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!

What a nation?!!!! unbelivable !!!!

BUCHAREST - The Former Prime-Minister of  Romania  Adrian Nastase  shot himself in the neck in an attempt to commit suicide. He is sentenced to two years in gail following his "corruption trial" that ended yesterday. At this time he is  at The Municipal  Emergency Hospital in Bucharest, being operated on, in order to save his life. He shot himself in the neck, while being arrested by the Police at his home in Bucharest. Some say that the gesture was in fact provoked by the President of Romania Taian Basescu  who has been behind the High Court's Decision.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has mooted the idea that Greece should hold a referendum on the euro alongside its second round of elections next month. Mrs Merkel's proposal came up in a jaw-jaw with the country's president Karolos Papoulias earlier today, according to a spokesman for the Greek government. Official statement from the President of Hellenic Republic's office, concerning what Angela Merkel asked for this morning in their telephone conversation. Apparently, she asked for a referendum to be run concurrently with the next Greek elections, asking the question, "Do you want to stay in the euro?" Is she demented? Wasn't she the one along with Sarkozy that gave an ear ache to the ex Prime Minister of Greece, Mr George Papandreou for daring to ask the same thing in Greece a few months ago, and eventually forcing him to step down? In a statement, Dimitris Tsiodras said the proposal was "obviously" outside the scope of a Greek caretaker government. In Greece, Goldman Sachs got lots of Greek assets on the cheap in order to help the Greek government to massage its debt profile in order to qualify for the Euro.The fact is that in or out of the Euro, we are all being screwed by international financiers such as JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. These fraudsters control the government, they control the regulators, the media ... and they rip us off and then demand austerity. They know that the Fed and the ECB will always cover their bets. Which means ultimately that we will cover their bets. In other words, ordinary Greeks and the rest of us are paying through "autierity" for the thieving and greed of usurers. Max Keiser on Russian TV is the closest you will get to an honest media commentator on the financial system.

Elswhere in Europe - More than 400 people have been arrested today while participating in an anti-capitalist protest outside the European Central Bank offices in Frankfurt, Germany. "Blockupy Frankfurt" protesters have been in the city since Wednesday, and have called for four days of protest against austerity measures in Europe.

The Romanian prime minister has announced he and his government will resign immediately to protect the stability of the country. Emil Boc said on Monday he was resigning "to ease the social situation" – referring to weeks of protests in Romania over austerity measures he introduced in 2010. Boc, who became prime minister in 2008, urged Romania's feuding politicians to be mature and rapidly vote for a new government. He defended his record, saying he had taken "difficult decisions thinking about the future of Romania, not because I wanted to, but because I had to". He added that the International Monetary Fund had forecast growth of up to 2% this year – lower than expected, but higher than the European Union average. Romania signed up for a $26bn (£16bn) loan with the IMF, the EU and the World Bank in 2009 to help pay salaries and pensions, after the economy shrank by more than 7%. In 2010, the government increased sales tax from 19% to 24% and cut public workers' salaries by a quarter to reduce the budget deficit. In January, Romanians staged weeks of protests to express anger at cronyism and a perception that the government was not interested in the problems of ordinary people in this country with a population of 22 million. They protested against low living standards, widespread corruption and the passage of some laws without a parliamentary debate. "I know that I made difficult decisions, but the fruits have begun to appear," Boc said in a statement. "The most important thing is the economic stability of the country," he said, adding, "In times of crisis, the government is not in a popularity contest, but is saving the country."

A bit sarcastic !...but realistic

Well : Do to the tremendous success of the summit : Moody's has downgraded the debt of BNP Paribas, Societe Generale, and Credit Agricole - warning their creditworthiness is being damaged by the fragile operating environment for European banks. "The probability that the will face further funding pressures has risen in line with the worsening European debt crisis." The agency cut its ratings on the long-term debt of BNP and Credit Agicole by one notch to Aa3, concluding reviews that began in June and were continued in September. Societe Generale's long-term debt was cut by one notch to A1. The downgrades were driven by the increasing difficulties the banks were having in raising funding and the worsening economic outlook, Moody's said. The news comes a day after the European Banking Authority (EBA), warned the region's banks must find €114.7bn of extra capital in order to withstand the euro zone debt crisis and restore investor confidence. Moody's said its ratings did take into account the fact that all three French banks were likely to benefit from state support if the crisis deepened. "Liquidity and funding conditions have deteriorated significantly ," said Moody's, adding that the banks have historically relied on wholesale funding markets.

And they shall vote until it passes..." how about that?!

Slovakia's parliamentarians failed to ratify the expansion of the €440bn (£385bn) European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF). Opposition politicians in Slovakia, which is the only member of the eurozone not to have ratified the changes, have said they will approve the EFSF - but not without the removal of prime minister Iveta Radicova and her government. Richard Sulik, the rebel leader of the coalition's minority member, the Freedom and Solidarity Party, abstained from the vote. He told the parliament: "I'd rather be a pariah in Brussels than have to feel ashamed before my children, who would be deeper in debt should I back raising the volume of funding in the EFSF bail-out mechanism." Separately, the troika auditors - officials from the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - reported that Greece's fiscal targets for 2011 were "no longer within reach". After weeks of scrutiny, the officials said that the Greek "recession will be deeper than anticipated"; that there was "no evidence of improvement in investor sentiment"; and that the structural reforms, though taking place, were "uneven".

It is not for the first time Slovakia has been against major eurozone policies since it adopted the currency in 2009. Last year, it rejected providing its 800 million euro share of the 110 billion EU bailout plan for Greece. That rescue went ahead without Slovakia, but another exemption for the country would cast doubt over the eurozone's credibility and ability to function as a bloc.

Nonetheless, many analysts are surprised at the power the small country wields. As Greg Anderson of Citigroup put it: "it seems somewhat unfathomable that a country that has not been a member of EMU for even three years could be the one leading to its unravelling."Slovakia prepares for a fresh vote on the eurozone bail-out fund and international lenders buy time for a broader response to the debt crisis with hints that Greece is likely to get a key loan next month."

Ireland yesterday became the third eurozone country to have its credit rating downgraded to junk status as Europe slid into a war it may struggle to win with international credit ratings agencies. It followed a week in which the agencies partly forced a shift in the EU response to the Greek sovereign debt crisis. A week after slashing Portugal's status, Moody's cut Ireland's credit rating to junk and warned that the country would be likely to require a second bailout. The Irish government, which wants to return to debt markets in 2013 when its current EU-IMF bailout runs out, said the development was completely at odds with the recent views of other ratings agencies. "We are doing all that we can to put our house in order and the progress that we are making is there for all to see," the department of finance said in a statement. The commissioner in charge of the EU's single market, French politician Michel Barnier, alternately sneered and threatened the three big agencies who dominate 90% of the ratings industry: Standard & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch. His remarks followed a broadside on Monday from fellow commissioner Viviane Reding, who said the ratings agencies' "cartel" should be "smashed up" as they were seeking to determine the fate of Europe and its single currency. "We were surprised that the agencies would downgrade a country without any warning," Barnier said of last week's verdict from Moody's on Portugal, branding its debt junk and predicting the country was the new Greece. "You don't rate a country the same way you rate a company or a product. That's an issue. We're examining that issue." Barnier said he would announce "stiff measures" in November aimed at taming the power of the agencies. They would be forced to justify their decisions by revealing the details of their analyses and criteria. Whether they were properly registered in Europe would also be scrutinised. "I want to have transparency regarding their methods, especially when they are rating countries," he said. S&P concluded last week that Greece would be found to be in a form of default on its sovereign debt if its private creditors were involved in a new EU bailout, as is planned. That verdict helped to trigger the rescue rethink announced over the past 48 hours in Brussels. Christine Lagarde, the new IMF chief, when French finance minister, suggested that the agencies be banned from delivering ratings decisions on the eurozone countries being bailed out: Greece, Portugal and Ireland. "It's just an idea," Barnier addedHe said he would ask the Poles on Monday, who are chairing the EU, to put a ban on the agenda of EU finance ministers. Jacek Rostowski, the British-born Polish finance minister and former Tory party member, will be chairing the meetings of EU finance ministers for the next six months. He looks an unlikely convert to the Barnier ban. (source the guardian.uk)

ECB gives signal for euro-denominated loans to become more expensive. The European Central Bank (ECB) gave the signal for euro-denominated loans to become more expensive yesterday by raising its key interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point, to 1.25% a year, reacting to accelerated inflation. The decision will also impact the Romanian market directly, with almost two thirds of loans granted to individuals and companies being euro-denominated. For instance, a client with a 40,000-euro loan that extends over 30 years used to pay a monthly installment of 230 euros amid an interest of 5.75% a year. If the interest climbs to 6% a year, the installment reaches 240 euros. Euro lending becomes more expensive at a time when the Romanian economy is struggling to come out of an over two year-long recession, but local economists say the impact will not be dramatic.

"Overall, I don't think the impact of the ECB decision will be beneficial to Romania's recovery from recession, but I think in terms of size it will be marginal. In theory, raising the interest makes investments more expensive and saving more attractive. Romania needs investments, but it also needs to save," says Florian Libocor, chief-economist of BRD-SocGen. He says he is considering improving this year's economic growth forecast to 1.5% from 1.2% at present, with the decision being based on expectations of a better absorption of EU funds. Players on international financial markets anticipated the decision, with three-month Euribor (the indicator that reflects the cost at which top-ranking banks lend to each other) yesterday reaching 1.28% a year, the highest level recorded since June 2009, from a 0.6% a year low in the spring of last year.

The radioactive core in a reactor at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor, experts say, raising fears of a major release of radiation at the site. The warning follows an analysis by a leading US expert of radiation levels at the plant. Readings from reactor two at the site have been made public by the Japanese authorities and Tepco, the utility that operates it. Richard Lahey, who was head of safety research for boiling-water reactors at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, told the Guardian workers at the site appeared to have "lost the race" to save the reactor, but said there was no danger of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe. Workers have been pumping water into three reactors at the stricken plant in a desperate bid to keep the fuel rods from melting down, but the fuel is at least partially exposed in all the reactors. At least part of the molten core, which includes melted fuel rods and zirconium alloy cladding, seemed to have sunk through the steel "lower head" of the pressure vessel around reactor two, Lahey said.

Romania's international foreign currency reserves do not necessarily need to grow as they stand at a comfortable level, according to the governor of Romania's Central Bank (BNR), Mugur Isarescu. He mentioned we have to give up the idea that it is a good thing if the international reserve is growing, NewsIn states. As to the gold reserves of the neighbor countries, he said the central lender of Bulgaria has a reserve of 39.8 tons, that from Latvia 7.8 tons, that from Lithuania 5.9 tons, that from Poland 103 tons and that from Slovakia 31.7 tons. Romania's gold reserve stands at 103.7 tons. The governor also talked about the gain from administering the international reserves, which dropped dramatically from 2008 and 2009 and even more in 2010. The price of gold rose 2.5 times in the past five years. Romania's foreign currency reserves lowered by 1.13 percent in June from the previous month, to 31.62 billion euros, according to a release issued by the central lender BNR. Romania's international reserves – foreign currency and gold – eased 0.7 percent at the end of June to 34.99 billion euros, from 35.25 billion euros at the end of May. The gold reserve maintained at 103.7 tons, but the evolution of international prices increased its value by 3.37 percent to 3.37 billion euros, from 3.26 billion euros in the previous month.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Part of the nation's key radiation warning system was out of service as the U.S. braced for possible exposure to the fallout from a nuclear crisis in Japan.
While no dangerous levels of radiation have reached American shores, the test of the monitoring network has spurred some lawmakers to question whether it can adequately safeguard the country against future disasters.
The system is crucial because federal officials use the monitors' readings to validate the impact of nuclear incidents, then alert local governments and the public.
In California, home to two seaside nuclear plants located close to earthquake fault lines, federal officials said four of the 11 stationary monitors were offline for repairs or maintenance last week. The Environmental Protection Agency did not immediately say why the monitors were inoperable, but did not fix them until several days after low levels of radiation began drifting toward the mainland U.S.
About 20 monitors out of 124 nationwide were out of service earlier this week, including units in Harlingen, Texas, and Buffalo, N.Y., on Friday, according to the EPA.
Gaps in the system - as well as the delays in fixing malfunctioning monitors in some of Southern California's most populated areas - have helped to prompt hearings and inquiries in Washington and Sacramento.

While the world has been transfixed with Japan, Europe has been struggling to avoid another financial crisis. On any Richter scale of economic threats, this may ultimately matter more than Japan’s grim tragedy. One reason is size. Europe represents about 20 percent of the world economy; Japan’s share is about 6 percent. Another is that Japan may recover faster than is now imagined; that happened after the 1995 Kobe earthquake. It’s hard to discuss the “world economic crisis” in the past tense as long as Europe’s debt problem festers — and it does. Just last week, European leaders were putting the finishing touches on a plan to enlarge a bailout fund from an effective size of roughly 250 billion euros (about $350 billion) to 440 billion euros ($615 billion) and eventually to 500 billion euros ($700 billion). By lending to stricken debtor nations, the fund would aim to prevent them from defaulting on their government bonds, which could have ruinous repercussions. Banks could suffer huge losses in their bond portfolios; investors could panic and dump all European bonds; Europe and the world could relapse into recession. Unfortunately, the odds of success are no better than 50-50. Europe must do something. Greece and Ireland are already in receivership. Private investors won’t buy their bonds at reasonable rates. There are worries about Portugal and Spain; Moody’s recently downgraded both, though Spain’s rating is still high. The trouble is that the sponsors of the bailout fund are themselves big debtors. In 2010, Italy’s debt burden (the ratio of its government debt to its economy, or gross domestic product) was 131 percent, reports the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; that exceeded Spain’s debt ratio of 72 percent. Debt ratios were high even for France (92 percent) and Germany (80 percent).

IMF: New Agreement Aims Keeping Romania On The Right Track "I know that we have an ambitious agenda with the government in the new program, and I realize that not everything in that program is going to happen. But it's not a question whether you get everything you want, is a question whether you're moving the country in the right direction," Franks said in an interview for Romanian public television channel TVR.

"We're hoping we're helping Romania to move in the right direction," he added

Romania's Government announced a few days ago that the country decided to sign a follow-up agreement, worth EUR5 billion, with the IMF and the European Union to be enforced after a two-year EUR20 billion stand-by deal ends in May. The new agreement will be signed for two years and will be a precautionary deal. Joint teams from the IMF and the EU visited Romania between January 25 and February 8 to review the country's progress under the standby agreement and discuss the terms of a follow-up deal.

There are fears that a mass repatriation of the Japanese yen could destablise the global economy. The world's richest nations have rallied behind Japan in a bid to calm markets over the devastating earthquake and its aftermath. The G7 group, whose members include the United States and the UK, joined the Bank of Japan in stepping into the currency markets to curb the soaring yen. Recognising the damage that a rising national currency could do to an export-dependent economy, the Bank of England, Germany's Bundesbank, the Bank of France and the European Central Bank joined the BoJ on Friday morning in the first co-ordinated intervention by the G7 since the launch of the euro a decade ago. The US Federal Reserve is also expected to participate. The Japanese authorities blamed speculators for the dramatic surge in the yen since the earthquake struck a week ago. Dubbing them "sneaky thieves", Japanese deputy finance minister Fumihiko Igarashi said in an interview with Reuters: "G7 countries agreed that if we caved in to such speculators that took advantage of people's misfortunes, the Japanese economy would be ruined and the whole world economy would be harmed.

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund will discuss on March 25 the final review of the EUR13 billion stand-by loan for Romania and the terms of a new agreement with the Eastern European country. Romania decided to sign a follow-up agreement, worth EUR5 billion, with the IMF and the European Union to be enforced after a two-year EUR20 billion financial support plan ends in May. The new agreement will be signed for two years and will be a precautionary deal. Joint teams from the IMF and the EU visited Romania between January 25 and February 8 to review the country's progress under the standby agreement and discuss the terms of a follow-up deal.

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave a far bleaker appraisal on Wednesday of the threat posed by Japan’s nuclear crisis than the Japanese government had offered. He said American officials believed that the damage to at least one crippled reactor was much more serious than Tokyo had acknowledged, and he advised Americans to stay much farther away from the plant than the perimeter established by Japanese authorities. A woman was screened for radiation on Wednesday after being evacuated from an area near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The announcement opened a new and ominous chapter in the five-day-long effort by Japanese engineers to bring the six side-by-side reactors under control after their cooling systems were knocked out by an earthquake and a tsunami last Friday. It also suggested a serious split between Washington and its closest Asian ally at an especially delicate moment.

Brokers say that, although Romanian entrepreneurs would like to attract money through the Stock Exchange, when they hear about transparency requirements, many change their minds. "There are so many listed companies in the world that are doing very well. I think we are over-secretive and people exaggerate a bit. I don't know of any concrete cases where information published on the Stock Exchange affects a company's activity. The only difference is there are more reports to draw up," says Emanoil Viciu, chairman of Teraplast Bistri]a (TRP), the last company to get listed on the Stock Exchange in 2008 through an initial public offering which helped it raise around 50 million lei (15.6 million euros).
The managers also say the requirements of the capital market as far as transparency and Stock Exchange investors' needs are concerned, only have to do with general information about the company, not detailed information that can, indeed, be more sensitive.

The over 130 officials and heads of the biggest companies in the six richest Arab countries, Bahrain, Kuweit, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, present in Bucharest in the last few days, are willing to bring hundreds of millions of euros to Romania, estimates a journalist from the English language newspaper Bahrain Tribune. "Gulf businessmen could invest 200 million dollars this year and a further 500 million dollars over the next two years," estimated Ahmed AlSaati, director of English language publication Bahrain Tribune, present at the Forum of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Romania, Bucharest: Business opportunities in South-Eastern Europe, organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Business Environment, the Gulf Cooperation Council and Forum Invest in Bucharest over the past few days. AlSaati said investors in the Gulf are interested in businesses that can bring them an at least 10% yield. "Before the crisis (a yield of) 20% was right, now we accept as little as a 10% yield, but not less. Imagine that businesspeople in the Gulf have big amounts of cash available and cannot let them be devalued by inflation. They have to be permanently on the lookout for investment opportunities," AlSaati said

The Romanian Government has assumed responsibility in front of Parliament on the modifications brought to the Labor Code, a draft that could make the labor market more flexible and lead to the creation of nearly 90,000 jobs, according to estimates of the Foreign Investors Council, the association that put together the draft most of whose provisions are to be found in the document that reached Parliament. The Government only accepted 8 amendments of the 144 submitted by the MPs, and the opposition, which saw most of its amendments rejected, has submitted a censure motion which, if passed (a rather unlikely event under the current circumstances), would bring the Government down. The motion is voted on next week. On the other hand, the trade unions, the parliamentary opposition (with members of PSD - Social Democratic Party - being the most vehement) and, unexpectedly, part of the employers' associations, are challenging these modifications. Romania urgently needs to have its labor legislation modified in order to combat the increase in the number of the unemployed by creating more fixed term contract jobs.

Equity funds were the most profitable in the first two months of the year, with yields of up to 8.5%, but since investors lacked fresh money, the funds' performance is below that of the main stock exchange indexes. BCR Expert, an equity fund managed by Erste Asset Management, is the top performer in the first two months of the year, with an 8.53% yield, followed closely by OTP Balansis and Avantis funds, with above 7.6% yields. During the same period, the main stock exchange index BET of the ten most liquid shares, rose 11.3%, while the BET-FI index of the five SIFs (financial investment companies) gained 8.2%. "The yields of equity funds are obtained based on the same volume of assets, considering that some shares in which the funds invested saw declines last month. In order to beat the market, equity fund managers need capital inflows that allow them to adjust their portfolio," said Dragos Neacsu, chairman of management company Erste Asset Management. (Z.F.)house for sale,bucharest,imobiliare,imob,travel,supermarket,