Five banks – Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Bank of America and Ally Financial – hit in 2012 with bill totalling £15.6bn for abusing the procedures to repossess homes.

$9.3bn 13 Banks, including JP Morgan, Wells Fargo and Bank of America, ordered this year to pay equivalent in cash and other help to homeowners for abusing procedures to repossess their homes. $1.9bn

HSBC's 2012 fine for failing to prevent money laundering on a massive scale.

$1.5bn

UBS (Switzerland) was fined this much last year for manipulating Libor, the interbank lending rate.

$1.4bn

10 banks, including JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, hit in 2003 with fines for serious conflicts of interest between their research for investors and their investment banking businesses.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tullow Oil, one of the Britain's most successful exploration groups, has made its first discovery in the Arctic in a move which will encourage more drilling and anger green groups campaigning against fossil fuel extraction in the region.

Shares in Tullow climbed more than 3% as well operator OMV said it had struck a reservoir in the Barents Sea off the far north of Norway which could contain up to 160m barrels of oil and 40bn cubic feet of recoverable gas.

"This is a major frontier light oil discovery for Norway, Tullow Oil and our co-venturers. We look forward to pursuing the exciting exploration and appraisal follow up arising from this breakthrough discovery," said Angus McCoss, exploration director at Tullow, which holds a 20% stake in the prospect.

"The well results are a breakthrough for the regional exploration activities as the presence of good quality oil shows the possible large potential of an area, which will see more exploration drilling in the near future," said OMV in a statement.

The Austrian company said the production licence 537 in which the well was drilled could hold as much as 500m barrels of oil equivalent based on similar geological evidence nearby.

Tullow has become a stock market favourite on the back of major discoveries in Uganda and Ghana that helped establish those African nations as new oil producers.

The company, led by Irishman Aidan Heavey, has also become the targets of various campaign groups who have accused it of political lobbying, tax avoidance and even bribery, allegations it has steadfastly denied.

But the oil strike in the far north is a significant step for Tullow, which last autumn bought a 40% stake in exploration acreage of Greenland just weeks after the boss of French oil group, Total, said drilling in the Arctic should be abandoned because of the potential reputational and environmental damage if there was an oil spill.

In March this year a new government in Greenland put a moratorium on the granting of fresh oil and gas licences in its Arctic waters but existing licences are still valid. British oil company Cairn Energy, which pioneered a new bout of exploration off Greenland two years ago, said it would resume its controversial exploration in that area in 2014.

Greenpeace has made protection of the far north one of its key campaigns and last month its Arctic Sunrise vessel was chased out of Arctic waters by Russian coast guards after it approached a drill rig working for Moscow-based oil company, Rosneft.

Russia and Norway signed an historic agreement to carve up the Barents Sea between them in 2010, a move which was expected to herald much more drilling in the region.

The Oslo government unveiled 20 new exploration licences in the Barents during the summer and Statoil has already made big finds in the more southerly part of the Barents

Andrew Whittock, an oil analyst with Liberum Capital in London, said the Tullow find was significant although these were early days to try to assess the reservoir's ultimate potential. "This proves a new shallow play in the region. Good news but (it) needs more appraisal."

China's National Bureau of Statistics has accused a county government in southern China of faking economic data by coercing local companies to boost industrial output figures, state media have reported. Luliang county in southern Yunnan province pressured 28 local companies to report 6.34bn Yuan (£665m) of industrial output last year, while according to "initial calculations" the true figure was less than half of that, the state newswire Xinhua reported on Thursday night. "Companies complained that if they did not fraudulently report higher data their reports would be returned by local government departments," it said, citing a National Bureau of Statistics report. "They also said that fake reports would ensure they would enjoy favorable policies such as securing bank loans."

The county government itself reported fake investment data, Xinhua added. Analysts say that phony economic data is nearly ubiquitous in China, as officials are promoted based on their ability to present favorable numbers. "You have an incentive system that encourages the falsification of data," said Fraser Howie, the co-author of Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundation of China's Extraordinary Rise. "We known that for literally decades provincial GDP figures have never totaled the national GDP figures – you have a fundamental mismatch of those numbers." "Anybody who's working with Chinese statistics runs up against problems, inconstancies, and incomplete data," Howie added. "There are just black holes in information gathering." Howie said that while false data was a long-running national problem, Chinese authorities may launch selective crackdowns every few months to demonstrate vigilance. "It could be that this is a particularly egregious case, it could be that there's political infighting, it could be that this leaked somewhere else first," he said. He drew a parallel to President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption drive, which critics have dismissed both as lip service and as a political purge. "Its like the corruption thing – they're not going after nobody, but they're certainly not going after everybody," he said. "Yunnan is far away, nobody really goes there, nobody really cares. It's not like this happened right in Beijing, at the heart of things."

A point of view...

Since restrictions on the free flow of capital are forbidden by the EU Charter of fundamental rights, Cyprus is no longer in the same Europe with the same currency as the rest of the Euro Area members, its position in the Eurosystem is different, unequal. This also means that the single currency has already broken up, albeit on a small scale and in a way that has received little fanfare in the press. On the other hand this is probably the start of something bigger and not the end of the crisis. The break up of the eurozone could be 'sneaky' in just this way, the slow failure of 'peripheral' states and the implementation of capital controls, without changing the name of the individual currencies. This would still leave the larger (population size) nations in the main position of power.
Short of revolution, the contradictions in treating a small country the same as a large one in terms of economic policy seems like it can never be overcome in Europe, or will take forever, because essentially it would mean the end of the national borders and the re-shaping of regions of more-or-less similar size, so that they become like, say, the 'counties' of the UK. Member states of a union can be different sizes, as in the USA, but measures are taken federally to relativize the effect of this. While the smaller countries are by necessity already more open in this respect to outside influences, the larger nations with the clout are more likely to resist, even though they are understood as the main motors of integration. The brings up the question exactly what kind of integration is being sought here? A democratic, relatively equalized regional unity? Or, one that has the largest economies with the biggest populations in the same positions of economic and thus financial power?...For example: the Greek GDP is roughly the same as that of the German state of Lower Saxony. Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen) is the second largest in area in the country with 47,624 square kilometers, and is fourth in population size with 8 million people, while Greece has about 11 million citizens, so it is comparable, but eighty percent of Greece consists of mountains and it has the eleventh longest coastline in the world. When we compare these two, Greece no longer seems so bad in terms of productivity, yet the rhetoric of power is that Greece is the basket case of Europe because of its history of entitlement and state interference in the 'free economy'. In other words 'socialism' is blamed and more raw capitalist free enterprise is seen as the answer. Why is Greece focused on? Because in other nations suffering the crisis it was, in a big way, the major private 'free' financial institutions that blew up needing, you guessed it, public sector welfare, or in other words 'socialism for the rich'.

The funds to back

For brave investors, Mr Fahy has previously recommended Artemis European Growth, up 42pc over the past year but he added: "If investors are looking for ‘cheap’ – then the obvious market to be dripping money into is China."

Ben Yearsley of Charles Stanley Direct, a low-cost fund supermarket, is also lukewarm on European stock markets but said: "Looking for the positives, Europe doesn't look expensive and the dividend yield from equities is good so it could be bought and tucked away for the long term."  He favors Henderson European Special Situations (with a typical historic annual cost of 1.76pc), managed by Richard Pease, and Jupiter European fund (1.79pc) and Jupiter European Opportunities investment trust (1.12pc), both managed by Alex Darwall. Blackrock European Dynamic (1.68pc) is another favorite. "All are run by good quality, long-term managers," added Mr Yearsley.

Cheap tracker funds

For cheaper options, consider a fund that only tracks the market. The Vanguard FTSE Developed Europe fund charges 0.25pc a year and yields 2.6pc.  A year ago, the dividend yields, which give a rough indicator of value, were stunning on some European stocks with Swiss drugs maker Novartis paying nearly 5pc and German insurer Allianz at 4.6pc. Today they pay 3.6pc and 2.8pc, respectively. Investors have certainly missed the buying opportunity of a year ago. Those who want to back only high-yield stocks could consider the iShares DJ Euro STOXX Select Dividend 30, an exchange traded fund that can be brought through a stockbroker. Its annual cost is 0.4pc and it yields 6.2pc.

Cheap shares

David Dudding, who runs the Threadneedle European Select fund, which has returned 91pc over five years compared with an average 35pc for the sector, said: “Pricing power is everything in share investing.” Two examples he cites are Nestle, the food giant, and Kone, a lift manufacturer. “The market sees Nestle as a boring dividend payer,” he said. “I see it as an attractive growth stock. Meanwhile the lift market is very hard to break into. It takes a long time to build up significant scale, so there’s little downward pressure on prices and firms have great repeat business from maintenance contracts.” Advisers say long-term investors should have some exposure to Europe to keep a balanced portfolio, although this could also be achieved through a global fund. Mr Fahy tips Artemis Global Income which has 23pc of investors money in Europe. He added: “If you believe the eurozone can continue to muddle through for the remainder of 2013, then hold your nose and stay on your toes, ready to take profits.”

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke stressed that central bank's timetable for pulling back on its $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program hasn't been determined and could be delayed if the economy continues to weaken. Mr.Bernanke kicked off two days of congressional testimony on the economy and monetary policy by noting risks to growth, inflation and financial markets that could alter the Fed's plan to start pulling back on the bond-buying program, known as quantitative easing, later this year and end it by the middle of 2014. "We need accommodative monetary policy for the foreseeable future," he said more than once during the testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, possibly his last appearance before Congress as Fed chief. His term expires at the end of January. "Because our asset purchases depend on economic and financial developments, they are by no means on a preset course."

U.S. markets strengthened modestly from the latest reassurances from Mr. Bernanke. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.1% at 15472 shortly after noon New York time, and the 10-year Treasury note gained in price, with the yield falling to 2.496%.

Fed officials were jarred four weeks ago by the sharp market reaction to the central bank's tentative timetable for winding down the program. Stocks initially fell, though they've recovered, and long-term interest rates shots up. Ever since, Fed officials have been trying to calm investors about the outlook for the program, which is designed to push down long-term rates and push up prices of stocks, homes and other assets.

France is destroying 8,000 jobs a day....

“The house is on fire. France is destroying 8,000 jobs a day,” said Pierre Gattaz, the new leader of business federation MEDEF.

Mr Gattaz said the avalanche of “very dogmatic” measures imposed by Mr Hollande during his first months in power have put companies under enormous stress, and little has been done yet to reverse the damage despite a change in tone. “The government must step up to its responsibilities. Companies can’t till a soil full of rocks and brambles. It is private enterprise that will save France. The public sphere can’t create jobs, only companies can do that, and they’re the heroes.” The chief executives of top firms including Peugeot Citroën, EADS, Sanofi and Publicis signed a joint letter to Les Echos, complaining that France is being suffocated by high taxes and an over-regulated system that is no longer fit for purpose.

“Unemployment has reached record levels. The trade deficit is getting worse. Profit margins are the weakest in the eurozone. This calls for urgent measures. It is a bitter reality, more so because other countries touched deeply by the crisis such as the US or Ireland are recovering," the letter read. The group called for a radical shake-up of labour markets to let each firm set its own working hours, and a “coherent” energy policy to bring down costs from current ruinous levels. Gas prices are three times as high as in the US. Where do you start reforming a state with majority control (55%) of the economy and a culture that private industry is simply a means to  maintain  the current French way of life?

Throw in the lack of its own currency and the unshakable belief by most of the population, particularly  the political class that  France is Europe's core instead of simply a painted pig. 

Perhaps you don't reform. You merely mutter the words the electorate wishes to hear. And hope 'growth' appears like a miracle for France's luxury export markets. I notice the official expectations for GDP this year have just been revised upwards.

Take energy. France is 75 % dependent on nuclear energy. Of the remainder, 14 % on gas of which 92.1 % had to be imported in 2010 according to Eurostat. As Ambrose points out gas prices are three times as high as the US due to the impact of shale gas.

Now here's the rub. France has abundant shale gas reserves. In 2011 France announced a moratorium on the exploration of shale gas. On 14th of September 2012 Hollande extended that ban for the rest of his Presidential term. Prior to the ban France was the second most promising country after Poland in Europe for shale exploration and investment opportunities.  No doubt a popular decision in France, particularly for those small French farmers reliant upon CAP subsidies.  Yet in September 2012 Hollande also pledged to cut nuclear energy from 75% to 50% in the energy mix. How?

It is France's grave misfortune to have a President who is a believer in a 'Hail Mary' economic 'growth' strategy instead of reform.  Yet all is not lost provided two events happen.

France requires its own currency not Germany's. And a leader  with the courage to tell the electorate how it is, driving  through the necessary reforms.

Berlin - The German Constitutional Court is not interested whether the European Central Bank's (ECB) actions in the euro-crisis were successful, but whether they were legal, the court's top judge said on Tuesday (11 June) in a public hearing. "Otherwise the end alone would justify the means," Andreas Vosskuhle, the presiding judge, noted. In the run-up to the hearing, ECB chief Mario Draghi had called his bank's bond-buying programme "the most successful monetary policy undertaken in recent time.  "It recently bought some €1.1 billion of troubled bonds, helping Italy and Spain to keep their heads above the water.The plaintiffs - a group which has so far challenged almost every euro-rescue step taken by Germany - also asked the Karlsruhe-based court to look at the ECB's Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) scheme.  Under the OMT, the bank is to buy "unlimited" bonds from troubled euro-countries, provided they sign up to strict reforms.   In this respect, the programme is different to the other bond-buying scheme, which comes with no strings attached on reform.  OMT has never been activated.

GERMANY–Deutsche Bank said Monday it will raise €2.8 billion ($3.65 billion) in fresh capital in a dramatic about-face for the bank, which has repeatedly said it won't turn to shareholders for help boosting its capital cushion. The bank, Europe's second-largest by assets, has long faced doubts from investors and analysts about whether it has enough capital to absorb potential future losses and to meet increasingly stringent regulatory requirements. On paper, Deutsche Bank had one of the thinnest capital ratios of large European banks.  The Basel rules don't fully kick in until 2019, but banks across Europe are under pressure from regulators and investors to comply with the rules well before then. Few investors or analysts expected the bank to meet the targets in 2013.  The size of Deutsche Bank's capital hike is relatively modest compared with what some bankers, analysts and investors think it needs. Analysts previously estimated the bank needs up to €10 billion. Deutsche Bank executives have been meeting in recent weeks with senior investment bankers to sound them out about how much capital the bank would need to raise to placate investors, according to people who participated in the meetings. The bankers' response: Deutsche Bank should come up with at least €6 billion and possibly as much as €10 billion to put the capital concerns behind it, these people said. The bank's change-of-heart apparently stemmed from executives' frustration with the lack of reaction among investors to the bank's strategic changes, according to industry officials. The bank's management felt they could raise a token amount to alleviate market concerns without destroying credibility, these people said. "This is a blatant U-turn," said a senior investment banker who was involved in the talks. "It's a real climb-down for them."  The timing of the capital increase could raise questions because earlier this year, with Deutsche Bank's stock trading more than 15% above its current levels, executives insisted they had no plans to raise new capital. If they had proceeded with the share sale at the time, they could have raised more capital by selling a fewer number of shares, a preferable outcome for the bank's existing shareholders. While Deutsche Bank didn't disclose the terms of the share sale, industry officials said the deal's structure would likely involve a small number of big institutional money managers picking up the shares at a small discount to the stock's current trading price. Because the share sale is relatively small, Deutsche Bank doesn't need to go through the process of offering all existing shareholders the right to participate, a potentially costly and complex process that Deutsche executives were eager to avoid....NOW, WE ALL KNOW THAT THE fed PUMPED OVER 25 TRILLION DOLLARS IN THIS BANK IN THE PAST TWO YEARS !!! Show us the money Mrs. Merkel !!!!

When is Brussels going to admit:
"The Euro experiment is a big failure.  The southern countries can only survive with a much reduced exchange rate, as their main industry is inexpensive tourism.  We need to find a way to set them free from the Euro and we will take a 50% write-down on our loan exposures."
The alternative is explosive doom.... I agree, but already power has clearly migrated from Brussels to Frankfurt.  Even now Brussels is only in charge of important matters like banana curvature tolerances, getting rid of proper light bulbs and deciding who should collect their wonderful Nobel Peace Prize.

Germany - THE 4TH. REICH : Cyprus's MOU is finalized - The conditions of Cyprus's bailout deal have been agreed, according to the German government.

Reuters has the details: A final memorandum of understanding between Cyprus and international creditors on the island's bailout has now been finalized, a German finance ministry spokesman said on Wednesday....Martin Kotthaus also told a regular news conference he expected the bailout package to remain at 10 billion euros.

Curiously, Finnish finance minister Jutta Urpilainen had suggested this morning that the Cyprus bailout programme could be tweaked, when EU finance ministers meet in Dublin on Friday and Saturday.

Urpilainen told reporters: "I think the final outcome is good and sustainable, and I think it is good to go forward with this but it is good to note that some details might still be changed on Friday.

There are also reports that ministers will be advised to extend the maturity on certain loans given to Portugal and Ireland by seven years."

According to Reuters, the Troika of international lenders believes it is right to lower both countries' debt repayment burdens by spreading payments over a longer time.

Will Cameron sell the UK , capitulate?...I THIK YES, HE WILL BOW TO THE DEMANDAS of the 4th Reich  -- Talks between the Tories and the new Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD), an anti-euro party, came to light as the Prime Minister and his family flew to Germany as the personal guests of the Chancellor at the castle of Meseberg, her country retreat.

The invitation for Mr Cameron to bring his wife Samantha and his children, Nancy, nine, Elwen, seven, and Florence, two, to stay in the elegant 18th century castle north of Berlin was intended to underline that the visit was a special courtesy, "perhaps not just pure routine". "It is a meeting linked to numerous, highly intensive, good discussions that the Chancellor has had with Prime Minister Cameron," her spokesman said. Mr Cameron's aides admit that winning Mrs Merkel's support will be vital to his attempts to negotiate a looser British EU membership deal, a new settlement he has promised to put to a referendum by 2017.

Amusing - This man is a deluded clown.

"Mr Van Rompuy – who said the EU was the “biggest peacemaking institution ever created in world history"....Amusing - This man is a deluded clown. Now the EU is working out how to pillage wealth whoever it can to keep the half baked plans of domination alive. There is no heart in the eyes of these arrogant, anti democratic creators of a systematically ignorant European rule and ruling class. The final triumph of ignorance is economic collapse, waste, decay and chaos. The best system of government to ensure well informed executives and to motivate rulers to listen is Democracy. The further rulers stray from Democracy the more arrogant, ignorant and arbitrary they become. The EU has not gone all the way but it is on an irreversible downward slide. We must let go of these nasty losers and leave them to slide, alone, into the chasm of failure and self created ignorance. So far our craven politicians neither see nor care because they are blinded by their small minded immature and childish careerist ambitions and selfishness. Well....Doubtless ,the German people will feel much the same when the grim reality of the extent of betrayal hits them with the force of an express train......Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and Genghis Khan were similarly deluded, but they weren't anywhere near so comical as Rumpy.The EU needs money, lots of it, and fast, so expect Rumpy and his evil elves to keep proposing more and more of their madcap money making schemes. Having seen a little of what Irish and Greek banks were up to before they fell in to a heap I don't rate the chances of forming a banking union very highly, and trying to pool budgets and debt without the banks in a stable condition is utterly hopeless. None of this is ever going to get Merkel's seal of approval.

The ECB is prohibited from directly purchasing bonds from governments

The ECB is prohibited from directly purchasing bonds from governments, and yet purchases on the bond markets are among the instruments at its disposal. It is permitted to make such purchases, but only for reasons of monetary policy, such preventing deflation, for example.

Bond purchases are a treatment with side effects. Falling interest rates on sovereign bonds reduce the cost of government borrowing. The question is whether these side effects are the real motivation behind the ECB decisions, while the arguments surrounding monetary policy are merely a pretext. In that case, the purchases would be little more than government financing in disguise.

Germany's Federal Constitutional Court could very well be of the same opinion. In its recent ruling on the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the court did not fail to express its skepticism of the bond purchases. The court will address the legality of the bond purchases in upcoming proceedings.

Even then, however, the German court will likely refer the case onwards to the European Court of Justice, which will then be forced to decide whether the central bank is still acting within the bounds of its mandate. Both the ECB and the Bundesbank are already preparing for the legal battle and are reviewing the legal underpinnings of their respective positions.

"The ECB's argument that the bond purchases have to do with monetary policy is a pretext," says Jürgen Stark, the central bank's chief economist until the end of last year. "If the transmission mechanism of monetary policy is indeed disturbed, the ECB must intervene, irrespective of whether or not a country has subjected itself to a bailout program."

For Stark, who resigned in protest over the ECB's first bond-purchasing program, a red line has been crossed once again. "We are talking about the financing of governments here," he says. That, he points out, is in violation of European Union treaties. "The ECB is operating outside its mandate," he concludes....Academics share his assessment. "Common sense tells us that the ECB, with its purchasing program, is doing something completely different from expressing its concern over price stability," says Clemens Fuest, a professor of economics at the University of Oxford. According to Fuest, the ECB, following the example of the International Monetary Fund, is upgrading itself to a European bailout institution, which provides assistance based on certain conditions. It loses its independence as a result, says Fuest, because it can hardly refuse to provide assistance if its conditions are met. "The ECB has overstretched its mandate," Fuest believes.

Even supporters of the bond-purchasing program are critical of Draghi's approach. "The ECB should have continued to cite market failure as justification for its purchases," says Peter Bofinger, a monetary expert at the University of Würzburg in southern Germany and a member of the German Council of Economic Experts which advises the government on economic issues. "Then it could have intervened whenever it felt it was appropriate."

to preserve the Eurozone PIIGS democracy has to go as it stands in the way.

There's only a debt crisis because there is a growth crisis. The growth crisis was a guaranteed result from the design of the Eurozone.  Each country has to be responsible for its own debt and high investment high productivity Germany will always have the balance of payments surplus and the rest will have the deficit.  They can never hope to match German productivity which is based on a massive investment over many years but are locked to the same currency. Hence they continuously build up debt to pay for German products and year on year are overpaying themselves because they have no chance ever of matching the productivity.
The increasing debt in turn reduces their economic growth because of the money that goes on interest charges which grows in parallel with the debt.  For the Eurozone to work to the German design the PIIGS need to take large annual reductions in salaries and pensions. This can never work in a democracy because who is going to vote for a party that guarantees reduced salaries and wages year on year?...Therefore to preserve the Eurozone PIIGS democracy has to go as it stands in the way. Instead the commission have to implement these reductions year on year and democratic government taken out of the picture.  If people weren't people this answer would work but I suspect people will remain as people and the EU elite and commission will become increasingly unpopular as they implement the policies necessary to preserve the Eurozone year in year out.   A corollary of preservation of the EZ is high PIIGS unemployment especially for the young. I suspect the best and brightest will leave to get a life. Once established they are unlikely to to the EU because of its ageing demographics. This has to mean high taxation for the declining number of working age.

The EZ is having the effect of making the EUs ageing demographics worse as it's the top 20% or so who are the movers and shakers who tend to be the creators of new businesses that generate wealth.

The eurozone is bust.

"Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, will meet the head of Germany's Bundesbank in an effort to gain support for his controversial bond purchase plan"

Well....he never said he had a bond buying programme. That notion is the result of idiotic media and markets reading between the lines. He never 'pledged', swore an oath or promised anything. He merely said the ECB would do everything within its very limited price stability mandate to save the euro. That's it.... My understanding is not that he is going to see the Bundesbank but that he has been summoned. Germany is still awaiting an important court ruling. .... Draghi will be told, that Germany is now ready to pull out, and that, "that", will give the ECB all the freedom it has prayed for. Draghi will also be told that Germany can no longer continue with stealth measures to monetize southern debt and that he either re finds the party hymn-sheet or finds himself with the power to write a whole new one, the one of his own....Expect no extraordinary interventions next week. Expect a new hard line Draghi.... hahahahaha ~!!!!....The eurozone is bust. Why should it be enabled to go on borrowing with no strategy that would lead anyone to believe it could even sustain these rising debts let alone ever repay any of them. Anyone who thinks the industrious north will beaver away for years to keep the drones in the south in the life to which they have grown quite accustomed, needs to go away to quiet room.........If they continue down this path we will have unions in Germany demanding parity with the Greek and Spanish entitlements.....and wage hikes to reflect their 'war effort'. and that would be for starters......There is one thing worse than the people rebelling and putting an end to it. It is the people putting up their hands and saying perverse incentives! Sign me up!

With the EU there is no such thing as a bottomless pit.

The EU elites Barasso and Rumpy Pumpy included will never give up on their giant corrupt ponzi scheme, their mega salaries and mind blowing pension ; one way or the other the euro fall will be one of this biggest failure in modern history. It will end; when all the people from the austerity ridden countries rise up and topple their Governments. The EU will then collapse like a pack of cards. Good riddance, can't wait for the day!And so this ongoing financial analysis goes on! Stimulus, austerity or a combination of both? I can't see any of the above scenarios working. Austerity and the Western engine of the world economy spirals into decline, taking the BRICS with it. Stimulus and money printing and we end up like Zimbabwe. There's no magical growth on the horizon to pull us out of this spiral, at least nowhere near enough. Kicking the can ever further down the road won't work. You could save a lot of time and effort Ambrose and just tell us we're all bu**ered. One day the world will move on, but there will be a very different political and economic landscape. A New World Order: perhaps?? I think after a couple of years of frustrated viewing we are starting to see the 'markets' (whoever the people are that make up the 'market' they seem to be extremely gullible) FINALLY cottoning on to the fact that the pantry is bare and there is no solution to the Euro that doesn't involve the end of the Euro. As the saying goes "you can't fool all of the people all of the time"; well the time of fooling everyone except themselves seems to be running out for the EU 'elite' and they are going to be eating humble pie sooner now I think rather than later. Mind you they do have a remarkable capacity for dragging this out while they feather their own nests, but we do seem to be getting close to the end game finally...

Romania has been rocked by political turmoil after parliament suspended President Traian Basescu from office, paving the way for a referendum on his future later this month. The procedure comes despite European Union and U.S. concerns over the status of democracy in the former communist nation.  Basescu was suspended from his job Saturday after 256 legislators voted in favor of a procedure that could lead to him being permanently removed from office. Only 114 lawmakers were against the action. Senate Speaker Crin Antonescu was appointed interim president.  Reacting to the vote, Basescu said he will now prepare for the July 29 referendum when Romanians will get a final say on his fate.  Basescu survived a similar vote in 2007. Analysts say he faces a tougher challenge this time, in part because of his declining popularity in a period of economic crisis in this nation of 19 million people.  Additionally, a recently adopted law requires only a simple majority of votes to push him out. Before, the requirements were more demanding. Romania's ruling center-left coalition says Basescu should leave office because he overstepped his authority and interfered in the government's work since his re-election in 2009.  In one of the latest stand-offs, a public quarrel emerged between the president and Prime Minister Victor Ponta over who should represent the country at a European Union summit. The Basescu has also been accused of alleged harsh remarks towards gypsies, also known as Roma, and disabled people, though the president has denied wrongdoing.  He told parliament before the suspension vote, the real reasons why the prime minister wants him to go is to increase his own power. Unlike in some European nations, Romania's president is chosen by popular vote and is in charge of foreign policy, the powerful intelligence services and the country’s defense policies.  The latest moves have prompted the U.S. and the EU to express worries over Romania's democratic credentials. The U.S. State Department said in a statement that it was concerned that developments in the country “threaten democratic checks and balances."  The EU's executive body, the European Commission, has also urged the government not to reduce the effectiveness of democratic principles and institutions, as the explained by commission spokesman Olivier Bailly.  "The rule of law, the democratic checks and balances and the independence of the judiciary are cornerstones of European democracy and indispensable for mutual trust within the European Union. Government policy and political action must respect these principles and values."
Bailly added that the latest developments threaten progress that was made in these areas since Romania joined the EU in 2007.  In addition to Basescu, Prime Minister Ponta has also come under opposition pressure to resign after an academic panel concluded that he copied a significant part of his doctoral thesis from other authors without proper attribution. Ponta, who calls the charges politically motivated, says they have been orchestrated by an adviser to Basescu.

ABOUT GREECE....!?!?

ABOUT GREECE  - "I personally believe there's no chance for Greece to become competitive [while] in the eurozone," Hans-Werner Sinn, president of Ifo, said in a luncheon speech in New York on Monday. "If Greece is kept in the eurozone, there will be ongoing mass unemployment. But if they exit, they will see a very sudden recovery," he said, as lower prices boost competitiveness. He also cited risks of other indebted eurozone countries facing severe spending cuts and tax hikes. "Cutting wages and prices to the extent necessary in some southern European countries is impossible, whatever the politicians say," Sinn said. "Policy is unable to overcome the laws of economics." Greece has received more than €100bn in aid since its debt crisis began, and last month creditors agreed to trade their Greek bonds for lower-valued securities.Sinn said it would have been better to use that money to help Greece manage its exit from the eurozone. Complicating matters are the various European Central Bank lending operations that Sinn said amount to "unlimited credit" for troubled countries. The ECB has extended more than €1 trillion in low-cost, low-collateral, three-year loans to eurozone banks. Some of that money has in turn been loaned to eurozone governments to help bring down rising borrowing costs. Sinn said these operations circumvent parliaments and will eventually lead to a common European government bond that removes interest rate risk and allows countries to borrow at below-market rates rather than pay down their debt and reform their economies. "Uniform interest rates will lead to another mis-allocation of capital in Europe," Sinn said. He said Ireland has been successful in cutting its prices and trimming debt, relative to other troubled eurozone countries, because its housing bubble began to deflate before the ECB and the European Union rolled out cheap loans and rescue programs. (SOURCE: THE TELEGRAPH.UK)

S&P delivers it's verdict on the European Central Bank's long-term refinancing operation

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services today lowered the 'AAA' long-term issuer credit rating on the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) to 'AA+' from 'AAA' and affirmed the short-term issuer credit rating at 'A-1+'. We removed the ratings from CreditWatch, where they had been placed with negative implications on Dec. 6, 2011. The outlook is developing. When we announced the placement of the ratings on the EFSF on CreditWatch on Dec. 6, 2011, we said that, depending on the outcome of our review of the ratings of the EFSF's guarantor member sovereigns, we would likely align the issue and issuer credit ratings on the EFSF with those of the lowest issuer rating we assigned to the EFSF members we rated 'AAA' (as of Dec. 6, 2011), unless we saw that sufficient credit enhancements were in place to maintain the EFSF rating at 'AAA' (see "European Financial Stability Facility Long-Term 'AAA' Rating Placed On CreditWatch Negative," published Dec. 6, 2011). On Jan. 13, 2012, we announced rating actions on 16 members of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU or eurozone; see "Standard & Poor's Takes Various Rating Actions On 16 Eurozone Sovereign Governments," Jan. 13, 2012). We lowered to 'AA+' the long-term ratings on two of the EFSF's previously 'AAA' rated guarantor members, France and Austria. The outlook on the long-term ratings on France and Austria is negative, indicating that we believe that there is at least a one-in-three chance that we will lower the ratings again in 2012 or 2013. We affirmed the ratings on the other 'AAA' rated EFSF members: Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, and The Netherlands. Germany and Finland, the remaining AAA-rated countries in the single currency, are expected to come under pressure to increase their commitments to bolster the EFSF's funds to prevent a further downgrade and the likelihood that lenders will demand higher interest costs. The blow to the EFSF came as bankers poured cold water on hopes for an early deal between Greece and its creditors after they accused Athens of making "completely unreasonable" demands for debt payment cuts. Charles Dallara, head of the Institute of International Finance which represents Greece's private creditors, said talks had yet to reach agreement on any aspect of a deal following demands from Greek negotiators for ultra-low interest rates on its outstanding debts.

Upppsssss....Euro-Zone Treaty May Be Illegal

The euro-zone 17 in combination with six other countries quickly began moving forward on their own. But is such a move legal? European Union lawyers have their doubts that the kind of euro-zone fiscal union within the EU would be allowed. Changes to the EU treaty, after all, must be unanimous. Furthermore, EU officials in Brussels say, because monetary union is regulated extensively in the Lisbon Treaty, reform can only be implemented within the existing legal framework. The legal services experts of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the European Council, which represents the member states in Brussels, are all in agreement. A treaty concluded only by the 17 euro-zone governments would be illegal, they say. Individual countries could only issue a "political declaration of intent," in which they determined, for example, how they would decide on the use of sanctions against budget offenders. But such a declaration would have no legally binding character and, as officials point out, could also be revoked following the election of a new government. This is principally a reference to France, where the Socialist presidential candidate François Hollande has already announced that he would not accept any incursions into national sovereignty. Shortly before the summit, many European leaders were pushing for a quick rescue plan. At the convention of the European People's Party (EPP) in Marseilles, the conservative group which currently constitutes the largest faction in the European Parliament, smaller countries also spoke out in favor of a strong Europe with strict rules.