ministrul Apărării Naţionale: Mihnea Motoc
     Ministrul Culturii: Vlad Alexandrescu
     Ministrul Energiei: Victor Vlad Grigorescu
     Ministrul Educaţiei: Adrian Curaj
     Ministrul Finanţelor Publice: Anca Paliu Dragu
     Ministrul Fondurilor Europene: Aura Carmen Răducu
     Ministrul Justiţiei: Cristina Guseth
     Ministrul Mediului, Apelor și Pădurilor: Cristiana Paşca Palmer
     Ministrul Muncii: Claudia Anca Moarcăş
     Ministrul pentru Societatea Informaţională: Marius Raul Bostan
     Ministrul Sănătăţii: Andrei Baciu
     Ministrul Tineretului și Sportului: Elisabeta Lipă
     Ministrul Transporturilor: Marian Costescu
     Ministrul pentru Dialog Social: Violeta Alexandru
     Şeful Cancelariei Primului Ministru: Ioan Dragoş Tudorache
     Ministrul delegat pentru Relaţiile cu Românii de Preturindeni: Dan Stoenescu
     Ministrul delegat pentru Relaţia cu Parlamentul şi Societatea Civilă: Cristian Ciprian Bucur.

The United Kingdom, and its free-born citizens are NOT JUST ECONOMIC UNITS. We are a history, a culture, a democracy, a monarchist, christian country - whose citizens should HAVE THE RIGHT TO DETERMINE THEIR FUTURE - AND THAT OF THEIR COUNTRY.  It is NOT for those companies with vested interests in the eu (NOTE the eu) to have ANY voice whatsoever about the Future FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY of citizens of the United Kingdom.  We were NEVER EVER consulted about the federal monster that the common market has become. We were LIED TO by a Traitor - Heath, and by useless subsequent useful idiots in the civil service and government.  The FREE citizens of the United Kingdom will vote on whether we wish to be an independent, democratic country or whether to join the increasingly undemocratic, statist, federalist, socialist slave republic of the Coudenhove-Kalergi plan.  But it is WE who will decide - WE - who are MORE than economic units - WE - with our history and culture AT RISK - will make the choice. Not any b---y investment bankers who caused the financial crash.  NOT those b---y companies who make a fortune out of paying cheap labour with no moral responsibility to the ethnic people of the UK - who don't care that the ordinary people are being increasingly made poor, with more stress on our housing, energy, food and water supplies simply because it suits THEM to treat US as 'economic units'.  THE PEOPLE OF THE UK ARE MORE THAN ECONOMIC UNITS...First, this is the very opposite of the message that was being sent to business across the UK before the Scottish referendum when enormous pressure was being put on UK business to champion the Unionist cause. To argue that UK business should keep quiet now is totally inconsistent with that. Second, not a word is mentioned in this article about those businesses that have argued against EU membership like the hypocritical Lord Bamford who does not mind the UK leaving the EU (but his company, JCB,is building a brand new HQ and massive factory in Germany, inside the EU and the single market just in case). Perhaps the reason for this is that Allister Heath knows that his views are at odds with those of most of UK business. Third, any listed company is obliged to publish to shareholders any foreseeable risks to the success of the business. Even the uncertainty surrounding the referendum is enough to cause an element of risk, let alone departure from the EU. Since no one really knows what departure from the EU would look like (and no one has put forward any kind of blue print whatsoever), the uncertainty faced by business would be massive.

OK, there would probably be a free trade agreement (but even this is not guaranteed), but free trade is a very pale imitation of membership of a true single market and customs union with common technical standards across an entire Continent and a home market of 500 million people as currently enjoyed. That risk in itself should be enough to trigger every PLC and AIM listed company to publish details of the threats that an EU exit could cause to their business.  Fourth, membership of the EU is not party political so it is not like a company supporting a given political party at all. it goes to the heart of how this country will structure its development, not for 5 short years but for the foreseeable future. Fifth, EU membership is a bit of a package, and some to the right of the Tory party and in the Telegraph may campaign for example for an end to "social Europe" but that is not a universally held belief across all business. My firm offers all staff a minimum of four weeks paid holiday every year. Because of EU laws, so must our competitors. If that power were to be repatriated, and the UK Parliament with a majority Government elected by just 33% of the voting public were to repeal that, competitors may cut costs not be raising their efficiency (which would be legitimate) but by slashing social standards and maybe cutting holidays. If my firm does the right thing and maintains 4 weeks paid holiday, we are put at an unfair competitive disadvantage, not due to greater efficiency elsewhere, but by companies cutting costs by reducing social protection. In a race to the bottom of that kind, UK productivity will never rise, and of course we will always lose against cheap labour in Asia and Latin America.  Finally, the opinions offered are often those of the CEO or senior management. They are entitled to express their personal views just as much as any journalist or member of the public and frankly will know more about the real consequences of leaving the EU than most of us, including most journalists. And if they perceive a threat to jobs and investment in the UK they not only have the right to express it but a duty to do so.