Generally speaking, France remains a centralised state. Notwithstanding a recent territorial reform that has expanded their competences, French regions continue to have relatively limited powers compared to, for instance, their Spanish counterparts. However, a strong showing in this regional election would allow Le Pen to strengthen her local powerbase with a view to the Presidential election in 2017. This regional election was indeed the first test after the terrorist attacks in Paris. However, it would be simplistic to see the gains made by Front National as just the fruit of French voters’ knee-jerk reaction to last month’s tragic events. President Hollande saw a rather spectacular rebound in his approval rating in the wake of the attacks. Yet, this did not spare him another pretty disappointing election night. The reality is that Front National has been on a crescendo for a while. The party was the most voted for in last year’s European Parliament election, and had also made important gains in the departmental elections earlier this year. Ballot after ballot, my view is reinforced that a growing number of French voters are starting to see Front National no longer as just a "protest party" – but rather as a party they would be happy to be governed by, at least at the local level. Interesting and game changing fact: Folks go on ad infinitum about the Nazis, without having a clue about the other side of the coin, once you know this, you start to really search and the scales fall away from your eyes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...Genrigh Yagoda, who built and ran the Gulags (concentration camps) Lenin and Trotsky (who were all Jewish) and their Jewish Commisars and  bands of Jewish thugs murdered over 50 million innocent people in Soviet russia.  How strange that young Jewish people are not being forced to feel guilty about this and bear the burden of what their ancestors did. How odd  that the Germans to date have paid over £60 billion in compensation to the Jewish people and yet the Jewish people have not paid a penny to those  relatives of the 50 million murdered by their own in Russia.  Why do we never hear about the worlds worst EVER atrocity? This one peice of information will take you to the bottom of the Rabbit hole and everything starts to make sense.  Who controls everything, including Hollywood and mainstream media, the banking system etc? If you want to know who rules you simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise - Voltaire.

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

Stocks plunge by as much as 6pc as markets hit by regulatory probe and fresh fears over stability of the financial sector .. China's stock market plunged on Friday after several brokerage firms said they were being investigated by regulators over securities violations.

The Shanghai Composite Index fell by as much as 6.14pc to 3,412.43, while the Shenzhen composite, which tracks stocks on China's second exchange, tumbled 6.66pc, to 2,170.73.

Citic Securities and Guosen Securities plunged by the daily limit of 10pc in Shanghai after admitting they were under investigation for alleged rule violations.

Reports in the media suggested Haitong Securities was also being probed as the shares were suspended on Friday. Experts have called time on China's three-decade growth miracle, as the economy makes the delicate transition towards domestic consumption from investment-led growth. Official figures show growth fell to a six-year low of 6.9pc in the third quarter.

The worst effects of the European recession risk becoming permanent in places, according to a left-leaning think tank.  The IPPR's latest report pointed to the high level of unemployment and underemployment across Europe and said the chances of these becoming entrenched is "deeply alarming".  It said there was 10% unemployment and a 5% underemployment rate in Europe.

The UK's main problem was low productivity, the IPPR said.  The official unemployment rate for the 28 countries in the EU was 9.3% in September, down from 9.4% the previous month. The rate in the 19 countries that use the euro stood at 10.8%, down from 10.9% in August....The IPPR said that unemployed workers risked being left behind as globalisation and technological progress lead to changes in the skills that employers require. The report suggested that European countries look to Germany as a good example of maintaining workplace skills and high productivity rates.

Germany - Europe's largest economy - invests 50% more on average than other countries in research and development.  The report also found that the UK's in-work training had fallen by 4 percentage points since 2008 - the largest decline for any EU country.  The IPPR said it welcomed the apprenticeship levy and the target for creating three million apprenticeships.

Paris shooting: Many people killed and injured after 'Kalashnikov and grenade attacks' across French capital...Many people killed after several shootings and explosions across central Paris

 

 

Proponents of the "Euro" often cite the gold standard era from 1879 to 1914 as demonstrating the benefits of a common currency. But the gold standard also had its costs. The period was characterized by declining prices from 1879 to 1896, rising prices thereafter, and sharp fluctuations within each period, especially severe in the 1890s. The standard was viable only because governments were small (spending in the neighborhood of 10 per cent of the national income rather than 50 or more per cent as now), prices and wages were highly flexible, and the public was willing to tolerate, or had no way to moderate, wide swings in output and employment. Take away the rose-colored glasses and it was hardly a period or a system to emulate. Not sure if he is correct here. The pre-WW1 gold standard was a good system. He sees deflation as a negative, but their is no evidence that deflation is negative when productivity is growing and prices/wages are not expected to grow. To be sure, deflation now would be negative, but back then there is no evidence that is was. Reworked data by the prime economic historians show this. The 'sharp flunctions' are also not correct, or maybe its correct that they were 'sharp' however they were not deep or long. Most of them were caused by a horrible banking system, not be the gold standard itself. Other countries with better bankings (for example Canada) did have far less problems.  I would call it highly flexible but maybe more flexible then now. Seams to me the problem is expectations and not actual flexibility...

An Optimum Currency Area, a region that would maximize economic benefit by sharing a common currency, thus subscribing to the governing body's monetary policy. Since it's usually a free floating economy, the exchange rate also becomes a tool for the policy body. In the case of countries though, some argue and we see this with Greece, this forces a country to give up its monetary policy and 'sovereignty according to some and instead rely on fiscal policy to maintain the BOP accounts. They no longer can depreciate their currency to improve advantage in exports to help a deficit and/risk capital outflows from the country. As far as I know though, and it might be only for fixed exchange rate economies, but this one economist named Rudi Dornbusch came up with the overshooting exchange rate model saying that manipulating the exchange rate can be difficult to achieve the intended goal because of the volatile nature of the exchange rate system. I also remember the higher risk a country, the more issues that can arise and Greece with corruption isn't exactly a model example.  It doesn't even necessarily have to be a joint group of countries. Some economists have proposed OCA regions for the U.S and Canada with the idea that broad policy goals intended to help one area one hurt another areas as badly. It catch on because you can imagine how Americans on the state independence reacted to that one.  The thing with the Euro and Mundell called this failing with Greece joining was first off, they 'worked their books' to get in after several attempts and it wasn't really an open secret. In his paper where he coined the OCA, he says for it to work, there needs open fiscal transfer within the union or it can lead to instability in peripheral members. If your mobility of capital (the BP curve in the IS-LM-BP model) is immobile (a vertical line if you took economics or international finance) within the internal region, then the external valuation of the currency won't perform the stabilization function that's required.  If anyone remembers more about this then feel free to add on, and here's the paper if you want to read it. I won't lie, it's a dry read if economics or finance aren't your thing.

Finding solutions for Syria was amply debated  by the European Parliament. Protecting innocent lives and achieving peace for the sake of the whole region is the number one priority. EPP Group MEPs showed their concern about escalating violence, Russia's military intervention and the threat of expanding the conflict throughout the region. They stressed that the impact on Europe is critically important. MEPs called for more EU involvement at international level to put an end to the conflict, combat the so-called Islamic State and stop the migration flow.  The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Elmar Brok MEP, stressed that the current network of different political interests must be stopped: "Russia, the US and the EU must come together and talk about a common geopolitical strategy like they did in the past in the case of nuclear arms in Iran. The current proxy war, especially by Saudia Arabia and Iran but also Turkey, must come to an end. Regional cooperation should be in the interest of all of them. We need to find a common solution for the situation in Syria to finally achieve progress in the peace process and the migration crisis."

"The contribution of the countries of the region is key to preventing the further propagation of radicalisation", stressed Mariya Gabriel MEP, Vice-Chairwoman of the EPP Group responsible for relations with Mediterranean countries: "A clear and specific commitment of the countries of the region should be made to contribute to the improvement of coordination and to the opening of an exit window. The role of the EU is to work to make this commitment happen and play a balancing role in the redistribution process of influences in the region and to bring back both regional and great powers to the table for a peace process in Syria."  Russia's military intervention worries the EPP Group's Spokesman on Foreign Affairs, Cristian Preda MEP: "Russia has already shown us in the past its willingness to impose its vision of things by force. Its intervention in Syria is no different and makes the situation all the more fragile. By creating more pressure in Syria, Russia is doing nothing short of accentuating the refugee crisis. This is clearly against EU interests. We are deeply concerned about the recent incursions in Turkey's airspace. Turkey is our NATO partner."  The EPP Group Members believe that a lasting solution requires a political transition through a Syrian-led inclusive process with the support of the international community. All parties in the conflict should ensure the protection of the civilian population and honour their obligations under international humanitarian law and human rights law.  By August 2015, 12.2 million Syrians were in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the European Commission.

There was nothing “spontaneous” about the “Arab Spring.” It was organized years in advance by a corporate-government collaboration involving the US State Department, IT giants, a myriad of corporate-financier funded NGOs, and mainstream media players.

Through the US State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and US State Department’s Movements.org, agitators were literally flown on several occasions to both New York and Washington D.C. as well as other locations around the globe to receive training, equipment and funding before returning to their home countries and attempting to overthrow their respective governments....It is clear that the political cover – the Arab Spring – and the premeditated support of terrorist groups including Al Qaeda brought in afterward, were planned years before the Arab Spring actually unfolded in 2011. The goal was admittedly the overthrow of governments obstructing Washington and Wall Street’s hegemonic ambitions and part of a much wider agenda of isolating, encircling, and containing Russia and China...NATO is directly responsible for the refugee crisis. In fact, in Turkey, NATO is directly engineering it, while in Libya NATO is responsible for destroying any semblance of stable governance since 2011.   In reality, they did not appear out of a puff of smoke. They appeared in Turkey, a NATO member since the 1950’s and one of America’s closest regional allies. Turkey is currently hosting the US military, including special forces and the CIA who have, together with Turkish military and intelligence agencies, been conducting a proxy war on neighboring Syria since 2011.  Turkey has suspiciously maintained a very enthusiastic “open door” policy for refugees, spending inexplicable sums of money and political capital in accommodating them. The Brookings Institution – one of the chief policy think tanks helping engineer the proxy war with Syria – reported in its July 2015 “Order out of Chaos” article, “What Turkey’s open-door policy means for Syrian refugees,” that:  Turkey is now the world’s largest recipient of refugees. Since October 2013, the number of Syrian refugees has increased more than threefold and now numbers almost two million registered refugees.

A great part of the European project is tainted with the fact that the Dutch, Belgians Luxembourgers do not like the Germans, the French do not like the Brits, nobody likes the Spanish etc.and so it goes on all over Europe. Suppose the big plan is to merge all the debt into one big pile and as one the then union explodes dissolving all monetary ties as no one will be able to untangle the debt pile. The result is a complete mess almost parity with one big nuclear bomb over the entire EU. Except the working man and woman wake up not to radiation sickness but to an empty bank account and little or no coherent government structure or judiciary to collect fresh debts such as utilities, etc. Begin day one...Germany is set on a collision course with Brussels' visions for deeper eurozone integration, by setting out its objections to greater financial risk-sharing in the single currency. Berlin is determined to break the toxic link between distressed banks and indebted governments, and will insist on new "bail-in" procedures to impose losses on private sector creditors in the event of another financial crisis. The eurozone has been thrown into turmoil since 2009, after the banking systems of Ireland, Spain, and Greece were rescued by taxpayer money, loading debt on to government balance sheets. As Europe's largest creditor nation, Germany wants senior bank bondholders and private sector depositors to take the hit when banking or government solvency is threatened.   The red lines have been laid out in a Germany finance ministry "non-paper" seen by the Financial Times. It will be presented by Wolfang Schaeuble at an informal gathering of European finance ministers in Luxembourg today. "The restructuring of banks without taxpayers’ money will function only if sufficient resources are available for a bail-in and if member states ensure that the bail-in is legally enforceable," said the paper.

Patrick L Young: Greece is in a hideous situation. The only sane approach - presuming you do not endorse beggaring the population (which curiously it seems the current Marxist Prime Minister does...) - is Grexit. The whole affair is a disaster for Europe and Greece. The latter is impoverished, the former looks entirely incompetent and incapable. A third bailout merely renews the fuse of Grexit and the longer the fuse burns, the more likely the whole Eurozone will collapse. The political classes are incapable of evaluating the risks objectively (or are in denial about it). As an entrepreneur and investor, I cannot afford to avoid economic reality in the way the dysfunctional blob of Europe goes about conducting its (to put it mildly) rather disorganised affairs.  Reporter: What investments do you consider to be most interesting at the moment? What estimations do you have for the next period? What events should investors pay attention to, this year?  Patrick L Young: I happen to still like exchanges. We are working on several projects in this area, as the digital world perfectly fits with the benefits of exchanges. These network opportunities are enormous - everywhere.  At the same time, I have a considerable involvement in startups per se and am closely involved in Poland (through a startup group I cofounded "Mission ToRun) and across the world.  Technology is fundamentally interesting and there are huge opportunities for everybody at every age in the current environment. I am however worried about the overall macroeconomic picture and hence have been selling/pruning my portfolio of conventional assets in real estate, equities and so forth. I have no bond holdings right now - in fact I am more likely to be short of bonds/equities currently...awaiting much juicier yields in the near future (I like P2P / marketplace lending for this reason incidentally).  The biggest issue to pay attention to is the state of the world economy. China is in difficulty, the US remains sluggish thanks to the leftward lurch of the Obama administration, yet the US expansion is surely closer to an end for this cycle. Europe is a basket case overall. Sorry I cannot be more optimistic on the short to medium term but look at it this way - we live in a world of opportunity and technology on the horizon is simply incredible....albeit we have to work hard to get government to move out of the analogue era and accept our exciting digital future, even at the cost of the upheaval it can create. Then again that could work hugely to Romania's advantage if we can break the remaining influence of corruption and empower a better, broader meritocratic society for the nation which thrives with a nimbler bureaucracy such as, say Estonia's wondrous digital government...

The European Commission is proposing the emergency relocation of 120,000 migrants across Europe from Greece, Italy and Hungary, the EU executive's president Jean-Claude Juncker announced in a speech in Strasbourg on Wednesday (9 September), adding it "has to be done in a compulsory way." In his first State of the Union address to the European Parliament, Juncker said: "Addressing the refugee crisis is a matter of humanity and human dignity, for Europe [it is] also a matter of historical fairness."  "Action is what is needed," he noted, citing historical examples from Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, and Spanish fleeing for their lives in previous crises. He called on EU ministers of justice and home affairs to adopt the proposal on September 14 for the relocation of a total of 160,000 migrants. Juncker said he hoped that everyone would be on board this time. A relocation plan, presented by the Commission for 40,000 migrants in May, was only agreed upon on a voluntary basis. The plan subsequently fell far short of the target. "Italy, Greece, and Hungary cannot be left alone to cope with the enormous challenge," Juncker added.  He recalled that 500,000 people have made their way into Europe so far this year, and pointed out that this number represents only 0.11 percent of the total EU population. "Winter is approaching. Do we really want families sleeping in railway stations?", Juncker asked.  Besides the emergency relocation measure, Juncker announced that the European Commission is proposing a permanent relocation mechanism, which "will allow Europe to deal with crisis more swiftly in the future".  The Luxembourgish politician also announced that the Commission wants to turn Frontex, its border control agency in Warsaw, into a proper external border control and coast guard force.  He said the passport-free travel zone, Schengen, must be protected.  "Schengen will not be abolished under the mandate of this commission," Juncker said. He said the Commission plans to set up a Trust Fund of €1.8 billion to help Africa tackle the root causes of migration, and called on all EU members to pitch in.  Other measures include the review of the so-called Dublin system, which stipulates that people must claim asylum in the state in which they first enter the EU, and lays out a common list of safe countries of origin to process economic migrants more swiftly.   Juncker said Europe needs to open legal channels of migration. "We are an ageing continent, migration must change from a problem, to a well managed resource,” he said, adding that asylum-seekers should be allowed to work while awaiting the completion of their asylum process.   Juncker announced that the Commission will present a common refugee and asylum policy in early 2016, and reiterated that member states need to adhere to existing common asylum mechanisms.  "It is a matter of credibility," he said, adding that, before the summer, the Commission launched 32 proceedings to force EU members to uphold European standards and that more investigations are under way.

Unfortunately, they were not patient enough and jumped the gun.

The incompatibility of countries sharing a single currency goes a lot deeper than mere reforms to achieve the agreed criteria of Eurozone membership. It is cultural.  France for instance will never be able to shift away from its social model and the cradle to grave mentality of the population. Greece is another example where the culture of tax evasion will forever make the country an unreliable partner of the EZ.  The political integration necessary to make the Euro a success, will be to adopt a Teutonic discipline to fiscal rectitude. The Latin members of the Eurozone will never make the grade...Under the Euro and until the financial crisis, your "Teutonic disciple to fiscal rectitude" Germany had an average budget deficit of over 2% - larger than either the "Latin" Portugal or Spain (who ran a surplus). Now struggling Finland ran probably the largest surplus with Ireland, who received one of the largest bailouts, not far behind.  The fiscal positions of Eurozone countries prior to the crisis bear no relation to whether they did or did not have economic problems after it...The leaders of the EU project now see a far greater prize than a United States of Europe on the horizon. The concept of supra-national government, they now see, will assert human rights and 'good enough' economic well being, across not only EU member states but, especially with Obama's support, a far wider field. TTIP is the vehicle by which it will spread well outside countries the EU can reach by its own programs of expansion and bring many US based multi-nationals into the fold of cosy bureaucratic corporatist government that will ensure stability and uniformity, if not actual freedom or democracy. This is the post democracy vision of the EU's leaders: ever widening supra-national government until we have one world government. The eurozone is merely a pilot scheme, a laboratory, and lessons from it will be applied more widely to this end. It's for the greater good.

BRUSSELS, 4. Sep, 20:44  The four Visegrad Group states - the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia - reaffirmed Friday (4 September) their opposition to quotas of refugee relocation between EU countries.  "Any proposal leading to [the] introduction of mandatory and permanent quotas as solidarity measures would be unacceptable”, the four prime ministers said in a statement after meeting in Prague.  The communique, which, the PMs say "will serve as a basis for co-ordinated positions" for the upcoming emergency meeting of EU justice and interior ministers on 14 September, as well as an EU summit in mid-October, puts them in direct opposition with Germany and France.  On Thursday, chancellor Angela Merkel and president Francois Hollande called for a "permanent and mandatory mechanism" to relocate asylum seekers in Europe.

The Visegrad countries are also at odds with the European Commission, which pushed for a relocation scheme for 40,000 asylum seekers earlier this year and is currently preparing a proposal for 120,000 more migrants.  Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker is set to put forward the initiative on Wednesday (9 September) in his State of the Union address to the European Parliament.

A day after Hungarian PM Viktor Orban met with EU institution leaders in Brussels with no concrete measures taken, his Czech, Polish, and Slovak partners said that "as an expression of their solidarity, [they] stand ready to provide Hungary with further assistance."

The Czech and Slovak interior ministers told reporters they were ready to consider a train corridor for transporting Syrian refugees heading from Hungary to Germany, if Budapest and Berlin agree.

Ponzi markets and asset bubbles blown by central bank money printing in collusion with their oligarch accomplices are imploding under the weight of their own fraud and fictitious valuations. It is beautiful to behold... In the eurozone, shadow ratings already signaled red flags in the late 2000s in Greece and the other countries on the periphery. More recently, Ireland and Spain may deserve to be upgraded, following fiscal consolidation and reforms. Greece, however, remains a mess. Even with substantial reform to improve its growth potential, it will never be able to repay its sovereign debt and needs substantial relief.  An assessment of sovereign risk that is systematic and data-driven could help to spot the risks that changing global headwinds imply. To that extent, it provides exactly what the world needs now: an approach that removes the need to rely on the ad hoc and slow-moving approach of ratings agencies and the noisy and volatile signals coming from markets....The market is slowly eating itself. If you look at dividend cover trends companies are eating their own future to maintain dividend payments and keep share prices up...probably because that's usually what their management get rewarded on.  And the average dividend yields are heavily influenced by commodity companies, miners etc, who are taking a real hammering... Chinese stock market investors, many of whom are a newly formed middle class, are borrowing to invest. Same with UK house buyers. Most are hopelessly naïve and all are over-leveraged and indebted. Yet should the bubble pop we're all collectively screwed. So governments have little choice but to keep the bubbles inflated for as long as possible. The fact such bubbles should never have been allowed to form in the first place seems neither here nor there.... Its truly ridiculous.

ATHENS, Greece - Greece's president asked the main opposition party Friday to try to form a new government, a day after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras resigned and called an early election next month to deal with a governing party rebellion over Greece's third bailout deal.  The opposition has few chances of uniting and forming a government, meaning that after more than five years of a worsening financial crisis, Greece is headed for its fifth national election in six years. Tsipras is widely tipped to win the vote, though if he fails to secure an outright majority he could have to seek a new coalition that could hamper his ability to govern.

Hardline lawmakers in Tsipras' radical left Syriza party announced Friday they were splitting from the party and forming their own anti-austerity movement, which becomes the third largest group in Parliament. Outgoing government officials say the likeliest election date is Sept. 20, just eight months after Tsipras was elected on promises to fight creditor-demanded spending cuts and tax hikes, terms he later agreed to in order to secure Greece a third bailout and keep it from falling out of the euro.  It will be the third time this year that Greeks vote, after January elections and a July 5 referendum Tsipras called urging voters to reject reforms that creditors were proposing during the bailout negotiations. Greece's European creditors did not appear dismayed by Tsipras' move, which was widely expected. "The step by Prime Minister Tsipras isn't surprising" considering he has lost his majority in parliament, said Steffen Seibert, spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "The bailout program is a program that was agreed with the Hellenic republic ... and it will be valid through election dates." German Finance Ministry spokesman Juerg Weissgerber said that if there were delays in implementation of the bailout agreement due to the elections, "then it would mean that the next payments are delayed too." Funds from Greece's new three-year, 86 billion euro ($95 billion) bailout are being disbursed in batches following reviews of the country's progress on implementing reforms. The first installment was released Thursday so Athens could meet a debt repayment to the European Central Bank, and a first review is expected in October. On Friday, President Prokopis Pavlopoulos met conservative New Democracy party head Evangelos Meimarakis and asked him to try to form a government. Meimarakis has three days to seek coalition partners, after which the third largest party in Parliament would a chance for a further three days at most.

The third largest party is now the new movement formed by the 25 lawmakers who split from Syriza Friday. The group, named Popular Unity, will be led by former energy minister Panagiotis Lafazanis.

Meimarakis also met with the speaker of Parliament to seek her contribution in trying to cobble together a government and avoid early elections.

However, it is unlikely that Meimarakis or the new party will be able to form a government. At that point, Parliament will be dissolved and a caretaker government appointed to lead the country to early elections within a month.

Announcing his resignation in a televised address Thursday, Tsipras said he secured the best deal possible when he agreed to the new bailout from other eurozone countries to save Greece from a disastrous euro exit.

The U.S. banking sector may have very little revenue exposure to China — but they still have reason to be scared.  The fear building on Wall Street is that a worsening economy in China will delay the Federal Reserve from raising U.S. interest rates indefinitely. That would be bad for the banks because the sector has been waiting for a rate hike to turbocharge earnings on mortgages and other loans...China's woes — highlighted by its currency manipulation moves — threatens to dampen the sector's earnings expectations going into 2016, analysts warned.  "A significant slowdown in China could push the Fed to delay liftoff, leading to negative consensus revisions of 2016 earnings estimates," Bank of America research analysts Erika Najarian and Ebrahim Poonawala said in a recent research report.  Najarian and Poonawala see bank earnings per share hurt by 10% to 15% if the Fed delays raising rates until the end of 2016. A rate hike "is by far the single biggest positive catalyst remaining for bank stocks," the BofA analysts said.  A delay "would change our bullish outlook for the sector," they said in the report.   "Every single U.S. bank is affected by this," agreed Erik Oja, banking analyst with S&P Capital IQ. Citigroup also has indirect exposure to China in that it does business with countries, like Brazil, that sell raw materials to China, Oja warned.  In terms of direct revenue exposure, the danger is minuscule, analysts said. Citigroup has the greatest direct exposure at 1.2%, followed by JPMorgan Chase with just 0.7%.  This week, China weakened its currency in a bid to boost exports by making them cheaper. The central's banks' move to manipulate the currency has sparked fears that China's economic slowdown is worse than expected. That could push the Fed to move more cautiously when it comes to raising U.S. interest rates, which would signal a stronger U.S. economy.

Greece’s European creditors have underlined the temporary nature of the country’s surprise return to growth by warning that they have “serious concerns” about the spiraling debts of the eurozone’s weakest member.  The economic news came as Greece’s parliament met in emergency session on Thursday to ratify a new bailout deal, although it was unclear whether the multibillion-euro agreement had the vital backing of Germany.

The three European institutions negotiating a third bailout package with the government in Athens said that the Greek economy had plunged into a deep recession from which it would not emerge until 2017...According to an analysis completed by the European commission, the European Central Bank and the eurozone bailout fund, Greece’s debts will peak at 201% of its national output (GDP) in 2016.  The study says that Greece’s debt burden can be made more bearable by waiving payments until the economy has recovered and then giving Athens longer to pay. However, it opposes the idea of a so-called “haircut” – or reducing the size of the debt. It is a course of action the International Monetary Fund, which joined the three European institutions in negotiating the latest bailout, thinks may be necessary for Greece’s debts to become sustainable.  “The high debt to GDP and the gross financing needs resulting from this analysis point to serious concerns regarding the sustainability of Greece’s public debt,” said the analysis, adding that far-reaching reforms were needed to address the worries. It forecasts that the Greek economy will contract by 2.3% this year and a further 1.3% in 2016 before returning to 2.7% growth in 2017.

 

There has been no recovery in the west since 2007-8. Communism had to collapse and now its sister socialism will collapse too. Governments can not keep borrowing money with no intension of paying anything back. All western economies are collapsing because everyone has too much debt. We are about to go into a deflationary cycle which will see multiple sovereign defaults and wealth destruction like never before. We will all be looking for someone to blame. The laws of maths are universal and apply to everyone. You can not enjoy a life style you have not earned. The Fed has infected the world with all that cheap USD it has been printing and has inflated nearly every housing market in the world. When the flight to quality starts and the herd causes the dollar to rally, then those loans wont be looking so cheap. Emerging markets will get wiped out and the process has begun. Remember that Japanese real estate is still 60% down from its highs in the 90's. If you have not prepared by now its probably too late. If you have a medium to large mortgage get out now because when the panic starts the exit will get really busy. When the bond bubble bursts liquidity will dry up over night and interest rates will go sky which will really squeeze the housing market. These are only economic concerns but normally when an economic event so extreme happens there is usually lots of civil unrest or they take us to war.The French economy stagnated in the second quarter as household spending slowed and business investment contracted.

The Bruxelles delapidators need "new fresh meat" to rub and destroy...here comes the Danish comenwealth !!

EU Observe (source) - Danish PM, Lars Loekke Rasmussen, announced on Friday (21 August) a referendum on replacing Denmark's “opt-out” on EU justice and home affairs with an “opt-in” model, similar to the one used by Ireland and the UK.  The decision to hold the referendum - on 3 December 2015 - follows a political agreement between five parties in parliament - the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party, the Social Democrats, the Social Liberals, and the Socialist People's Party - from 10 December 2014.   Announced on a hot Friday afternoon, the public debate on the referendum is yet to start in earnest (Photo: quietdangst)  Under its opt-out, which dates back to 1993, Denmark automatically stays out of all supra-national EU justice and home affairs policy and doesn’t take part in EU Council votes in these areas.  The EU dossier was slim in the early 1990s.  But it has ballooned since then, including on EU police and judicial co-operation and on migration, with Denmark still on the outside.  A Yes vote in December will let Denmark, in future, choose which home affairs policies and laws it takes part in. It will also let Denmark agree specific legislation in the area without the need for further referendums. The Yes-parties have already identified 22 existing EU initiatives they want Denmark to opt into. They’ve also promised Denmark won’t take part in 10 other EU initiatives - including the hot-button issue of asylum and immigration.   Big shift -- The Yes would mark Denmark’s first important shift in EU relations since Danes, in a referendum, soundly rejected eurozone membership. In a less significant step, Danish voters, at the same time as the EU elections last May, agreed to join the EU's Unified Patent Court.  Announced on a hot Friday afternoon, the public debate on the referendum is yet to start in earnest.  But the last opinion polls, from June, show Yes on 53 percent, No on 24 percent, and 23 percent undecided.  For its part, the second largest party in the Folketinget, the Danish People's Party, is to campaign for a No.  It is critical of the EU and hostile to immigration. It sits with UK tories in the European Parliament and will be the major force in the No-side….It also has a trump card: Its European Parliament candidate in 2014, Morten Messerschmidt, won with an unprecedented 465,758 personal votes in a country of just 5.6 million people. The leftist Red-Green alliance will also campaign on the No-side, saying Denmark must have full sovereignty on divorce, child custody, and criminal sentencing, among other topics.  Its EU spokesperson, Pernille Skipper, noted that Denmark doesn’t share values with some other EU states.   "The European Union includes countries banning abortion or so-called homosexual propaganda. The vote is thus about much more than Europol, contrary to what the EU-rave parties claim”, she said. The Yes side has chosen Europol as the corner stone of its campaign…The pro-Yes parties’ compromise agreement says: “Currently, the Council is negotiating a revision of the regulation on Europol. Once adopted under the new rules of the Lisbon Treaty, Denmark can no longer participate in this co-operation”.   "The perspective of Denmark having to leave Europol is the main reason behind the agreement to hold a referendum”.  Norwegian model…But the No side says Denmark could continue Europol co-operation via a voluntary parallel agreement, on the Norwegian model.  Europol is the European Union’s joint police agency…Headquartered in The Hague, it works closely with law enforcement bodies in EU member states, as well as in Australia, Canada, Norway, and the US.  By choosing to have the Danish poll on 3 December, the PM, Loekke Rasmussen, will, for the most part, avoid getting the campaign mixed up with the UK’s referendum on EU membership.  An EU summit on 17 December is expected to discuss in greater details the UK prime minister, David Cameron's demands for EU reforms in the run-up to the British vote, due at the latest in 2017.

NEW YORK — The downdraft on Wall Street intensified Monday as the Dow Jones industrial average – which was briefly down more than 1,000 points -- suffered its second drop of more than 500 points in as many days and the broader Standard & Poor's 500-stock index tumbled into official correction mode for the first time since 2011.  Investors hoping for a market bounce after the Dow's worst week in four years got a vicious plunge instead after the opening bell when the Dow went into freefall and fell 1,089 points in a dive described as a "huge whoosh," by Bespoke Investment Group. The Dow's closing point loss of 588.40 points, or 3.6%, to 15,871.35, was its 8th worse one-day point loss in history and worse daily point decline since Aug 8, 2011.The freefall on Wall Street has now infected every corner of the stock market, with the blue-chip Dow, small-company Russell 2000, large-company S&P 500 and tech-dominated Nasdaq composite all now down more than 10% from their record peaks this year and into full-fledged corrections. In volatile trading, the Dow initially plunged as much as 1,089 points in early trading before almost clawing back to even, only to succumb to a late-day swoon. At its low point, the Dow was in danger of suffering its worst one-day point loss on record -- a 777.68 drop on Sept. 29, 2008.  The Standard & Poor's 500 index was down 77.68 points, or 3.9%, to 1893.21 as it dipped into correction territory — which is defined as a drop of 10% or more. The Nasdaq composite index fell 179.79 points, or 3.8%, to 4526.25. The Dow is now down 13.3% from its high. The S&P 500 is off 11.2%, the Nasdaq is 13.3% below its closing peak and the Russell 200 is down 14.2% from its record.