Almost one in five of the eurozone’s biggest banks have failed the European Central Bank (ECB)’s comprehensive test of their financial safety, according to leaked documents. Twenty-five of the 130 lenders being assessed by the ECB have reportedly failed the stress tests, the biggest-ever single review of the single currency’s major banks.  Both the ECB and European Banking Authority (EBA) will release the results of its stress tests at 11am on Sunday. The two bodies’ assessments, which model scenarios such as downturns in the housing market, a new recession and a spike in borrowing costs, cover similar ground but have important differences. The ECB is conducting an additional review of eurozone banks’ assets ahead of it taking over as the primary regulator of banks that use the single currency; the EBA’s tests also cover European banks that are not part of the euro, including British ones. According to a draft memo of the results seen by Bloomberg, only 10 of the 25 banks to fail the tests will be told to plug capital shortfalls. The tests cover the banks’ positions at the end of last year, and the remaining 15 to fail the tests are reportedly judged to have raised the equity to meet the shortfall since then... The truth is, the entire global financial system is bankrupt.I mean, a Ponzi Scheme can never equate to being more than a fraud, to being more than a lie. And that is all our global financial system actually is. A massive fraud run by an elite group of financial criminals. Financial criminals who are being protected by our now thoroughly corrupted governments. Politicians and bankers. A match made in hell. 

The US growth rate will slow in the last three months of 2014.

Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit explains: “The flash PMI survey data show the pace of economic growth easing for a fourth consecutive month in October. The weakened growth of new orders and downturn in business optimism suggest that growth and hiring could slow further in coming months. “Having signalled an annualised rate of GDP growth of approximately 3.5% in the third quarter, the October readings indicate that the pace of economic growth looks set to moderate in the fourth quarter, down to perhaps 2.5% or less if the PMI falls further in coming months. “There are clearly many concerns, ranging from worries about the impact of Ebola, the Ukraine crisis, the ongoing plight of the Eurozone , signs of further weakness in emerging markets and the Fed starting to tighten policy. “We should not lose sight of the fact that the pace of growth nevertheless remains robust, having merely eased from very strong rates in prior months. The survey is also indicating another month of non-farm payroll growth in excess of 200,000 in October. This sustained strength should help alleviate recent worries about a sudden deterioration in the economy’s health. The pace of expansion appears to be easing only moderately.”

I mean to say the ECB rigged the tests to ensure the results were acceptable to 'the markets'

Just let the euro implode - I think the deflationary effects are inevitable. Whether a western country has deflation and a strong currency or moderate inflation and a falling currency are just different ways of consumers having less spending (and earning) power. It's inevitable because the developed economies, which previously had linked in small countries with benefits all round, linked in to China and India, two countries that dwarf the west in terms of bodies. As an analogy, it's like connecting 1000s of carriages to a train that was already struggling due to lack of high quality fuel. China and India for the foreseeable future will offer far more downward wage pressure than they will yield potential markets. This is because their people are poor, so have little spending power for what the west makes, and anyway more likely to save because that's both their nature and their need given the lack of welfare systems. Add in the cultural difference that they don't have a wide and deep leisure culture to support domestic consumption, and you can see why in a connected world they will export deflation in one form or another. It's also deflationary for the same reasons when they move en-masse to the west. Generally, Asians aren't great consumers. They buy property and gold but they don't partake in the wide range of passtimes common in the west that support the advanced economies. The media trumpet this as positive values of thrift, but it's a requirement of an advanced economy that there is advanced consumption. We really do need to work to live not the other way around. India and China (and much of Asia) are at totally different stages of human and economic development. Linking then to the west will be a shock . . . The fact of the matter is that the ECB can 'get-away' with these tests because of (1) German and French collusion to paint a 'nice picture' to please the EU elite and (2) the ECB has the luxury that it is not the actual the lender of last resort within the EU, and therefore does not have real market responsibility re adverse market feedback for its advice and actions.

The "Entrepreneurs" provide us with critical innovation and keep us at the forefront of global markets and they also create ways (for individuals)to gain financial independence. So why has the percentage of start-ups in the U.S. dropped significantly in the last 35 years? This is particularly worrisome in light of the healthy state of the stock market and the many new ways to raise capital. Without the impetus of more business formation, how will we ever lift up the 40 million people currently living below the poverty line... I think there are three factors contributing to the decline of entrepreneurship. For starters, the slow recovery of the economy and stagnant wage levels have caused widespread risk aversion, especially among millennials. With a trillion dollars of college debt weighing them down, they seek the security of a paycheck, even if the pay is low. While a majority (55%) hopes to start a business one day, their dreams remain on hold.

A second reason for the decline is the lack of an early introduction to the possibilities and benefits of starting a business. For the last several years, the emphasis has been mainly on postsecondary education. University and community college programs in entrepreneurship have proliferated. Top academic schools like MIT now offer courses such as "Entrepreneurial Finance" and "The Nuts and Bolts of New Ventures/Business Plans." At the University of Maryland, students can select from more than a hundred courses geared toward starting a business. And at the #1-rated Santa Barbara City College, an entire academic center is devoted to entrepreneurship and innovation. There's even an organization called the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship (NACCE), which brings entrepreneurial programs at the community college level together to try and link traditional roles of workforce development with entrepreneurial development.

Almost one in five of the eurozone’s biggest banks have failed the European Central Bank (ECB)’s comprehensive test of their financial safety.  Twenty-five of the 130 lenders being assessed by the ECB have failed the stress tests - the biggest-ever single review of the single currency’s major banks - including nine Italian institutions.  13 of the 25 need to raise €25bn (£20bn) of fresh capital. The remaining 12 have already covered their shortfalls, the ECB said of the tests, which covered the banks' positions at the end of last year.  Both the ECB and European Banking Authority (EBA) released the results of its stress tests at 11am on Sunday.  The two bodies’ assessments, which model scenarios such as downturns in the housing market, a new recession and a spike in borrowing costs, cover similar ground but have important differences.  The ECB conducted an additional review of eurozone banks’ assets ahead of it taking over as the primary regulator of banks that use the single currency; the EBA’s tests also cover European banks that are not part of the euro, including British ones.  Rather than acting as a black mark against failing lenders, the tests are designed to restore confidence in the sector by giving banks that pass a seal of approval.  The EBA has previously held two rounds of stress tests, the last one in 2011, but they were seen as too soft. I expect to see some renumbering of the whole exercise with about a 10% change on both sides. I also expect to see some form of assurance that this is a one-off 'change of statistical base' event.

I expect UK and perhaps all the others - Holland, Cyprus, Greece, Malta to get some form of instalment deal on the thing.

I also expect some political reciprocity. I know UK and Germany are irked with France's deferral of CAP reform talks that should be happening right now and I know Malta is enraged about response delays on ex-EU immigration issues. A whole interactive political bag has been opened by this 'announcement'.

Ever since the global economy bottomed out in the spring of 2009, the hope has been that the world would return to the robust levels of growth seen in the years leading up to the financial crash. Time and again, the optimism has proved misplaced, with the IMF repeatedly revising down its forecasts. This year was no exception. “The recovery continues but it is weak and uneven,” said the IMF’s economic counsellor, Olivier Blanchard, as he announced that at 3.3%, growth rates would be 0.4 points lower than anticipated in the spring. What concerns the IMF is that the slowdown – particularly in the advanced countries of the west – may be permanent. The phrase being bandied around in Washington was “secular stagnation”, the notion that there has been a structural decline in potential growth rates. Blanchard said it was entirely possible that developed countries would never return to their pre-crisis growth levels, and that even achieving the lower rates of expansion now expected would require interest rates to be maintained at historically low levels.

Last week, the Bank of England announced that its official interest rate would be pegged at 0.5% – comfortably the lowest in its 320-year history – as it has been since March 2009. Although the City expects borrowing costs to start rising early next year, the peak is predicted to be far lower than the 5% average seen in the years since Gordon Brown gave the bank its independence in 1997. The message from the fund is that low interest rates, like low growth, are here to stay.

Britain has been told it must pay an extra €2.1bn (£1.7bn) into the European Union budget by the end of next month because the UK economy is doing better relative to other European economies.

The demand is certain to be used against David Cameron by the growing camp who want the UK to quit the EU.

British and European commission officials confirmed that the Treasury had been told last week that budget contribution calculations based on gross national income (GNI) adjustments carried out by Eurostat, the EU statistics agency, had exposed a huge discrepancy between what Britain had been asked to contribute and what it should be paying, because of the UK’s recovery.

The bombshell, first reported by the Financial Times, was dropped into the middle of an EU summit in Brussels where Cameron and 27 other leaders were mired in tough negotiations over climate-change policy and attempts to agree big reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. A Downing Street source said: “It’s not acceptable to just change the fees for previous years and demand them back at a moment’s notice. The European commission was not expecting this money and does not need this money and we will work with other countries similarly affected to do all we can to challenge this.” The prime minister on Thursday evening conferred with Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, as the Netherlands has also been ordered to pay more than €600m extra into the budget, while other countries such as Germany and France are likely to have excess contributions returned. The commission told the various countries of the revamped figures on 17 October, EU officials said. They said the British had until 1 December to provide €2.1bn, roughly a fifth of the UK’s annual net contribution to the EU.