Libor rate-setting is “no longer viable”.

Martin Wheatley, the incoming head of Britain's new market regulator, is expected to recommend this week that the lobby body lose its supervisory role in the setting of the rate. "If Mr Wheatley's recommendations include a change of responsibility for Libor, the BBA will support that," the BBA said on Tuesday: The review was announced following revelations three months ago that big banks were had been attempting to rig Libor for years. The scandal led to a £290m fine for Barclays, ongoing investigations into manipulation at other banks, criticism of the rate and calls for a new benchmark that is more transparent and relevant to the credit worthiness of banks. Sir Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, believes Libor has stopped working and should be replaced, while Mr Wheatley, who is the chief executive-designate of the Financial Conduct Authority, has said Libor rate-setting is “no longer viable”.

The BBA, a lobby group for banks, has been heavily criticised for its oversight of Libor, which is used to price loans and transaction for businesses and individuals worth more than $350 trillion globally. Libor is based on what a panel of banks expect to be charged rather than measuring actual lending rates. It is not directly supervised by regulators in Britain but has been overseen by the BBA since 1986. The Wheatley's review, due out on Friday, is expected to propose anchoring Libor interest rates to real transactions, rather than rates which panel banks believe they could borrow from their peers. (source telegraph.uk)

Difficulties in the markets for Spain, a slippery slope towards a bailout, austerity, protests and social unrest, we have seen this movie before. Here is my a guide for how to deal with the situation.

An ancient Greek guide for Spanish and other PIIGS who wish to deal effectively with the crisis

1. Dealing in private with the pain and anxiety caused by the market turmoil and/or frequent visits of the Troika and their impossible demands (for how to deal in public see other points below): Draw from Stoicism. Stoics strived to be free of suffering and through exercise of reason achieve peace of mind - meant in the ancient sense of having "clear judgment" – as well as maintain equanimity in the face of life's highs and lows.

2. Dealing with “nice” comments about your morality: Use Aristotelian or Chryssipian logic. Convince yourself with sound deductive syllogisms that the rubbish posted around the world about your country & culture is the result of incorrect induction and reckless stereotyping (one pig does this, two pigs do this, therefore all pigs do this).

3. Dealing with the unethical behaviour of political and economic elites in your country and the abroad: Adopt Socratic dialectic and ethics in public life. Socrates was renowned for his relentless questioning of authorities and public figures, which was aimed not to humiliate individuals (yeah sure – never swallowed this at school) but to discover truth with a view to achieving the “good life” for everyone.

4. Dealing with seemingly endless half-baked attempts to re-establish financial stability: Recall Zenon’s paradoxes especially the one of Achilles and the Tortoise. If the Tortoise is given advantage in the race, Achilles will never reach her because by the time he has reached the last position, the Tortoise will always have moved a bit further.

5. Dealing with debt slavery: Recall σεισάχθεια (seisachtheia), Prior to Solon (5th cent BC) Athenians practiced debt enslavement: a citizen incapable of paying his debts became "enslaved" to the creditor. This issue primarily concerned peasants working leased land belonging to rich landowners and unable to pay their rents. In theory, those enslaved would be liberated when their original debts were repaid. Solon put an end to it with the σεισάχθεια / seisachtheia, liberation of debts, which prevented all claim to the person by the debtor.

6. Finally, if you fail to bring about the much desired relief or political change with the above measures why not go for a Roman style “Spartacus slave revolt” and then establish “Epicurean philosophical communes” all over the Med. They survived for hundreds of years in antiquity and provided peace and happiness to millions.

"EU assembly" ( in fact a bunch of retards )

Members of the "EU assembly" ( in fact a bunch of retards ) have been chastised for revealing details of a confidential briefing with ECB president, Mario Draghi. Mr Draghi was taking part in a hearing organised by the EU assembly's economic and monetary affairs committee on the future of the euro and plans to build a so-called banking union. Jean-Paul Gauzes, a French member of the panel, commented that Mr Draghi had told the committee that he was comfortable with the central bank buying bonds with maturities up to about three years. Members had their knuckles rapped over leaking their briefing, with the committee chairman Sharon Bowles saying the leaks were “a complete breach of confidence". "I think it has brought this house into disrepute,” she added.

Bloomberg reported: While it had originally been intended that Draghi’s hearing with lawmakers would be public, that plan was changed because of the convention that senior ECB officials don't comment publicly on policy in the week before an ECB Governing Council meeting, according to a parliament spokesman.

Moodys have downgraded 28 Spanish banks recently to just above junk status, also downgrading several Italian banks because of the contagion effect.The whole of Europe is utterly screwed by a debt mountain that cant ever possibly be paid off....Unless the ECB can magic up another 500 billion in a vain attempt to stop Spain and Italy going down the tube. ... We have politicians across the EU without a backbone between them, clenching their buttocks as hard as possible to not be the first to publicly shit themselves in panic. Yet the EU keeps a triple A credit rating. That sounds like a ponzi scheme to me...

QUATRO REICH = THE EUROPEAN UNION

EUROPEAN UNION —The European Central Bank should police the more than 6,000 banks in the euro zone, the European Union's executive said Friday, setting itself up for a clash with Germany, which wants to retain oversight over smaller lenders.  A proposal from the European Commission, to be finalized in coming days, will call for the central bank to set up an agency to take responsibility for supervision of all banks in the 17-nation currency area. The proposal follows a June decision from euro-zone leaders who wanted the supervisor created as a step to break the "vicious circle" between weak banks and governments with strained finances that have eroded confidence in the euro zone. The proposal, however, falls far short of creating the true "banking union" that the ECB and the commission have called for. It doesn't set up a regional fund for guaranteeing bank deposits or give powers to euro-zone agencies to wind down or restructure shaky banks and distribute losses among investors. The ECB would, however, be able to take operating licenses away from unstable lenders. The supervisory agency would be run by a separate decision-making panel at arm's length from the ECB, in an effort to prevent conflicts of interests with the central bank's main role of fighting inflation and to allow EU states that don't use the euro to join.   As the supervisor, the ECB would have to make sure banks build up sufficient capital levels to absorb economic and financial shocks—such as the real-estate crashes that triggered the Irish and Spanish problems or over-investments in shoddy products like the U.S. subprime mortgages that sank banks across Europe in 2008.The threat to withdraw a license would be the ECB's most potent enforcement tool. "That's the first crucial element: to empower the European supervisor with the right to withdraw the license," said Guntram Wolff, deputy director of Brussels-based think tank Bruegel. But other powers and responsibilities that are central to creating a unified banking framework for the euro zone would remain in national hands. Proposals that would force private investors to share the burden—for instance by converting debt into equity once a bank's capital falls below are certain level—aren't set to come into force until 2018. In a sign of possible movement, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, in an opinion piece in the Financial Times Friday, said the so-called bail-in mechanism should already come into force in 2015. (WSJ)

What the incompetent idiot stated :Rehn added that the euro was "irreversible"....hahaha!

Spanish banks borrowed a record €402bn (£316bn) from the European Central Bank in July, leaving them as far as ever from returning to capital markets, and heaping further pressure on Madrid as it tries to avert a full sovereign bailout. The banks borrowed 10% more than the €365bn they tapped in June, Tuesday's data from the Bank of Spain showed. Spiralling debt costs and balance sheets ravaged by a domestic property bubble that collapsed in 2008 have shut most domestic banks out of the bond markets. The banks' use of the ECB facility has increased sharply this year, rising from €161bn in January, and the sector was propped up in July with the promise of a European rescue package – which it has yet to tap – worth up to €100bn. The pattern is similar if less acute in Italy – like Spain at the sharp end of the eurozone debt crisis – where banks held €283bn in ECB funds in July compared with €281bn in June, Bank of Italy data showed last week. In Spain, only heavyweights with big operations abroad such as Santander and BBVA continue to have few problems raising funding from the market. One likely factor in the July increase was the higher charges that some clearing houses were levying on the use of Spanish bonds – which many domestic banks have invested heavily in – as collateral for raising funds, one analyst said. The eurozone has avoided entering a technical recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth, because growth was flat over the first three months of 2012. Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight predicted that GDP will fall again during the current quarter. Archer said the eurozone was "struggling against tight fiscal policy in many countries, high and rising unemployment, muted global economic activity and ongoing serious sovereign debt tensions that weigh down on confidence and limit investment. Stock markets, however, were cheered by the news as the contraction was smaller than expected and share prices rose across Europe. The FTSE 100 finished 32 points higher at 5864, while the DAX closed 0.8% higher. The European commission vice-president, Olli Rehn, told CNBC that the EU and the European Central Bank would take action "once certain conditions are met". Rehn added that the euro was "irreversible".

Debt crisis...

Debt crisis: Germany caves in over bond buying, bank aid after Italy and Spain threaten to block 'everything'. The agreements at a European Union summit in Brussels suggested Germany had yielded on its insistence on forcing tough reforms in exchange for rescue money. That was a victory for Italy and Spain, who have argued they have done a lot to clean up their economies yet are facing rising borrowing costs. European Council chairman Herman Van Rompuy said the aim was to create a supervisory mechanism involving the European Central Bank by the end of this year, and to break the "vicious circle" between banks and sovereign governments. Jose Manuel Barrose, the European Commission president, said the deal was "ambitious".My excuses but I forgot to take my 'suspension of disbelief' pill this morning. So this 'deal' comes into effect at the end of the year and after the Bundestag presumably vetoes Germany allowing any more money? And because the money is not available from a non-existent-fund that hasn't been set up yet and won't happen anyway the markets have reacted favorably? Until when will this non-solution solve the problem of Spanish and Italian debt yields, to say nothng of Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Cyprus and possibly France? I shall go and celebrate immediately !!!

It could be worse than we can imagine. So there's no room for complacency.

Europe's hopes of "ring fencing" the embattled single currency through a €1 trillion-plus leveraged bailout fund are sinking due to spiraling bond yields, investor flight from euro zone debt, and failure to entice cash-rich governments in the far east to commit to the plan. Klaus Regling, the head of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), is expected to tell euro zone finance ministers meeting in Brussels on Tuesday evening that the scheme to quintuple the firepower of the fund by underwriting initial losses on euro zone bond-buying by China and sovereign wealth funds in the far and Middle East has failed to attract enough interest. The blow to euro zone efforts to save the currency came amid increasingly apocalyptic predictions of a euro collapse........ The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris forecast a "deep depression" across Europe and a tidal wave of bankruptcies if any of the 17 countries was forced to quit the euro. The Polish foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, urged Germany to save the EU from "a crisis of apocalyptic proportions". Stock markets rebound sharply after days of heavy losses as investors ignore IMF denial of aid for Italy and an OECD warning of euro zone recession and risk that US could follow suit...for investors read central banks....The stock market is rigged. Same with the bonds, it is only a matter of time when we get a eurobond. Currencies are rigged by the G 20 who are running an un-official world exchange rate mechanism. Why do journalists keep talking as though there is a free market ?... We will see the FTSE now heading for 6500 and the Dow to 12500, then we will head down back to 5000 and 11000. The dealers in the stock market and bond market brokers are making an absolute fortune, you can read the central banks like an open book.....Meanwhile - Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, throws her weight behind the unnamed denials - she says neither Italy nor Spain has made a funding request to the IMF. She was speaking from Lima, Peru today as part of a tour of South America. The story that the IMF was drawing up a £517m rescue package for Italy and Spain, sparked by Italian newspaper reports over the weekend, was denied by an unnamed IMF spokesman earlier today. However Ms Lagarde's denial that there has been a request for funding still leaves open the possibility that the fund is thrashing out possible ways to help the eurozone without waiting to be asked... Sir Mervyn King - he's been asked again to defend the rate of inflation being so far above the bank's target of 2 %. The overshoot in inflation is not because we've had a very buoyant economy growing fast - it's not that we overestimated the amount of capacity around. It's not domestically generated inlfation, it's caused by external factors. The nature of the crisis, changes to the banking system - this has made life extremely hard. What we failed to understand was how long it would take for conditions in the banking markets to get back to normal. We thought that by now funding conditions would be better but in fact they are worse. That's one of the things that has made assessing the economy very difficult. Sir Mervyn King has been speaking to the Treasury Select Committee about the latest Inflation Report. He warned the dangers from Europe are so unpredictable that no accurate predictions can really be made.

Analysts at Credit Suisse expect Goldman to have lost $392m in the three months to the end of September, while analysts at Barclays predict losses in the region of $180m. The trading revenues at Wall Street banks have been damaged over the summer by the sharp decline in global stock markets, the volatility across many asset classes and shaken confidence among chief executives to do deals.‬ The third quarter saw the FTSE 100 drop 13.7pc, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fall 12.1pc and the S&P 500 sink 14.3pc. Analysts at Credit Suisse expect that to have reduced revenues at Goldman's Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities division – a key driver of profits for the bank over the last decade. Revenues are expected to drop to $1.8bn, a 37pc fall on last year. "We expect overall fixed-income sales and trading activity to be very weak during the quarter," said Howard Chen, an analyst at Credit Suisse.‬ Goldman's investment banking division, which has been hit by macro-fears about the European debt crisis and an economic slowdown in the United States, will see revenues nose-dive 29pc to $825m, compared with the same quarter last year, according to Credit Suisse. The prospect of Goldman's first loss since 2008 underlines the pressure facing what is historically one of the industry's top performers. The bank has already announced a $1.2bn cost-cutting programme to be cut from its operations by mid-2012. But the new plan will increase cuts by as much as $250m. This could equal up to 5pc of the firm's expenses based on its 2010 spending. Wall Street recruiters say that Goldman, alongside other banks, may choose to make deeper cuts to jobs to be able to pay its best staff bigger bonuses.‬ When finance ministers from the G20 major economies meet next weekend, they could be excused for having a sickening feeling of deja vu. This time it's Paris, not London, but, just as in May 2009 when Gordon Brown brought the power-brokers of the world economy together in Docklands, they are trying to prevent a financial crisis spiralling out of control and dragging the global economy into recession. This time, though, there is far less political agreement or goodwill. Instead of the US, where the collapse of Lehman Brothers sent consumers and investors into panic mode, this time the focus is firmly on the eurozone, and time is running out. Greece is on the brink of going bust if it doesn't receive a fresh injection of cash, and bond vigilantes are focusing their fire on the much bigger Italian and Spanish economies, which had their debt downgraded by Moody's on Friday. Meanwhile, many economists think the eurozone as a whole may already have sunk into recession.

"The sovereignty of the German state is inviolate and anchored in perpetuity by basic law.

Andreas Vosskuhle, head of the constitutional court, said politicians do not have the legal authority to sign away the birthright of the German people without their explicit consent. "The sovereignty of the German state is inviolate and anchored in perpetuity by basic law. It may not be abandoned by the legislature (even with its powers to amend the constitution)," he said. "There is little leeway left for giving up core powers to the EU. If one wants to go beyond this limit – which might be politically legitimate and desirable – then Germany must give itself a new constitution. A referendum would be necessary. This cannot be done without the people," he told newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine. The extraordinary interview comes just days before the Bundestag votes on a bill to revamp the EU's €440bn bail-out fund (EFSF), enabling it to purchase EMU bonds pre-emptively and recapitalise banks. Tensions are running high after it emerged over the weekend that officials are working on plans sketched by the US Treasury and the European Commission to "leverage" the firepower of the EFSF to €2 trillion, in conjunction with lending from the European Central Bank. Carsten Schneider, finance spokesman for the Social Democrats, demanded that Chancellor Angela Merkel and finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble clarify their "true intentions " before the vote on Thursday. "A new multi-trillion programme is being cooked up in Washington and Brussels, while the wool is being pulled over the eyes of Bundestag and German public. This is unacceptable," he said. Prince Hermann Otto zu Solms-Hohensolms-Lich, the Bundestag's deputy president and finance chief for the Free Democrats (FDP) in the ruling coalition, expressed outrage over the secret plans. "Unless the German finance minister can give an immediate assurance that there will be no leveraged formula, I will not vote for this law. We might as well dispense with months of negotiations if all this means is that the Bundestag will be circumvented and served cold left-overs," he said. The accusation that German leaders are conspiring with EU officials to emasculate the Bundestag is highly sensitive, going to the core of the raging debate in recent months over EU encroachments on German democracy.

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services today lowered its unsolicited long- and short-term sovereign credit ratings on the Republic of Italy to "A/A-1" from "A+/A-1+". The outlook is negative. The transfer and convertibility assessment remains "AAA", as it does for all members of the eurozone. The downgrade reflects our view of Italy's weakening economic growth prospects and our view that Italy's fragile governing coalition and policy differences within parliament will likely continue to limit the government's ability to respond decisively to the challenging domestic and external macroeconomic environment Under our recently updated sovereign ratings criteria, the "political" and "debt" scores were the primary contributors to the downgrade. The scores relating to the other elements of our methodology - economic structure, external, and monetary - did not contribute to the downgrade. More subdued external demand, government austerity measures, and upward pressure on funding costs in both the public and private sectors will, in our opinion, likely result in weaker growth for the Italian economy compared with our May 2011 base-case expectations, when we revised the outlook to negative. We believe the reduced pace of Italy's economic activity to date will make the government's revised fiscal targets difficult to achieve. Furthermore, what we view as the Italian government's tentative policy response to recent market pressures suggests continuing future political uncertainty about the means of addressing Italy's economic challenges. In my opinion, the measures included in and the implementation timeline of Italy's National Reform Plan will likely do little to boost Italy's economic performance, particularly against the backdrop of tightening financial conditions and the government's fiscal austerity program.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has held his teleconference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. We weren't expecting anything particularly dramatic, but what has emerged is going to be small consolation for investors. France and Germany came out and said that Greece's future lies in the eurozone. Greece, in turn, promised to stick to its budget program in an attempt to stop its debt crisis worsening. Aside from that, no concrete reassurances emerged. At a teleconference Greek prime minister George Papandreou told Merkel and Sarkozy his country was determined to meet all obligations agreed with international lenders in exchange for an EU/IMF bailout. Officials from the European Commission, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund returned to Athens to try to get the Greek rescue package back on track. All three leaders have a vested interest in playing for time over Greece despite the sense that time is running out.

Please stop pretending, Greece in insolvent, it is bankrupt, see the parrot sketch from Monty Python for what the Greek economy is really like. Just to make sure that it is dead, an ex-economy then pushing it even further down with draconian austerity should do the trick.
If I don't believe it then you can be damn sure that the markets don't believe it, and all this sticking plaster means that the problem will be here tomorrow, and the day after that....just kicking the can down the road. All this "bail out" is just free money for them and yet another loss for the taxpayers, who are throwing good money after bad.

Italy is auctioning as much as 7 billion euros ($10 billion) of bonds Tuesday, one day after borrowing costs surged at a bill auction, as Greece’s slide toward default roils global markets. The treasury is selling 4 billion euros of a new benchmark five-year bond, after 10-year yields climbed to a five- week high of 5.571 percent. Investors charged Italy 4.153 percent Monday in a one-year bill offering, up from 2.959 percent a month ago. “It’s rather unfortunate that the Italian auction is taking place when the market is in a panic mode,” said Fabrizio Fiorini, the head of fixed income at Aletti Gestielle SGR SpA in Milan. “Borrowing costs are likely to remain at elevated levels. The rise in Italian yields is manifestation of a lack of market confidence in European leaders’ ability to tackle the problem.” A debt of 1.9 trillion euros -- more than Spain, Greece, Ireland and Portugal combined -- leaves Italy vulnerable to any advance in borrowing costs as it refinances maturing debt. The sales, which also include as much as 3 billion euros of bonds due in 2018 and 2020, will help fund 14.5 billion euros of debt scheduled for repayment on Sept. 15.

Bank of France Governor Christian Noyer said French lenders are capable of facing any Greek response to sovereign-debt difficulties and have no liquidity or solvency problems. “Whatever the Greek scenario, and whatever provisions have to be made, French banks have the means to face it,” Noyer said in an e-mailed statement today. “French banks have neither liquidity nor solvency problems.” BNP Paribas SA, Societe Generale SA and Credit Agricole SA plunged today in Paris on a possible ratings cut by Moody’s Investors Service, extending their more than 40 percent slide in the last three months. Noyer also said 5 trillion euros ($6.8 trillion) of collateral is available in the euro system and the European Central Bank is providing 500 billion euros of refinancing. French banks have added 50 billion euros to their capital in two years, he said.

The FTSE 100 closed down 2.35pc, the Dax in Frankfurt fell 4.04pc, and the CAC in Paris was down 3.6pc following the news that Mr Stark, the top German official at the ECB, was leaving due to "personal reasons". Sources said his departure reflected a deep rift at the heart of the ECB, with Mr Stark opposed to the bank's policy of buying eurozone bonds to support highly indebted countries like Italy and Spain. Mr Stark was considered to be a hawk at the bank, favoring looser monetary policy including higher interest rates. The news came amid clear divisions in the G7 ahead of the two-day meeting, which began on Friday. Before arriving in Marseilles, Chancellor George Osborne was adamant that he would not waver from his austerity plan. "Britain will stick to the deficit plan we've set out," he said. However, Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, said that policymakers in advanced economies should use all available tools to boost growth as the world economy entered a "dangerous new phase". Speaking alongside the Chancellor at Chatham House, she said that while Britain's £110bn deficit reduction plan was "appropriate", policymakers should be "nimble." An EU official in Marseilles admitted that Mr Stark's resignation was unhelpful: "People weren't expecting this and the timing is bad," he said. Joshua Raymond, chief market strategist at City Index, took a similar line: "[Stark's departure] escalates investor fears that Europe's leaders and central bankers are far from united in ideology at a time when the markets need to see credible and definitive action to prevent the sovereign debt crisis from sending European economies back into recession." Just hours after his resignation, Mr Stark called for drastic reforms to strengthen economic governance of the euro zone. He said that a "quantum leap" is necessary "at the European level" to reinforce its institutions. He added that "a large reform of decision-making mechanisms and sanctions" is necessary in order to secure in the future effective coordination of economic and fiscal policies of the euro zone countries. "We find ourselves in a situation where risks to public budgets undermine financial stability," wrote Stark.

Otmar Issing, the European Central Bank's former chief economist, told German TV a move to eurobonds would impoverish Germany and subvert the Bundestag. "That would be catastrophic. I cannot understand how any German politician agree to this," he said. Germany's constitutional court has yet to rule on the legality of EMU's bail-out machinery and is likely to pay close attention to his warnings that the drift of EU policy is to concentrate budgetary powers in the hands of EU officials outside democratic control. Professor Wilhelm Hankel from Frankfurt University said a eurobond is camouflage for fiscal union. "That is forbidden under EU law and the German constitution. Everybody in parliament realises we are very near to the Rubicon and that if they say yes to eurobonds they cannot stop the march to a transfer union." Mrs Merkel's spokesman played down hopes of a breakthrough at Tuesday's meeting, denying reports that eurobonds are on the agenda. The meeting will focus on tougher rules for delinquents. Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany's finance minister, is sticking to the script that the EU's accord in July provides all the tools needed to tackle the crisis. "I'm ruling out eurobonds for as long as member states pursue their own financial policies and we need differing interest rates as a way to provide incentives and sanctions, in order to enforce fiscal solidity. Without this solidity, the foundations for a common currency don't exist," he told Der Spiegel. However, events are moving at lightning speed and markets fear the €440bn bail-out fund (EFSF) is too small to cope with dual strains in Italy and Spain. The crisis has now escalated to a new and dangerous level as concerns over a global double-dip recession put the spotlight on the debt dynamics of France. The French economy stood still in the second quarter and EFSF costs may see the country to lose its AAA rating. The simmering revolt in the Bundestag makes it almost impossible for Mrs Merkel to offer real concessions at Tuesday's emergency summit with French president Nicolas Sarkozy. "We are categorical that the FDP-group will not vote for eurobonds. Everybody must understand that there is no working majority for this," said Frank Schäffler, the finance spokesman for the Free Democrats (FDP).

The ECB's U-turn on buying Spanish and Italian bonds may suggest that the eurozone's financial establishment is edging towards fiscal union. But don't confuse a shuffle, performed over a weekend in the midst of a crisis, with the real thing. German public opinion will continue to dictate chancellor Angela Merkel's freedom to act. Will the ECB “sterilize” its purchases?... So far, the ECB has said it isn’t printing euros to run its secondary-market bond buying program (which has been going for more than a year for Greece, Ireland and Portugal). That’s because for every euro it spends on government bonds, it vacuums up a euro–thus there’s no net increase in liquidity. Up to now, the ECB has done this every week by taking in deposits; the volume is now at €74 billion. Can the ECB continue to do this if the volume is several times bigger? We are somewhere in Act IV or V of the euro-zone debt drama, but, lo!, the European Central Bank has descended, deus ex machine, to buy Italian and Spanish bonds. This is a major, major development. Here are three things to consider. How long will it last?.... The ECB very much did not want this role of crisis-fighter of last resort. For months, it had agitated for euro-zone governments to seize the mantle. The governments’ attempt, at the July 21 summit, was judged too little by markets, and the rout of Italy commenced. The governments then made clear they weren’t interrupting their August holidays to do anything else before the fall, and so the crisis was left to the folks in Frankfurt. Look for them to try hard come September to hand it off to Paris, Berlin and Brussels. This is the crux of the euro-zone tug-of-war: Do the governments of the strong countries tax their citizens to pay for the rescue? Or does the ECB create euros to pay for it?

Europe's leaders, have been warned to adopt a more "cautious" approach when discussing multiculturalism. The Norwegian chairman of the Nobel peace prize committee has told them they risk inflaming far-right and anti-Muslim sentiment. Thorbjørn Jagland, a former prime minister of his country, said leaders such as the British premier would be "playing with fire" if they continued to use rhetoric that could be exploited by extremists. Four months ago in Munich, Cameron declared that state multiculturalism had failed in Britain, a view immediately praised by Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, as "a further huge leap for our ideas into the political mainstream". Marine Le Pen, vice-president of the far-right National Front party in France, also endorsed Cameron's view of multiculturalism, claiming that it corroborated her own party's line. Jagland's comments come in the wake of the Oslo bomb and the massacre on Utøya Island that left 77 people dead. The killer, Anders Behring Breivik, said he was inspired by the right-wing English Defence League. Breivik sent his manifesto, published online hours before the attacks, to about 250 British members of the BNP, the EDL and the Stop Islamisation of Europe group. Jagland, who is also secretary general of the Council of Europe, told the Observer: "We have to be very careful how we are discussing these issues, what words are used. "Political leaders have got to defend the fact that society has become more diverse. We have to defend the reality, otherwise we are going to get into a mess. I think political leaders have to send a clear message to embrace it and benefit from it.

In an embarrassing development for John Boehner, the Republican Congress speaker, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) ruled on Tuesday night that his bill would have only cut spending by $850bn (£517bn)over the next decade, not the $1.2tn he had aimed for. Republicans are now racing to rewrite the legislation, and have pushed back a congressional vote on the plan from Wednesday to Thursday at the earliest. Although Boehner was already struggling to find support for his package, the delay increases the risk that Washington will fail to agree a deal to raise the debt ceiling before 2 August, when the federal government is expected to run out of money. The dollar dropped against other currencies on Wednesday morning as investors faced the possibility that America could default. Several economists believe the country will lose its AAA credit rating within months, which would push up its borrowing costs, even if the $14.3tn debt ceiling is increased in time. The White House said on Tuesday it was working with Congress to devise a "Plan B" that might attract enough support. The two sides have been deeply divided for weeks, with Republicans demanding deep spending cuts and Democrats anxious to include tax rises as a major part of the deal.

The yield on 10-year Spanish bonds popped back above 6% yesterday and Italian 10-year yields stand at 5.66%. Such rates, if sustained for long periods, are simply unaffordable. Unsurprisingly, bank shares across Europe were also whacked yesterday. The problem is twofold. First, the politicians didn't get to grips with the size of Greece's debt problems. After a round of modest haircuts for private-sector creditors and a reduction in the rate on the interest rate charged on the bail-out loans, the country's debt-to-GDP ratio should no longer hit 170% soon. But the revised figure – maybe 130% – still looks too high to allow Greece to recover. Its economy is still too uncompetitive and you have to be an extreme optimist to believe tax receipts will arrive when they are due. So a third Greek bailout looks like only a matter of time. Get ready for more bitter rows over how the pain should be distributed between holders of Greek bonds and the taxpayers of other eurozone countries. That is no way to encourage companies to invest or consumers to spend – but it is the way to try the patience of German taxpayers. The second problem is the design of the European Financial Stability Facility – the rescue fund that is to be the first line of defence against speculative attacks. But how would Italy and Spain be defended in practice? The EFSF has been handed powers to intervene but no new cash. A fighting fund would have to be raised by passing the hat round member states – a challenge that looks a tall order today.

President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso weighed in to support Romania’s economic reform agenda, against a background of opposition from political parties seeking to depose the Government over its financial policy.

“We know that Romania has taken very difficult measures, tough measures, but the alternative would be even more difficult,” said Barroso on a visit to Bucharest. “The key now is to stay the course and implement the fiscal consolidation measures and structural reforms that the country needs.”
The EC President said that because Romania has one of the highest borrowing costs in the EU, without economic reform, the conditions for attracting investors, building trust and thus creating growth and jobs “will not be met”.
In October a combination of the opposition National Liberal Party (PNL) and Social Democratic Party (PSD) launched a vote of no confidence against the Government for its perceived financial mishandling of the Romanian budget, accusing the leadership of dictatorial tactics and nepotism.
The opposition claimed it had the right to launch the motion because opinion polls revealed public discontent with the leading Democratic Liberal Party (PDL) – the main party of Government.
The measure failed to pass Parliament but the PNL-PSD hinted it may launch further impeachments.
The EU has pumped in five billion Euro assistance package to Romania to limit the budget deficit and preserve macroeconomic security.
Barroso also “commended” the Romanian people and its authorities for their efforts during the global financial crisis.BCE, Citigroup, Comisia Europeana, FMI, Federal Reserve, Germania, Grecia, Irlanda, Marea Britanie, PIB, Rusia, SUA, Spania, Standard and Poor's, Ungaria, Uniunea Europeana, economie, obligatiuni, zona euro