Indeed...

Indeed ... A form of  dictatorship is the only way that the EU CAN work. Fascism - where the state comes before the individual - same with the EU - the EU project comes before EVERYTHING and EVERYBODY else. It must not fail !!!! People eating out of bins in Athens....50% youth unemployment.....convicted murderers roming Europe at will.....who cares, so long as the Eurocrats get their fat pension - all in the name of 'a democratic Europe' - apparently. Let's hope the EU gradually disappears up its own backside. Is it really such a big deal for Greece to leave the Eurozone? Yes, they will default on their debts, but this is only virtual money and the debtors (ie Germany) were not going to see very much of it back in any case. There will be some months of turbulance whilst they create a new currency and agree on an exchange rate ....the average person will be better off as he will suddenly have a load of New Drachma's in his pocket ...the rich will keep their Euros in their various non-Greek accounts...but then the country can start to benefit from an influx of holiday makers and increased competitiveness for their industry, which is responsible for 60% of their exports. They will still be in the European Union and benefit from the open market....as will the rest of the Union....That's the worse case scenario for the EU. Other countries would see that life is better outside euro. Some countries would also want to exit and some countries that are meant to join would refuse to do so.   I want to think that Berlin and Paris will not cause any more pain on Greece, but on the other hand, if Greece exits and it is a success, the Francogerman monetary union can seriously collapse. So, I suspect that Berlin and Paris would still try to make life difficult for Greece outside the euro.

This whole mes was a creation of the EU's imperialist ambitions , they financed the opposition to the democratically elected President with at least a billion Euros , succeeded in overthrowing him and in putting their placemen in power and then sat back. However as the West has discovered in Iraq, Afganistan ,Libya, and Syria it is extremely easy to interfere in the affairs of another country but very difficult to control events thereafter . However even the most stupid western politician should have understood Russia would not just stand by. Unfortunately our leaders have shown they are totally stupid as far as intervention in foreign countries is concerned.
Putin is in the right to defend what he cosnsiders to be his sphere of influence. As this mess continues the economic consequences for everyone but particularly the average EU citizen goes from bad to worse...

If I understand it correctly the latest false Kiev claim goes like this:

1. A mighty Russian force attacked Ukraine through the border.
2. A heroic Ukrainian army destroyed at least 50% of this menacing force.
3. The Russians put their tail between their legs and retreated before the mighty Ukrainian army could wipe out the rest of them.
4. Apparently the terrified Russians had the good sense in them to take back to Russia all their destroyed equipment for reasons of protecting the Ukrainian environment.

In all of this excitement, no soldier or journalist was able to use their iphone and capture some evidence. No aerial satellite photography either. Other than these minor details (of no evidence existing anywhere) this is a decisive victory for Kiev's unstoppable forces... Lies, upon lies, upon lies. Such is the natural environment for the beast called EUSSR. It has to feed on lies otherwise it dies. And since it refuses to die it has to constantly fabricate new lies just to keep up with its corrosive self-indulgence.

Who do you think you are kidding Mrs Merkel?

Following German Unification, the Euro was another cunning plan to make Germany the, albeit financial, master race in Europe. Now it's all going awry for the Germans who, yet again, have overstretched their capabilities and their current lords and masters are seemingly living in denial protected by their own economic bubble, or bunker, while the German Euro master plan crashes in financial flames all around them. Meanwhile, past members of the hierarchy try to broker some kind of financial peace treaty while Britain remains steadfast protecting it's financial beach heads and the USA does its utmost to keep out of the, albeit financial, fighting while protecting it's worldwide financial interests. The appropriate words are all in Lafontaine's statements. "The Germans have not yet realized that southern Europe, including France, will be forced by their current misery to fight back against German hegemony sooner or later".  Chancellor Angela Merkel will "awake from her self-righteous slumber" once the countries in trouble unite to force a change in crisis policy at Germany's expense. "Hopes that the creation of the euro would force rational economic behavior on all sides were in vain" adding that the policy of forcing Spain, Portugal, and Greece to carry out internal devaluations was a "catastrophe". I love the way the German refers to "rational economic behavior" by which I assume he means "Germany's economic interests"! "They don't like it up 'em!" do they?  As before, methinks this could end up costing Germany dear in what can only be described as reparations for their ill fated financial master plan which caused so much suffering and misery across Europe and is likely to take several years to return to business as usual.

The fourth REICH in full action according to the Ribbentrop - Molotov Treaty ... Europe is under the German boot !!!!..

Mario Draghi has defended his Outright Monetary Transactions plan to the Bundestag in the last few minutes.

Draghi promised German MPs that the pledge to buy unlimited quantities of bonds will dispel fears over the euro's future.

The ECB president also began his two-hour appearance in Berlin by repeating his line that politicians, not central bankers, must take the decisive steps to ensure Europe's future

Here's how Draghi defended the OMT, which he insisted did not put taxpayers at risk.

We designed the OMTs exactly to...restore monetary policy transmission in two key ways.

First, it provides for ex ante unlimited interventions in government bond markets, focusing on bonds with a remaining maturity of up to three years. A lot of comments have been made about this commitment. But we have to understand how markets work. Interventions are designed to send a clear signal to investors that their fears about the euro area are baseless.

Second, as a pre-requisite for OMTs, countries must have negotiated with the other euro area governments a European Stability Mechanism (ESM) programme with strict and effective conditionality. This ensures that governments continue to correct economic weaknesses while the ECB is active. The involvement of the IMF, with its unparalleled track record in monitoring adjustment programmes would be an additional safeguard.

The full statement has been uploaded to the ECB website.

Draghi also warned that deflation is a bigger risk than inflation today, which may not convince German lawmakers who fear a return to the 1920s.

Brussels- The EU agreement on banking union is "no triumph". The evidence sits hidden in plain sight in the difference between the summit text before and after yesterday's negotiations...

The summit deal on banking supervision was no triumph. It was another EU exercise in decision dodging and fudge as German procrastination won the day.

Angela Merkel wanted to postpone a new European Central Bank banking supervisor because that in turn delays decision on using the euro’s bail-out fund to recapitalise banks until after German elections.

To see the tricksy, evasive, responsibility-doging fudge – a tortuous linguistic exercise that went into the early hours of today – it is necessary to contrast before and after.

Here is the original draft that the leaders began discussing yesterday: “We need to move towards an integrated financial framework, open to the extent possible to all Member States wishing to participate. In this context, the European Council invites the legislators to proceed with work on the legislative proposals on the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) as a matter of priority, with the objective of completing it by the end of the year:”

Here is the agreed summit text: "We need to move towards an integrated financial framework… In this context, the European Council invites the legislators to proceed with work on the legislative proposals on the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) as a matter of priority, with the objective of agreeing on the legislative framework by 1 January 2013. Work on the operational implementation will take place in the course of 2013.”

This is no triumph. The EU has gone from a deadline to “complete” from one to “agree” with the schedule slipping from December 2012 to anytime next year. This will mean that Chancellor has deferred the issue of using the ESM to directly recapitalise banks until after elections in September 2013, significantly reversing a June summit decision.

The EU is dead in the water....

The EU is dead in the water already, the Euro and Eurozone even more so. Or perhaps you think the whole mad caboodle is a roaring success, and on an ever-upwards curve? Who cares when it finally unravels - it will, by its nature, never be a success in the future, because its structure and aims are stuck in the past in a fast-changing world. UKIP were top in the EU elections, and have gained significant success in the polls ever since the last General Election, so much so that they are challenging the Limp Dicks for third place. Most Conservatives agree privately with UKIP, and significant numbers have deserted to UKIP, so much so that the Conservatives cannot possibly win the next General Election without UKIP aid or without adopting UKIP policies in a significant fashion. There's a message for you there, chum. There is a great irony here that the steps taken in order to prevent a deflationary collapse could mean there is an even greater "danger" if we do start to recover. Put simply, the debt burden of the major economies are so large that they cannot afford to pay higher rates. The central banks, have massive rate risk through the bonds they are holding. What we are trying to do is create via financial alchemy a solution to the problem that the debtors cannot pay the creditors, but a restructuring is politically impossible as well as a mortal threat to undercapitalized banks. Therefore, we hope that we can somehow flood the world with liquidity, to inflate only specific assets (property, equities) but not others (food and energy). Because this is "unnatural" we see efforts made to manipulate markets (officially sanctioned fudges of housing data, outright equity market intervention, and rumors of oil releases) so the markets just get weirder every day. The question is, whether we are happy to live in a world of extreme central planning, which seems to benefit the ultra wealthy the most or would be prefer to stop the charade, allow the markets to clear, accept the reality that we are not as rich as we thought, but move on.

When will the Eurozone countries begin to face reality and dump their currency. Germany, won't keep picking up the bills while those with problems won't take the medicine needed to survive. Its far to much debt for the ECB to take, and something has to give. I just think it's time we cut loose from the mad house altogether.... Both the German and Greek developments are interesting, but I think that the real debate is going to be over how Draghi's "sterilization" is going to work. He is going to create unlimited amounts of new cash to buy peripheral Bonds and if all that cash gets into the economy, it could be inflationary, so the claim is that he is going to find ways to suck it back in. But that means the ECB selling assets, and there Draghi doesn't have any good choices. If he tried selling PIIGS Bonds that the ECB owns, it would just cancel out the effects of OMT. If he sells core country Bonds, he dilutes the quality of the ECB balance sheet even more, and he pushes the price of the core country Bonds down, and yields up, and so harms the core country taxpayers. The third way that has been proposed won't even work. That proposal was to persuade commercial Banks to convert their cash deposits at the ECB into one-week term deposits that technically aren't cash. But a one-week term deposit is similar enough to cash that Banks will behave as if it's cash. So at the end of the day the commercial Banks will get the new OMT cash and retain their existing cash as one-week deposits, which could lead to the Banks creating a credit bubble....Pro austerity or pro tax-and-spend? That is the question to which the electorate do not have a clue as to the answer. They are waiting for their political guides to provide it: on the left the Labour Party and the Trade Unions and on the right the Conservative led coalition and business; none of them capable of delivering - except by invective - the magic bullet to cure the problem. Instead the electorate are reduced to booing the Tory Ministers at the Games for attempting to solve the problem (the structural deficit) that they did not cause, and cheering the representative of the left who did. Politics is a deep and murky world,isn't it?

The "details" of a soap bubble ...

European Central Bank president Mario Draghi is expected to announce the details of a bond-buying programme to help keep down borrowing costs of crisis-hit countries later on Thursday. Leaks suggest it will involve unlimited purchases of government debt that will be "sterilised" to assuage concerns about printing money. The bond-buying scheme is rumoured to be called the "outright monetary transactions", with a shorthand title of OMT.

 

Maturity

The life of a bond, at the end of which it will be repaid in full. A bond's maturity can be as short as a year to as long as 100 years.

Seniority

This refers to how likely you are to be repaid if a bond issuer goes bankrupt. Bondholders with seniority over others will be paid back before other bondholders. There was some concern that the ECB would demand seniority over other bondholders when it undertook the bond-buying scheme, but leaks now suggest otherwise.

Unanimity

Was the ECB governing council united in backing Thursday's decision, or was there opposition? Bundesbank head Jens Weidmann has spoken out against a bond-buying programme before – is he now onside? Was the ECB split over interest rate levels, or were the decisions unanimous? Draghi's answer to these questions (which will surely come up) could be crucial.

Pari passu

A Latin phrase meaning "equal footing". In the bond markets, this means bondholders will be treated the same if a bond issuer goes bankrupt. Any purchases the ECB makes as part of its bond-buying programme are expected to be pari passu with other bondholders.

Collateral requirements

The ECB asks banks for collateral in return for taking out cheap loans. If they relax collateral requirements, they can accept a wider range of assets as collateral from banks. They have already relaxed these requirements, and can now accept everything from bundles of car loans to mortgage-backed securities.

Conditionality

This is the way the ECB would keep the Germans happy, by imposing conditions on receiving assistance from the ECB; so, if the ECB helps keep a country's borrowing costs low by buying up its bonds, that country may have to agree to some strict austerity. Without conditionality it would be easier for the ECB to unilaterally intervene.

Convertibility risk

This refers to the risk that you will buy bonds denominated in euros but could ultimately be paid back in lire or drachma (or deutschmarks) if the country taking out the debt leaves the eurozone before the end of the bond's life.

Unlimited intervention

Exactly what it says on the tin. Expectations are that the ECB will not put a limit on its bond buying. This is seen to be an improvement on the previous bond-buying programme, which was limited in size and therefore lacked credibility in the markets. If other traders do not believe the ECB has the firepower (or inclination) to buy enough bonds to bring down yields, they may continue to bet on them rising.

Sterilisation

This makes sure the money supply does not increase as a result of the bond-buying programme. When the ECB buys bonds, it is injecting liquidity into the financial system, effectively creating new money. To counteract that, the ECB has in the past followed bond purchases by subsequently draining an equal amount of liquidity from the system. It does this at the weekly deposit tender by increasing the rates it will pay commercial banks to deposit money with the ECB. The idea is that this will encourage banks to deposit more money with the ECB, thereby taking it out of the system.

Yield cap

Rumour had it that the ECB would set a yield cap on certain countries' government bonds. This would mean if the yield looked like it would break through that level, the ECB would start buying bonds to push prices higher and bring yields back down.

The Chineese?..Just wait till they ask for their money back...

This is what happens when there is structural imbalance for far too many economies. Unfortunately there are no good economists and consequently nobody knows how to get the world's economies back into equilibrium. One thing is for sure though, those with more than their fair share of manufacturing production and employment, like Germany and China, will need to come to terms with supporting the other economies. Only then will a softer landing be able to be negotiated for everyone.... "Unfortunately there are no good economists and consequently nobody knows how to get the world's economies back into equilibrium" But the West has gobbled all the Nobel Prizes in Economic year after year. They can land a hand, can't they? Btw, Paul Klugman is giving advice free on New York Times daily. Me as an 'economist' without proper training suggest to the westerners, to start, spending less and save more. The equilibrium will come, someday and somehow....Well...It would be interesting to see what the USA would do if the Chinese decided to buy massive amounts of Gold on comex options and decide they want physical delivery at the end of the contract period rather than the profit/loss in yet more dollars. The Fed would not be happy at all that the physical gold gets shipped off to China....They have in the past made it illegal to own physical gold. I say :...Well...China's growth bubble is slowing down very quickly.  They naturally want to protect their own industries and investments and are wary of risk now. They have bought over 2 trillion of European and US debt to prop up those economies and to encourage world trade supporting Chinese exports worldwide for years. Now the party may be over....or is it ???..Just wait till they ask for their money back...

"The Godmother"

A new book discribing Angela Merkel as a power-obsessed egomaniac whose authoritarian tactics threaten the foundations of democracy is creating a stir in Germany and focusing attention on opposition to the chancellor inside her party. "The Godmother" probably would have drawn little attention were the book's author, Gertrud Höhler, not an influential conservative voice in the chancellor's own Christian Democratic Union. Gertrud Höhler, presenting her new book Thursday, was a longtime adviser to Helmut Kohl and other conservatives in Ms. Merkel's party.A former adviser to Helmut Kohl and other senior German politicians and business leaders, Ms. Höhler is a frequent presence in the German media. She is a fixture of the old guard of Ms. Merkel's CDU.   In the book, which hit stores on Friday, the author assails Ms. Merkel's pragmatic governing style as a betrayal of core conservative values and accuses the chancellor of trying to consolidate her power by crushing internal opposition. In one passage, Ms. Höhler appears to draw a parallel between Ms. Merkel's solitary style of ruling and past authoritarian German rulers such as Hitler and Communist leader Erich Honecker. "System M," as Ms. Höhler describes the chancellor's governing style, "is establishing a quiet variation of authoritarian power." Ms. Höhler's extreme views of Ms. Merkel aren't shared by many conservatives. Yet she is not alone in accusing the chancellor of abandoning conservative ideals in the name of political expediency and for purging the party's senior ranks of anyone who could challenge her authority. While frustration with Ms. Merkel's governing style has been palpable for some time within her conservative base, the chancellor is more popular than ever with Germans overall. That broad popularity—Ms. Merkel enjoys the highest approval ratings of any elected German leader—has made it nearly impossible for her internal critics to gain traction....(source WSJ)

Greece slashes its debt burden and qualifies for fresh bailout money as part of the €130bn (£109bn) package from the IMF

Greece has won sufficient support from its private-sector creditors to clinch a new bailout package, as it announced on Friday morning that 85.8% of bondholders had agreed to take heavy losses on their investments....At the end of several months of wrangling with creditors, the government reassured markets that it saw take-up for its bond swap deal rising to more than 95% once special clauses were triggered to enforce the agreement. Market players are hopeful the move that will at least briefly quell fears that the Greek crisis will send more shockwaves across Europe and beyond and further harm the global economy....For the bondholders the deal means taking losses of as much as 74% on their holdings but European policymakers have insisted that is a relatively small price to pay for containing the eurozone sovereign debt crisis. Greece is now expected to enforce so-called "collective action clauses" on any holders who had not accepted the bond swap deal.....The deal will mean embattled Greece slashes its debt burden and qualifies for fresh bailout money as part of the €130bn (£109bn) package from the IMF, the E.U. and European Central Bank.....Greek finance minister Evangelos Venizelos thanked creditors for help returning "Greece to a path of sustainable growth".

OK still working this out this morning.... My thoughts, the Greek bond holders have agreed the haircut. But all bonds are insured by CDS----BUT its now up to the banks, the same ones who sold the CDS to decide if they will pay out the insurance? ... This debt swap and the recent flooding of EU banks with a trillion cheap euros seems to be a desperate face saving attempt by EU politicians to keep the increasingly Frankenstein like eurozone patient alive....wowwwww
Surly that can't be right ...!!!!

This crazy game has to come to an end and now.

Olli Rehn -- "the most incompetent of all" commissioners -- the European Union Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner, on Thursday praised the ECB's radical action to pump liquidity into the banking system through billions of euros cheap loans. "The risk of a credit crunch in the European economy has been prevented," he said. But with deposits at the ECB nearly three times the level reached when Lehman Brothers collapsed, the latest figures pointed to the spectre of a freeze that could be even worse than 2008. ...The eurozone's economy shrank 0.3pc in the last three months of 2011, according to the second reading by Eurostat. The Brussels agency said over the whole year, the combined GDP for all 17 members grew 1.4pc compared with 1.9pc in 2010. But the impact of the debt crisis was plain. For instance eurozone exports fell in the fourth quarter - for the first time in two and half years. The Stoxx Europe 600 index closed down 2.7pc on Thursday; France's CAC slumped 3.6pc; Germany's DAX, Spain's Ibex and Italy's FTSE MIB fell 3.4pc. In London the FTSE 100 shed 1.9pc. Gold was pushed up through $1,690 an ounce.

It really is time to call it quits! To continue to bail out banks that do not deserve bailing out with tax payers money is a huge misallocation of resources and an outright crime againsts the ordinary citizen. Bailing out coutries like Greece, is just taking the game to its extreme. --- This crazy game has to come to an end and now. The debts are quite simply going to have to be written off and the banks can fail. My commentary is this: SO WHAT? A legion of banks have failed in the past so why are they all too big to fail now? The bankers should not be allowed to loan money with the surety that they can gamble and never lose like weighted dice. --- Furthermore, this entire credit driven debt charade has to come to an end for the good of all the world's people. We cannot continue this mass transference of wealth from the poor to the super rich to create yet another group of financial Kings, Czars, Emperors and Pharoahs. Loading every human being to the hilt with debt is quite simply downright evil. "Lobster potting" people with mountainous debts from the age they turn into adults until, quite literally, you bury them is as morally decrepit as it is totally wrong. What kind of world do these greedy plutocrats want? Obviously, not one where they have any concience orconcerns over the less fortunate of the planet! --- Perhaps as a man or woman gets richer, wealth is not enough and then power drives them all crazy as they all vie to play with the planet. Well so far every despot and dictator has acheived little other than ruin and disaster for the human race. What we need is a dilution of power not further concentration as a one world Government and currency.

I don't...I wouldn't...I do...but...

I don't have a problem with the Greeks borrowing money at a rate and amount that two hundred years of their grandchildren would never be able to repay....I don't have a problem with the Greeks not collecting taxes to fund their nation. I wouldn't have a problem with the retirement age for Greeks being 24 years of age with a pension double the UK average wage (so long as it is Greece alone which is funding it). I don't have a problem with the EU for intentionally stripping each and every vestige of legitimate democracy from any nation idiotic enough to take its lies and deceit. I don't have a problem with the undeniable fact that the EU is - de facto - creating extremism across the continent by means of its own misplaced and malign grandiloquence. I don't have a problem with the possibility that those nations in such severe debt have recently been nations under dictatorship and military rule, and that such a status might once again shortly become incumbent within those borders. I do have a problem with the Government of my own nation being complicit in the practice, and that Government withholding any facet of input into the phenomenon from the electorate. I do have a problem with the Government of my own country pretending that everything is rosy in the garden, and that stripping just a wee bit more wealth from its electorate to throw into the bottomless Euro pit will improve its image among self-satisfied EU leaders at the next well-victualled continental jamboree. I do have a problem with the prostrate supplicants who worship at the altar of the EU, and the ignoramuses who justify the ambivalence of the UK political party tribes insulting those who rail against these practices as being racist xenophobes. I do have a problem in being compelled to fund, by compulsorily extracted taxation, the levers by which the entire disaster will be choreographed. I don't understand why the gutless drones who staff the major parties in Parliament have no problem dropping undefined future generations into limitless penury - at the whim of effete party leaders incapable of rational thought. Maybe in two hundred years time, someone might be able to piece it all together.....But it will be too bloody late then.

Germany runs riot in Europe, are the Greeks the new jew victims of the financial Holocaust ????

Evangelos Venizelos, the Greek finance minister and socialist leader, said the country had until Sunday to choose whether to swallow the eurozone medicine of more cuts – or default on its debt next month and be forced out of the euro. In an emotional speech he said: "The choice we face is one of sacrifice or even greater sacrifice – on a scale that cannot be compared. Our country, our homeland, our society has to think and make a definitive, strategic decision. If we see the salvation and future of the country in the euro area, in Europe, we have to do whatever we have to do to get the programme approved." Police ringed the Greek parliament building following the failure of eurozone finance ministers to approve the new bailout for Greece. Prime minister Lucas Papademos had offered new austerity measures worth €3.3bn to secure the euro lifeline, but he was told the cash would not be forthcoming until savings of an additional €325m were identified. He was told to get the €3.3bn programme endorsed and come up with a plan for the new cuts – to plug a gap in this year's budget – by Sunday. George Karatzaferis, a Greek coalition leader, spoke of national humiliation and said he would not accept the new cuts, adding that Greece was labouring "under the German boot". The eurozone's finance ministers are to meet again in Brussels on Wednesday to sign off on the bailout terms and the debt swap pact on condition that Athens has met the stringent conditions. I hope for the Greeks sake, they realize their PM, Papademos, is more interested in protecting the Banksters, than his own people.....Trying too scare the Greeks, it's the end of the world! No, a default is a tunnel with a light vs a deep dark hole of years, and years, and years of pain. ---- Bloomberg has seen an emailed transcript from tonight's Greek cabinet meeting, sent by Papademos's office -- The PM reportedly said: Some say default would be preferable. They are woefully mistaken. What is of the essence right now is to do whatever we can to approve the new plan and let the loan accord proceed. He added that a default would halt the payment of wages and pensions and shut down schools, hospitals and businesses. He spoke after five ministers resigned in two hours and protesters clashed with police in Athens...Well, Germany runs riot in Europe, are the Greeks the new jew victims of the financial Holocaust ????

What is the "true rule" of Vulture Funds in Greece ? Few people know what are Vulture Funds -- they buy bonds or debt of collapsed states for cheap and then legally, try to recover as much as possible or swap it with assets. My question is: what kind of role are these funds playing now? Why does the press not take them out of "grey areas", transparency is the first level of democracy isn't it! Do we kill Greece to satisfy Vulture Funds appetite for blood money ?

How very EU to blame everything on Greece. Remember it was the French who cheated to have Greece join the euro. France, with German co-operation decided to split up the plunder of the PIIGS. The EU Commission went along with the deal. Billions and billions were flooded into the PIIGS. In Greece, French banks led the rape of the Greek economy. The Port of Piraeus, the massive Inter Island Ferry Project, the super highways to all of Greece's borders. Billions which the EU and the Axis (France and Germany) knew could never be repaid. The safety net was the EU taxpayer – but the Axis got too greedy, the mega-loans got out of control. Come now Greece – to hell with them – default – enjoy it. Then Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Spain – unless of course the Axis powers get out first.

Romania - New Government ( made of very young inexperienced individuals)

Romania’s new Government, led by Mihai Razvan Ungureanu, received a confidence vote in Parliament Thursday, allowing it to continue reforms pledged by the previous government under a deal with the International Monetary Fund, EU and World Bank. Lawmakers voted 237 to two to instate the new Cabinet. The Cabinet required the confidence vote of at least 232 lawmakers. The opposition did not attend the vote. STRAGE as it may be, the new cabinet is very young, and made of the former communist sibilings...HAVING NO EXPERIENCE IN ADMINISTRATION, or background in runing anything !!!!

For Greece to accept the bail out terms is rather like a company calling in the receivers. But this is a country, an independent one at that, being asked to submit to foreign rule, and by the Germans, at that. Increasingly it is beginning to look as though the least cost option for Greece will be to leave the euro zone and default. The problem have been greatly exacerbated by the euro zone leaders dithering: how often have we heard of "only x days/weeks to save the euro. The mistake of eurozone leaders has been to play for time under the mistaken belief that they could put off the evil day and that things would get better. Of course, as everyone but they knew, matters would only get worse. Germany is simply taking preparations for the Götterdämmerung.We want them off our back-it is simple as that.Finland,the Netherlands,Austria & Co. are not going to pay a single penny anymore and Merkel knows this.France already lost its AAA after it poured 220 bill€ in the ClubMed for the last 2 years.Since this condition is unacceptable and I hope the Greeks don't accept it-they will have to leave the euro.As Roubini and the markets already show-Greece is out and Portugal probably as well. Italy and Spain are to big and the ECB will come in and will carpet-bomb the market if there is a run on Spain or Italy. Their yields came down as did the yields of Ireland. The ECB buys bonds of all 5 countries and the market shows that in the case of Greece and Portugal the euro is history as the Central bank intervention did not help at all. In Ireland,Spain and Italy the market points that they will stay in the euro and the ECB intervention in their bond prices was successful. All those calling for Greece to call the bluff of the Troika forget that the latter have already installed their placeman at the head of the Greek Government precisely in order to prevent such ungrateful and inconvenient behaviour. In an articulate interview this morning the Greek Minister of Culture declared tht he would sooner resign than see his country's budget dtermined by an outsider. For his government, he opined, this would be the 'thin red line', which could not be crossed. He is right, and every member of the European Community should applaud him.

Unconditional "love' ....

Spiegel - Sarkozy's solo suggests that they're going to agree to disagree on the Transaction Tax. The german line remains that it should be introduced EU-wide - requiring UK agreement (which will presumably never happen). Other areas of disagreement. Both france and italy want more emphasis on growth. "The first meeting of the year between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The pair held talks in Berlin at which they discussed the new 'fiscal compact' that they hope will hold the eurozone together." We could be forgiven for thinking that yet again this is completely the wrong agenda. The predictions have come true, the economic disaster foretold is upon us. Spanish near 25% unemployment levels are at those of the 1930s, so there is little to lose and everything to gain from drastic measures such as e.g.Spain leaving the euro unilaterally. It beggars belief that Spain, Italy etc are not actively and publicly discussing this. Where is the risk, what is the downside, mass unemployment? It has already arrived. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been busy today. After an earlier jaw-jaw in Berlin with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and a speech in Cologne at the annual meeting of the German civil service federation, 380 miles worth of journeys later, Merkel has been speaking in Düsseldorf on stimulus and economic growth, saying that government stimulus cannot be relied upon as the sole means of boosting growth: We cannot always create growth with economic stimulus packages [...] We also need structural reforms. Merkel said in a speech to the German chamber of commerce and industry.

OVER THE WATERWAYS - Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart has been speaking on the US economy and eurozone crisis. The Atlanta Fed’s outlook anticipates a moderate pace of improvement but real progress on most fronts [...] At the same time, I think slow progress toward full employment justifies continuing consideration of whether more can and should be done. So for me as a policy maker, now is not a time to lock into a rigid position. Mr Lockhart said, adding that he expects “modest” GDP growth of between 2.5pc and 3pc “if there are no surprises from Europe or elsewhere.” Mr Lockhart added that the Fed would not rule out more money printing even if steady growth and "acceptable" inflation made it harder to justify: Steady even if unspectacular growth accompanied by inflation in the neighborhood of 2% justifies some reluctance to change, in either direction, the (central bank's) accommodative policy [...] At the same time, I think slow progress toward full employment justifies continuing consideration of whether more can and should be done. On European sovereign debt exposure, he said: American financial institutions have reduced their exposures fairly substantially, particularly to peripheral countries. Mr Lockhart becomes a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) which decides on US interest rates and monetary policy this year.

UniCredit shares fell nearly 15% today on the size of the larger-than-expected discount, which is designed to help the bank meet a new minimum core capital requirement imposed by the European Banking Authority. UniCredit shares tumbled 14.5pc to €5.42 as investors digested the surprise 43pc discount at which the new shares are being offered as part of a capital-raising programme. However, analysts said that the perceived weakness of eurozone banks could prove a major hindrance on any plans to raise more money from shareholders. Analysts at UBS warned that shareholders were "fundamentally unsure of their position", saying that increased dependence of many Continental European banks on taxpayer funding had "historically proven disastrous for equity investors". "Banks may be allowed to trade through the (extended) period without diluting equity holders, but the logic of the situation leaves taxpayers shouldering the costs," said UBS.

Eurozone gets closer to break-up, warns Standard Chartered

"German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she expects turbulence in 2012 as she does "everything" to save the euro and end Europe´s sovereign debt crisis". "The path to overcoming this won´t be without setbacks but at the end of this path Europe will emerge stronger from the crisis than before," Merkel said in a New Year´s television speech yesterday. She also said 2012 "will no doubt be more difficult than 2011".German leaders will be working relentlessly to bring all of the EU more tightly together into one state under their iron and self-serving fist. No price that is required of other stuggling countries - whethere economically or in terms of their national self-respect - will be considered by her to be too high for them to pay towards this end....German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she expects turbulence in 2012 as she does "everything" to save the euro and end Europe´s sovereign debt crisis." ... The problem is she and har your colleagues' reprehensible inactivity in the face of this crisis that is causing the very turbulence of which she complains. However, a weak Euro against the US Dollar is doing wonders for the German export industry, so she's more than happy, whithout saying it !
The reality is : Only with the backdrop of the "crisis" can governments continue to get the people to swollow the necessary pills to cure the ills (caused by the governments). Without the pain they will spit it out. Thus, the crisis is a necessary tool to realign the reality of their budgets and get all in lock-step.

The Times :"Britain looks likely to be joined by Sweden outside the new bloc, doubling the strength of the outer core against an inner 25".

Political and legal challenges mounted against the much-trumpeted deal struck in Brussels to save the euro, especially from Europe's center-left. François Hollande, the Socialist Party candidate who is currently the clear leader in opinion polls for the French presidential elections next year, on Monday said that he would seek to renegotiate the deal, which euro-zone leaders announced Friday morning after an all-night negotiating session.The euro-zone leaders agreed Friday to advance €200 billion ($268 billion) to the International Monetary Fund to help fund its backstop mechanisms, but put off until March a decision on raising the €500 billion cap on the resources of the European Stability Mechanism. In a note on Monday, analysts from Royal Bank of Scotland said that even in the best-case scenario, the €700 billion in combined funds that were agreed to last year would be able to fund Italian borrowing requirements for only two years, if it lost access to the bond markets the way Greece, Ireland and Portugal have. In Germany, both parliamentarians and the independently minded Bundesbank grumbled, but issued no explicit threats to bring the deal down. Bundesbank board member Andreas Dombret did, however, say the German parliament should have the right to approve or reject Germany's share of the IMF loan, which he put at around €45 billion. Traditionally, the Bundesbank has been uneasy about giving the parliament any more influence over its actions than the German constitution allows. However, Mr. Dombret expressed concern that the transfer could conflict with previous government pledges to the Bundestag that Germany's financial risk from the bailout programs would be limited. The lower house of parliament, or Bundestag, will have to deal with the decision to provide more funds to the IMF, a spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. He didn't specify whether the Bundestag will only be informed of the measure, or will have to vote on it. Germany's eastern neighbors, Poland and the Czech Republic, also fretted on Monday that the latest deal could get very expensive for them.