Un sondaj Europa FM despre cum percep românii Justiția și amestecul politicului în dosare. Sondajul comandat de postul de radio Europa FM arată că un referendum organizat de Klaus Iohannis pe tema independenței Justiției ar strânge o prezență considerabilă la vot. Președintele, preferat să numească procurorii șefi de parchete. „Ați participa sau nu la un referendum convocat de președintele României pe tema justiției?”, este una dintre cele mai importante întrebări cuprinse în sondajul realizat de IMAS, la comanda Europa FM. Aproape 37% au răspuns că ar participa cu siguranță, peste 15,5% au spus că probabil ar participa, iar cei care cu siguranță nu ar participa se numără într-un procent de 34,7%. În condițiile în care pragul pentru validarea referendumului este de 30%, un astfel de referendum ar trece ușor peste acest procent. O altă întrebare se referă la numirea șefilor de parchete - cine ar trebui să-i numească? Aproape 22% consideră că numirile ar trebui făcute de Consiliul Superiro al Magistraturii, 35,3% au răspuns că Președintele României, iar ministurl Justiției a strând doar 17,2%, conform EurActiv.

The banks in the Eurozone have done very well in an environment where interest rates are very low, says Benoit Coeure, a member on the board of the European Central Bank (ECB), who adds that their new issues are not caused by the easing of monetary policies.  In his opinion, banks' earnings are low, which diminishes their ability to generate capital, but many of these financial institutions have overcome the impact of the negative interest rates imposed by the Central Bank.  Benoit Coeure also says that the ECB is engaged in ensuring price stability, which sustains bank profitability.  The ECB official said yesterday, in Frankfurt: "Many banks have succeeded in compensating the drop in revenue interest through higher lending volumes, lower interest expenditures, the drop in risk provisions and capital gains".  Coeure's statements seem however seem to minimize the arguments that banks' major problems are caused by non-performing loans, which have nothing to do with the monetary policy. 

It's all good news....

Cheaper oil has initiated a historic wealth transfer effect of about $1 Tillion a year between net oil importers and oil exporters reversing decades of historical trend. The US alone gets $200 billion, and Europe and Asia (especially India and China) are even bigger beneficiaries of this massive wealth transfer by cheap oil.  This is what's called an economic stimulus - but from cheaper oil prices. The Middle East and Russia with constrained sovereign funds are the ones getting stuck with the bill.  Thank you cheap oil and carry on "drill baby drill!"  The crisis of 2008-9 is far from over. The policies of Neoliberal extremist ideology have created the worst inequity in human history and essentially a form of neo-feudalism.  What has been shown beyond doubt is the existential crisis of the economics profession. Not Stiglitz nor almost any other economist predicted the crisis. All their phony fake "scientific" "economic models" have failed because - as much as economists try to make it look differently - economics is at best a soft social science - not another form of physics.

Thousands of main stream economists have clearly sold out to the very powerful Neoliberal establishment and simply produce papers and models to suit power.  The economics profession has completely discredited itself and can't be trusted to produce accurate economic analysis. The profession is clearly operating under false assumptions and, for example, refuses to engage with psychologists and socialists to take into account actual human behavior rather than just postulating that everyone is rational all the time.  Stiglitz is the darling of the left just now but he is just as discredited as the rest and his views are a result of study in a field which has no basis in reason or rational thought.  Look for example at the Chicago School, when the crisis hit they said -- so what our work has nothing to do with predictions or accurate analysis of the economy - we just do theories and the crash of the economy is not our problem. Statements of this magnitude of self-aggrandizing baloney abound if the field of economics.  The issue of the total failure - in the most fundemantal ways - and refusal to accept their failure reaches the very core of Western thought and is corruptly eating away and the very foundations of Western economics.

Britain's financial stability could be threatened by closer eurozone integration unless the UK secures safeguards from Brussels that protect the interests of non-members, the Governor of the Bank of England has warned. Although Carney pre-warned his speech was a bit of a yawner I listened to every word SkyNews broadcast (they cut away after it became clear he was being VERY cautious in the way he was laying out the economic pros and cons) and my takeaway actually was he was tiptoe saying being out was in our best interests at this point given the reference to the Treaty of Rome (without a mention of the Treaty of Lisbon that has caused so d*mn trouble) and the way he kept saying safeguards to protect Britain and other non-Eurozone member states had to be in place.

Seriously, let's face it - what are the real odds Brussels will ever agree to any real economic reforms that will not go against the UK and other non-Eurozone members, really?!  I have to say I was impressed by the way he walked that razors edge, and not at all surprised he seemed to feel he had to give the facts, appear to be carefully endorsing our staying in the EU whilst really saying staying is too dangerous (references to various EU laws that clearly act against Britain's best interests)...There is absolutely no prospect that the EU will remain a multi-currency zone. As the EU moves towards economic union - and the French are pressing for swifter progress - all member states will be required to adopt the euro. That includes the UK and Carney know this. Are we to deduce that he favours Britain's joining the EZ which will require all the pain on the UK's part of synchronising its economic cycle with that of Europe that Brown and Balls judged would be politically unacceptable?  The Eurozealots want and need economic union because they believe it will be the last and essential step towards guaranteeing the survival of the single currency, putting it beyond the reach of future crises.  It's implicit in the Inners case, led by David Cameron, that eventual membership of this "safe" euro is precisely what they have in mind and that they will use a referendum vote in favour of staying in the EU as a mandate. There will be no opt outs for Britain or anyone else under economic union and the political union that will follow which will cement in place Brussels' complete usurpation of all meaningful national sovereignty. Carney is aware also that it is the dearest ambition of the Berlin, Brussels, Paris axis that will determine the terms of economic union to bring the City under full EU control. Economic union will be about harmonising all aspects of economic and financial policy across the entire EU. The City will be harmonised along with everything else.  Again, as I listened, my takeaway was he actually was saying staying in will expose Britain to grave economic dangers. It didn't change my mind at all - I have been hoping to tick the NO-LEAVE NOW box for years, decades in fact, ever since ticking that box back in the day.

The German government was the first European executive to issue a public statement regarding the Catalan elections. Berlin underscored the same message expressed by Chancellor Angela Merkel at a meeting with Rajoy earlier this month, when she talked about the importance of respecting European legislation.  “We are convinced that it is important, despite everything that is happening at the moment, to maintain the rule of law with regard to the European Union treaties and to national legislation, that is to say, the Spanish Constitution,” said the German government spokesman, Steffen Seibert, at a press conference.  Seibert nevertheless stressed that Germany considers the Catalan elections a domestic Spanish issue...The governments can claim all they like that the EU Countries and the US economies are booming; This is b*llsh*t!  Golden handshakes, handcuffs and parachutes for the few must be paid by the masses. And so must their tax cuts and other tax avoiding schemes. Who's supposed to pay for the third Heathrow runway so that WH Smith can have more shops in which it will pocket the VAT? The already taxed-to-death so called middle-class of course!
Now go see these "Moanaco" non-doms see if they're interested in buying the massive amount of gadgets our economy can no longer manage to sell!...

The leading oil producer in Latin America, Venezuela, was meanwhile negotiating another big loan with China, as it takes a battering from the price drop and its own planned economy. While Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was in Beijing on , the daily El Nacional reported that China had already lent Venezuela more than $50 billion since 2007, though about half of that had been written off. Every Venezuelan it noted, owed China over $761. In oil-rich Mexico, experts were observing that the state may well have to envisage smaller budgets for several years, not just this year, as Mexico's own export blend may end up costing around just $30 a barrel. Milenio newspaper cited the Senate President Miguel Barbosa as suggesting that the cabinet should start drafting "austerity" plans — a word rarely heard in Mexico. The South China Morning Post reported on the economic stakes of the visit of Latin American leaders in China, although the Hong Kong daily also noted that the first windfall of lower oil prices could be felt in the air: lower costs for the world's airlines.  Analysts around the world widely agree that the most notable new factor in the current trend in energy production is the flood of mostly American-extracted shale gas into the market.  The Guardian notes that U.S. oil production has increased 48% over the past five years, which was originally offset by drops elsewhere. But as demand has also abated, prices have dropped, and may continue downward. Stephen Schork, a U.S.-based market analyst, told the London daily that investor “psychology” is driving oil trading. “We could get a rebound to $70 but we could see $30 before we see $70.”  The political ramifications weigh in the most immediate way on Russia, which may have to reconsider its aggressive policy towards  Ukraine, as it suffers the effects of both "western" sanctions and the sustained drop in oil prices.

Authorities in France’s second-largest city have come under fire for issuing its homeless with ID cards that detail their health issues.  Human rights groups and government ministers have slammed the “yellow triangle cards”, comparing them to the Nazi-era Star of David that was sewn onto Jewish people’s clothes during the Holocaust.  “This is scandalous, it’s stigmatizing,” Christophe Louis, president of the homeless charity Collectif Morts de la Rue, told The Local.   “Wearing something that shows the whole world what illnesses you have is not only discriminating but it also breaches all medical confidentiality,” he said, adding that the symbolism in the design of the card is outrageous.  “Being identified by either a star or a triangle is horrific,” he said.  French human rights group La Ligue des droits de l’Homme said it was troubled by the resemblance “of this card and the yellow star that the Jews had to wear during World War II.” President François Hollande’s government in Paris has also reacted sharply to the initiative.  “I’m shocked. Forcing homeless people to carry a yellow triangle indicating the illnesses they might have is outrageous. You don’t point the finger at the poorest,” Social Affairs Minister Marisol told French daily Le Parisien in an interview published Thursday.  “You don’t write their illnesses on their clothes. Medical confidentiality, in particular, is a fundamental right. I want this local initiative to be stopped,” she said.  The card, an initiative Marseille's Town Hall and social services, identifies the person with his or her photo, name and date of birth.   It also specifies whether the person has any illnesses or allergies. The front of the card is adorned with a yellow triangle.  In their defence authorities say the purpose is to help health workers quickly come to the aid of a homeless person who has fallen ill or is in need of aid.  Over 100 of the identifications have been distributed already.  On Wednesday, about 100 activists and homeless people protested against the initiative outside the city’s town hall.   For its part Marseille Town Hall has been outraged by the criticism it has endured by issuing “the card that saves lives”.   In a statement given to The Local, one of Marseille’s deputy mayors Xavier Mery said: “I’m appalled by the absurd controversy surrounding this help card distributed by the SAMU (social medical emergency services)   "[The reaction] not only questions the necessity of a scheme for homeless people but also the commitment of the city, the SAMU and volunteers to come to the aid of those who need it the most”.

A US Supreme Court ruling has made restructuring sovereign debt more difficult, leaving both debtors and creditors worse offThe US supreme court's ruling obliges Argentina to pay holdout hedge funds in full as part of its debt-restructuring agreements.

Argentina and its bankers have been barred from making payments to fulfil debt-restructuring agreements reached with the country's creditors, unless the 7% of creditors who rejected the agreements are paid in full – a judgment that is likely to stick, now that the US supreme court has upheld it. Though it is hard to cry for Argentina, the ruling in favour of the holdouts is bad news for the global financial system and sets back the evolution of the international regime for restructuring sovereign debt. Why is it so hard to feel sympathy for a developing country that is unable pay its debts? For starters, in 2001 Argentina took the unusual step of unilaterally defaulting on its entire $100bn debt, rather than negotiating new terms with its creditors. When the government finally got round to negotiating a debt swap in 2005, it could almost dictate the terms – a 70% "haircut". In the intervening decade, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her late husband and predecessor, Néstor Kirchner, have pursued a variety of spectacularly bad economic policies. The independence of the central bank and the statistical agency has been severely compromised, with Fernández forcing the adoption, for example, of a consumer price index that grossly understates the inflation rate. Contracts have been violated, foreign-owned companies have been nationalised, and when soaring global prices for Argentina's leading agricultural commodities provided a golden opportunity to boost output and raise chronically insufficient foreign-currency earnings, Fernández imposed heavy tariffs and quotas on exports of soy, wheat and beef. Some might counter that the holdout hedge funds that sued Argentina deserve no sympathy either. Many are called "vulture funds", because they bought the debt at a steep discount from the original creditors, hoping to profit subsequently through court decisions. The problem with the Argentine debt case has little to do with the moral failings of either the plaintiffs or the defendant. It lies in the precedent it establishes for resolving future international debt crises. The most common reaction to the recent rulings is pro-holdout. After all, the judge is only enforcing the legal contract embodied in the original bonds, isn't he? As the former US president Calvin Coolidge supposedly said of US loans to its first world war allies: "They hired the money, didn't they?"

If only the world were so simple. If only a regime of consistent enforcement of all loan contracts' explicit terms were sufficiently practical to be worth pursuing. We have, however, long since recognised the need for procedures to rewrite the terms of debt contracts under extreme circumstances.

The British Joint Stock Companies Act of 1856 established the principle of limited liability for corporations, and indentured servitude and debtors' prisons have been illegal since the 19th century. Individuals and corporations can declare bankruptcy. There will always be times when it is impossible for a debtor to pay.

As for corporate bankruptcy, it is recognised that it is a poor legal system that keeps otherwise viable factories shuttered while assets are frittered away in expensive legal wrangling, leaving everyone – managers, workers and shareholders – worse off. A good legal system permits employment and production to continue in cases where the economic activity is still viable; divides up the remaining assets in an orderly and generally accepted way; and makes these determinations as efficiently and speedily as possible, while discouraging future carelessness by imposing costs on managers, shareholders, and – if necessary – creditors.

No such body of law exists at the international level, and some believe this vacuum is the primary difficulty with the international debt system. Ambitious proposals to redress it, such as a sovereign debt restructuring mechanism (SDRM) housed at the International Monetary Fund, have always run into political roadblocks.

Incremental steps had, however, been slowly moving the system in the right direction since the 1980s. In the international debt crisis that began in 1982, IMF country adjustment programmes went hand-in-hand with "bailing in" creditor banks through "voluntary" coordinated loan rollovers. Eventually, it was recognised that a debt overhang was inhibiting investment and growth in Latin America, to the detriment of debtors and creditors alike.

Subsequent programmes to deal with emerging-market crises featured an analogous combination of country adjustment and "private sector involvement". Voluntary debt exchanges worked, roughly speaking, with investors accepting haircuts.

After Argentina's 2001 unilateral default, many investors saw more clearly the need to allow explicitly for less drastic alternatives ahead of time, and incorporated so-called collective action clauses (CACs) into debt contracts. If the borrower runs into trouble, CACs make it possible to restructure debt with the agreement of a substantial majority of creditors, usually around 70%. The minority is then bound by the agreement.

Such incremental steps gave rise to a loose system of debt restructuring. To be sure, it still had many deficiencies. Restructuring often came too late and provided too little relief to restore debt sustainability. But it worked, more or less. In contrast, the US court rulings' indulgence of a parochial instinct to enforce written contracts will undermine the possibility of negotiated restructuring in future debt crises.

Time will run out for Argentina at the end of July. Unable to pay all of its debts, it will perhaps be forced to default on all of them. The more likely outcome, however, is that it will manage to come to some accommodation that the holdouts find more attractive than the deal accepted by the other creditors. Either way, future voluntary debt-workout agreements have just become more difficult to reach, which will leave debtors and creditors alike worse off.
Meanwhile in Europe : Troubled Portuguese lender Banco Espirito Santo is set to be split into "bad" and "good" banks under a multi-billion euro state rescue plan.  The plan, aimed at saving a bank that has been engulfed by the fall of the owning family’s business empire, includes using at least half of the €6bn (£4.8bn) left from Portugal’s recently exited international bailout program, sources said. The bailout money will be used to finance a special bank resolution fund set up by Portugal in 2012 that will in turn inject money into the new Banco Espirito Santo, or BES, "good bank". BES shares would be delisted under the plan, with shareholders likely to lose their investment. One source told the Reuters agency that the injection could be of at least €4bn. It was not clear how the bad bank would be handled. The plan, which is also being worked on by officials from the European Central Bank and European Commission, is expected to be announced on Sunday evening. Details were still being hashed out and an announcement could be postponed until Monday, the people familiar with the talks said. Anything in order to stop the first domino from falling.
Why? ... As the powers that be know, that once the first 'Credit Default Swap' is triggered, it will it turn trigger a long line of other CD'S. A process which will in turn reveal the 'fact' that our entire global financial system is little more than a gigantic 'Pyramid Scheme'.... A structure without 'any' type of foundation.
Quite literally 'A Pyramid Of lies'. 

Iran has sent 2,000 advance troops to Iraq in the past 48 hours to help tackle a jihadist insurgency, a senior Iraqi official has told the Guardian. The confirmation comes as the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, said Iran was ready to support Iraq from the mortal threat fast spreading through the country, while the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, called on ordinary Iraqis to take up arms in their country's defence. Addressing the nation on Saturday, Maliki said rebels from the the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) have given "an incentive to the army and to Iraqis to act bravely". His call to arms came after reports surfaced that hundreds of young men were flocking to volunteer centres across Baghdad to join the fight against Isis. Rouhani also made reference to the facet Tehran was cooperating with its old enemy Washington to defeat the Sunni insurgent group – which is attempting to ignite a sectarian war beyond Iraq's borders. The Iraqi official said 1,500 basiji forces had crossed the border into the town of Khanaqin, in Diyala province, in central Iraq on Friday, while another 500 had entered the Badra Jassan area in Wasat province overnight. The Guardian confirmed on Friday that Major General Qassem Suleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards elite Quds Force, had arrived in Baghdad to oversee the defence of the capital. There is growing evidence in Baghdad of Shia militias continuing to reorganise, with some heading to the central city of Samarra, 70 miles (110km) north of the capital, to defend two Shia shrines from Sunni jihadist groups surrounding them. The volunteers signing up were responding to a call by Iraq's most revered Shia cleric, the Iranian-born grand ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, to defend their country after Isis seized Mosul and Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit in a lightning advance. Samarra is now the next town in the Islamists' path to Baghdad.

Brussels (in fact the 4-th Reich) tries to take over the Ukraine by stealth in the way it has taken over most of Western Europe and expects Russia to sit back and let them. Any idiot could see that there was no way the Kremlin was going to lay down and effectively let NATO take over their only sizeable Black Sea port....So Russia steps in with a counter offer based on bribing the Ukrainian government to abandon its plans to join the EU and instead strengthen its links with Russia in a not dissimilar way to the way in which Brussels was bribing Ukraine to strengthen its like with the EU...Then all hell is let loose...Now who is to blame for creating this mess?  I would like to think those in Brussels would learn from this - but they wont!  The Western powers are scrambling to bolster defenses against a halt in Russian gas supplies after the Kremlin tightened the energy noose on Ukraine, and paramilitary actions in eastern Ukraine increased the risk of a full-blown sanctions war.

The Geneva deal reached last week to defuse the crisis is close to disintegration, with the US government openly accusing Russia of carrying out covert operations across the Donbass region.

US Vice-President Joe Biden warned that Russia will pay a very high price unless the Kremlin withdraws troops massing on the Ukrainian border. “We will not allow this to become an open-ended process. Time is short,” he said in Kiev.

Two key US senators have already called for sanctions on large Russian banks, mining companies and energy groups, including the state gas monopoly Gazprom. Any such move would freeze gas deliveries to the EU, since few European banks would risk defying US regulators by handling Gazprom transactions.

Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s premier, accused the Americans of “pure bluff”, challenging the US to show its teeth. “You can, of course, continue to expand the 'black list’: it will lead absolutely nowhere,” he told the Duma...

In case you thought that America's shale gas would ride to the rescue, then think again.

"Charif Souki, Cheniere’s chief executive, said that the idea of his company’s exports alone liberating Europe from Russia’s Gazprom was “nonsense” and that only six to eight of 20-plus proposed rival export projects were “real”."

"Asked if Cheniere’s terminal could rescue eastern European countries from their dependence on Russia, Mr Souki said: “It’s flattering to be talked about like this, but it’s all nonsense. It’s so much nonsense that I can’t believe anybody really believes it.”

Public Debt to GDP %  and  External Debt to GDP %

france .........................94% ....................243%

germany......................80%.....................203%

Italy ..........................137%.....................157%

u.s.a............................77%.....................100%

u.k..............................92%.....................449%

and...

RUSSIA.......................7%...............33%

 

Sinopec Group's deal with Apache Corp will add daily output of about 130,000 barrels of oil for Sinopec. Chinese companies have completed 83 overseas oil and gas purchases worth $100.7 billion in the past five years. [provided to China Daily]. The operations that are being acquired, located in the Western Desert and away from the centers of political unrest in Egypt, will add daily output of about 130,000 barrels of oil for Sinopec Group, the company said in a statement.

That's equivalent to 9 percent of last year's daily production of 1.5 million barrels of oil equivalent, according to Bloomberg News calculations. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter, and it will be Sinopec's biggest such transaction since the 2010 purchase of Syncrude Canada Ltd. "Their (Sinopec's) technical expertise complements our 20 years of experience operating in Egypt and creates an alliance that will continue to explore and deliver the tremendous hydrocarbon resources in the Western Desert," Steven Farris, chairman and chief executive officer of Apache, said in a statement on the company's website. Wei Fujun, a spokesman at Sinopec International Petroleum Exploration & Production Corp, the unit making the purchase, told Bloomberg that Sinopec is aware of the political uncertainties in Egypt and is focused on long-term development in the region. Wei termed the price of $3.1 billion "very reasonable". The deal, which coincides with a potential move by PetroChina Co into Iraq, is viewed by some analysts as a sign of China's increasing investment in the region as it secures energy resources. Chinese companies have completed 83 overseas oil and gas purchases worth $100.7 billion in the past five years. CNOOC Ltd's $15.1 billion acquisition of Canada-based Nexen Inc early this year was China's largest overseas acquisition.

Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economic Research at Xiamen University, said the Egypt purchase also reflects the limited options China has when buying overseas energy assets.

"After all, Egypt is shadowed with political uncertainty. Investing at this time has left Sinopec in a quandary," Lin said.

He said the move was motivated more by Sinopec's chance to benefit, as the company plans to strengthen its upstream capacity, rather than a national, State-backed strategy.

According to Moody's Investor's service, Sinopec may adopt a more prudent approach to capital expenditure in the second half of 2013 to reduce negative free cash flow.

Nigel Farage tonight-Get your money out of europe-BANK RUN, NOW !!!!

Nigel Farage tonight-Get your money out of europe-BANK RUN

“I must say the thing I find the shabbiest about it is there insisting that it doesn’t need to be subjected to a vote in the Cypriot Parliament. I very much hope that the members of the Cypriot Parliament say, ‘To hell with that, we demand another vote.’

It’s funny isn’t it, the Germans are going to have a vote on it in their Parliament, but the Cypriots are being told that they shouldn’t have a vote on it. If that’s not moving into a German dominated Europe, I don’t know what is.

I said last week that I felt any savers who had money in other eurozone banks, particularly in the Southern eurozone countries, really ought to think seriously about getting their money out. Well, this afternoon something far more serious has happened. The Dutch Finance Minister, about an hour and a half ago, said that he saw the Cyprus eurozone bailout as now being a template of how they intend to act in the future. So the burden of all of this will now fall on the private sector, and not on the public sector.

Frankly, what that now says is that anybody that has money, or anybody that has big money sitting in a Spanish or an Italian bank, and particularly if you happen to be a financial officer for a company, it would be criminally negligent of you to now leave your money or a company’s money in a Spanish or an Italian bank.

I think what they’ve done today is to spark a major run on those banks. I see that some of the banks stocks have fallen 6% this afternoon, and I think in their desperation to keep the eurozone propped-up, I really believe that long-term they have made an absolutely fatal error. They have now crossed the bounds into one of complete criminality, and from this their reputations will never, ever recover.”

Almost 200,000 people lost jobs between October and December to send the jobless figure to nearly 6m, Spain's National Statistics Institute reported on Thursday.

Spain's youth unemployment - the number aged 16 to 24 without a job - hit a new quarterly high of 55pc, but showed tentative signs of retreating after falling from a peak of 56.5pc in November. Similarly, overall unemployment hit a high in November of 26.6pc and slid in December.

Meanwhile, the number of households in which every member is out of work climbed to 1.8m, more than one tenth of all Spanish families.

The report also suggests the long-term unemployed face a tougher struggle in returning to work, with the number of people remaining unemployed more than a year after losing their jobs rising by 213,800 during 2012.

The bleak figures - which make Spain home to a third of the eurozone's total unemployed - will cast a dark shadow over the one-year-old premiership of Mariano Rajoy, who has faced mounting criticism and a wave of general strikes over his administration's handling of the economy.

Well there is one comment that comes to mind.....

They think its all over..... It is now..

Now we know why last week we had all the talking heads out telling us how great everything is.

Russia's largest oil producer, state-controlled OAO Rosneft, ROSN.RS -0.31%said Monday it has raised $16.8 billion in bank loans and plans to sign a trade-finance package with two international oil traders to finance the buyout of TNK-BP BP.LN -0.01%. Rosneft is acquiring TNK-BP, Russia's number three oil producer, from BP PLC and the AAR consortium of Soviet-born billionaires in deals worth $55 billion in cash and shares that will create the world's largest listed crude producer. Under the deal, agreed to in October, the AAR tycoons will get more than $28 billion when the deal closes in the first half of 2013. BP will hold a 19.8% stake in Rosneft as part of its deal to sell out of TNK-BP.

To finance the purchase of BP's 50% stake in TNK-BP, Rosneft said it obtained a five-year loan of $4.1 billion and a two-year $12.7 billion loan from a group of international banks. Under the agreement, Rosneft said it plans to sign contracts to supply up to 67 million metric tons of crude oil in total for a period of five years, subject to a prepayment. Rosneft would use future oil exports as collateral for the trade financing from the traders. The supplies are expected to commence in 2013, the company said, but didn't provide any financial details of the deal.

Big credit bubble?! Big surprise!!

So the markets are overvalued? Big credit bubble?! Big surprise!! I've had the feeling the markets have been overvalued for years (about 12 years to be precise), and the same applies to almost all major currencies as well (most obviously, and most ludicrously, the Euro). There WILL be a crash. What really concerns me is how the aftermath of a crash will be dealt with. My guess is governments and banks will go looking for new income streams to replace the old, dead ones and we will all be conned even more than we are already. And on and on it will go until something big stops it (like an asteroid impact!)....Well : Anyone with a grain of financial acumen knows exactly why markets have risen - it is due almost entirely to the money printing and pathetic Interest rates arranged by almost ALL the westernised economies. Savers and Investors previously had countries like Australia, with rates giving a return on term deposits of 5-6%, risk free.....these rates have now gone due to pressure from the Oz Govt among others, on the RBA to lower rates for the benefit of borrowers and mortgagees in order that they might get re-elected next year....Now that these bolt holes are unavailable, people have no alternative but to put money back into low-risk, high dividend yielding shares. Bank shares in Australia, for example, bring a net return of around 7% and retirees etc have seen their standard of living continually falling in the Western world ever since the GFC began. Many are now at the stage where, even though they still don't trust the stock market and the smarter ones can still see the risks in the Eurozone , they have to act or see their nest eggs whittled away by ever-rising prices on utilities etc. The worry is that, as the BIS implies, this is NOT a sound rally and if another credit bubble recurs, investors risk another large slice of their pension funds etc being lost in the resultant crash... The elites' plan of denuding the middle class of their wealth is ALL going to plan....“Some asset prices appeared highly valued in a historical context relative to indicators of their riskiness,” said the bank in its quarterly report. Yields on mortgage bonds have fallen to the lowest level ever recorded. Spreads on corporate debt have narrowed to the wafer thin margins of 2007, even though default rates are currently three times higher than they were then for junk bonds and twice as high for investment-grade companies. The venerable Swiss-based institution – almost alone in warning of a global debt crisis in the build-up to the Great Recession – said it is rare for markets to gather steam at a time when the major forecasters are turning gloomy. The International Monetary Fund and the OECD have downgraded their outlooks for 2012 and 2013, with sharp cuts for much of Europe as well as for Brazil, China, and India. “Unusually, equity and fixed income gains coincided with a weakening of the global economic outlook. In the past, falling growth forecasts have usually been associated with rising expected default rates and higher bond yields,” it said....Money printing and flooding the banks with cheap cash is keeping the stock market and property bubbles inflated, keeping interest rates suppressed and removing any incentive for people to save for their own future. Supporting zombie companies is technically keeping bad debts of the Bank's books but is stifling real growth in the economy. Remember how politicians sold your and your children's future down the river for just one more election win, well they're still doing it.

Why is everyone so surprised .........

Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, will cut short her trip to Asia to ensure that she is present at next Tuesday's Eurogroup meeting on Greece, according to a spokesman. Gerry Rice told reporters: The managing director will participate in the eurogroup meeting on November 20 as she usually does, and that will mean shortening her current trip to Asia. On Monday, Ms Lagarde openly disagreed with Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, over a critical target for reducing Greek debt levels. The EU wants to give Greece an extra two years to meet its debt reduction target of 120pc of GDP by 2022 instead of 2020. The IMF doesn't. The 2020 “debt sustainability” target was a condition for the IMF’s involvement in the second Greek bail-out. Speaking to an audience in Milan, Mr Draghi also said that Europe's debt crisis proved that there was still a need to complete economic and monetary union, though he added that countries faced a long road towards this, with much uncertainty. European governments should focus on spending cuts, not tax rises to get their deficits down, according to the head of the European Central Bank. Mario Draghi said that the ECB's action (via its €1 trillion LTRO bazooka and announcement of the OMT programme) had helped to calm markets, but that it was up to governments to regain credibility....Why is everyone so surprised by the fact the Eurozone is in recession (for that matter pretty much all or Western Europe!)???? The shock expressed on these threads staggers me!!! Lazy, stupid people have always been poor and always will!!
A continent populated by indolent masses addicted to cheap credit and state handouts and totally unwilling to do a hard day's work for a reasonable wage!! And you think that's a recipe for an economic miracle???  The only miracle is that the farce that is the Eurozone hasn't already imploded!!
I don't need a Belgian in a cheap suit to spout figures and forecasts at me.....I can pretty much tell you what's going to happen next unless you lot start rolling your sleeves up!!

A United States of Europe would serve no purpose other than the self-agrandisment of politicians.
The issue is for the different Euopean tribes to avoid the pitfalls of fiscal union and its necessary prerequisite the ballot box.
Fiscal union does not work. You only have to look at the post-industrial parts of the UK and US to see that. make believe jobs created out of ever increasing and ulitimately unsustainable government spending do not work. Ballot boxes are fine for issues of social importance, abortion, same sex marriage etc. Anything of importance has been long recognised as being dangerous to be decided by the population at large, be that by Plato, John Adams or James Madison. The USA is a country of individuals who chose to leave their home country. Europe is the complete reverse, so pyschologically very different. Better to have national politicians who act as lightning rods for popular discontent and have supra-national bodies of technocrats pulling the strings. Italy has rarely been run so well....

"The path toward joint liability is far more likely to lead to a deep rift within Europe, because turning the eurozone into a transfer and debt union that can prevent the insolvency of any of its members would require more central power than currently exists in the US."

Who cares what they do in the US? Since when has that been the benchmark by which European leaders are expected to measure themselves? If these are unprecedented times then maybe they require unprecedented responses? This article appears to argue that because the US doesn’t have such powers, then the EU shouldn’t have them either. I repeat, who cares what powers the US does or doesn’t have?

The great thing about mainland Europe, is that “closer integration” is practically meaningless on the ground. In the average European home, I doubt if many people care how many additional layers of governance are added to the top ('Intergalactic president’ anyone?) as long as those layers have a legitimate governing role and as long as the people still feel connected to the system at a local level. In most European countries in which I’ve had the privilege to live, this has very much been the case – (the major exception being, regrettably, my homeland; the UK. Westminster already feels remote and leaves the UK regions feeling pretty disconnected from any meaningful power or influence. Additional layers at the top – like Brussels – just add to the feeling of isolation.)

At the other end of the scale, the problems faced by people in their daily lives are increasingly less respectful of national boundaries – environment, business, social responsibility and resources - hence the enthusiasm for European level co-operation.

As I said, the number of layers of governance are not the issue; peoples feeling of ‘connectedness’ at the bottom is what really matters, and in this respect, it doesn’t matter how many regions, languages, identities and cultures co-exist under the umbrella of a single entity, with specific inter-national / inter-regional responsibilities …. as long as it is felt to be doing a useful job!

What has Weimar to do with the Greece ...????? nothing !!!!

I was in Greece a few weeks ago, people are living on nothing, some people have not been paid in months, others surive on low salaries while the social welfare system is nowhere near good enough.  Greek people are being crushed, their livelihoods are being crushed, their spirit is being crushed, their country is being crushed.  If this EU is assisting in that process rather than stepping in to try and assist and find proactive ways forward then the whole damn thing should be wrapped up as a monumental failure, it simply has not performed in the way the founding fathers envisaged as it is all stick and no carrot. Debt on debt, austerity and stupid statements out of  Berlin and Brussels from mult-millionaire natzies like The Governor designated of Greece - Horst Reichenbach... who know next to nothing about deep personal and financial struggle.

What has Weimar to do with the Greeks?  Fake Left and Neo-Fascist Right keep on talking about ...Weimar.  Greece never was an imperialist power. It is almost  a banana republic. It is currently occuppied by the Troika and has a german governor. Under the Euro Greece had massive de-industrialisaion, massive importation of illegal labour. a collapse of agricultural production and an arms budget that has skyrocket beyond all proportion.  Yesterday they used riot police vans to arrest half a dockworkers demo outside the Defence Ministry, which is a crime scene, for all the financial fraud and bribery from Franco-German defence contractors.

On the other hand ... Germany went nationalist under Hitler, rearmed, got involved in civil wars in other countries and then allied itself with France, took over Europe leading to a war where 50-70 million died.
That was Weimar..."WTF" has that to do with a small banana republic on the outskirts of Europe ????  Nothing.

 

...54% of Germans are in favour of the court blocking the legislation,

Fate of eurozone rests in the hands of German judges. The decision is likely to give financial rescue fund the go-ahead against a background of German disillusion with single currency. They have the potential to throw the stock exchange into turmoil, trigger frenzy on bond markets and bring down the German government. So the eyes and ears of the eurozone will be on the eight red-robed judges of Germany's highest court this week when they deliver a long-awaited verdict over whether a financial rescue fund considered crucial to the future of the euro gets the green light.

The constitutional court is under international pressure to rule in favour of the European stability mechanism and fiscal pact. A dissenting ruling from the court, based in Karlsruhe, southwestern Germany, would probably cause havoc on money markets and cast doubt on the future of Europe's single currency.  "The German constitutional court cannot afford to be seen as not being independent, but it also cannot afford to be seen as the court that brought down the government," said Constanze Stelzenmüller, a senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin. "They're going to have to try to square the circle; in other words, not bring down the government at the same time as asserting their independence."

The ruling, due on Wednesday, is expected to give the go-ahead to the ESM, a permanent bailout mechanism, and the fiscal pact, but with caveats such as constraints on future decision-making or a ruling that Germany's basic law has to be rewritten if there is to be further EU integration.

A government insider told the Observer, on condition of anonymity, that the court "is very independent and always good for a surprise. Nobody knows what will happen on 12 September." A poll published on Friday on Spiegel Online showed that 54% of Germans were in favour of the court blocking the legislation, reflecting the degree to which public opposition to bailouts is increasing.