Don't forget Target2! Germany is going to take a cold shower of 70-80 billion Euros if there is a Grexit. More worrying Italy and France are up for 10's of billions as well. So it's not exactly a picnic!... Bundesbank's TARGET2 exposure
Amount: EUR 513,365,579,273.88
(As at: 28 February 2015)

I think this whole charade may well simply be about buying time for the "made men" of the Brussels Mafia to settle THEIR creditors and bankers down enough to accept a Greek default and exit and to come up with a creditable excuse that claims the EU is intact and the euro is under no threat ... I've just read Varoufakis's six proposals for negotiation in Brussels next week, and they can be summarised as bla-de-bla-de-bla. In any serious discussion they'd get short shrift. With Juncker there trying to be Greeker than the Greeks, all moral hazard will be blown to bits. So Juncker needs to be told his business is to stay away, shut up, and stop meddling - otherwise his own past 'activities' in Luxemburg will be brought to light...I really don't think the EZ should allow Greek pension funds to be raided, or the ECB or EZ to provide cash for Greece to pay the IMF - the money would never be returned, and it would be an added burden for future taxpayers.  Let us help Greece into an orderly default, grexit from the euro, and the care of the IMF, with vaguely benign promises of rehabilitation 'as and when' ... This could be the final meltdown of the global ponzi scheme that's being going on for over a century. Then all these people who think they are rich will realise that the money they thought they were owed will never be repaid.  The UK and the US didn't avert the collapse of the world's financial systems in 2008, they just postponed it and the imbalances have only got much bigger. If creditors and saver think they're having it tough right now, they ain't seen nothin' yet !

EU - Observer -- Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras has put the painful question of German war reparations back on the table, saying his country was never paid for the infrastructural damage inflicted in World War II.  In a highly emotive speech before parliament on Tuesday (10 March), peppered with references to Nazism, the Third Reich, and the Holocaust, Tsipras said Berlin had an "unfulfilled moral, as well as material historic debt".  He acknowledged that Germany paid 115 million deutschmarks (€59 million) to Greece in 1960, but said this went only to individual victims of Nazis and did not compensate for the "destruction" of the country.   "This agreement, however, provided compensation only for the victims of the Nazis in Greece and not for the damages inflicted on the country itself," he said.  "And of course it did not relate either to the obligatory occupational loan or the claims for damages due to war crimes as a consequence of the nearly total destruction of the country’s infrastructure and the economy’s disintegration during the war and the occupation".  He accused Berlin, which has long said it has honored its war obligations, of using "legal technicalities" to get around paying.  "They see the mote in their brother's eye but not the beam in their own," he added, quoting a passage from the Bible, and speaking of a "moralistic tone" in Europe in an apparent allusion to Berlin's statements on Greece.  He also said that a parliament committee on "claiming the German debts owed to Greece" is to be reconstituted and upgraded and that his government will offer "political and legal assistance" so that its efforts "bear fruit". The motion to re-establish the committee was then backed unanimously by parliament late on Tuesday.  For his part, Nikos Paraskevopoulos, the Greek justice minister took the rhetoric a stage further on Wednesday by saying that German property in Greece could be seized as compensation.  He said he is "ready to approve" a Greek Supreme Court ruling in 2000, which ordered Germany to pay around €28 million to the relatives of 218 civilians in the village of Distomo, massacred by Nazi forces in 1944. The ruling said that assets such as property could be seized as compensation.  "The law states that the minister must give the order for the Supreme Court ruling to be carried out ... I am ready to give that order," he told Antenna TV, reports AFP.  The Greek statements come after weeks of uneasy relations between Berlin and Athens since the Greek far-left/nationalist coalition government came to power in late January.  Tsipras' first move as PM was to vist a memorial honoring  Greek resistance fighters killed by the Nazis in 1944 - a symbolic gesture that did not go unnoticed in Berlin.  Since then, the Greek government has sought to make good on its election promises to restructure its debt and to end EU-imposed austerity.  But tough negotiations with its creditors have seen it win only small concessions, such as renaming the hated Troika (representing its three international creditors) as "the institutions".   Contrary to what it wanted, the government was forced to extend an existing bailout - by four months - and is currently trying to reach a deal on which reforms it needs to carry out to get the next tranche of cash.  Germany is at the forefront of those saying Athens must stick to its prior commitments on reforms. Rhetoric between the two countries has turned nasty on several occasions since Athens' first bailout in 2010, with Greece - wracked by high unemployment and low growth - viewing Germany as too single-minded on austerity and with Germany seeing Greece as slow to undertake major changes.  The current talk from Athens is much harder than anything before, however.  It comes amid criticism of Tsipras by his own, hardline backbenchers, who expect him to deliver more of his campaign pledges.   Tsipras' defense minister Panos Kammenos, from the nationalist party in the coalition, also recently threatened to "flood" Europe with migrants if Greece does not get a debt deal.  "If they [the Eurogroup, a body which oversees eurozone governance] strike us, we will strike them. We will give to migrants from everywhere the documents they need to travel in the Schengen area [the EU's passport free zone], so that the human wave could go straight to Berlin."

Tipărirea de bani, soluţia găsită de băncile centrale în încercarea de a salva statele blocate în datorii şi economiile afectate de recesiune, va fi accelerată în perioada următoare. BCE a anunţat un plan de „relaxare cantitativă“ fără precedent, urmând să aloce, pentru achiziţii de active, peste un trillion de euro. Măsurile de reducere a dobânzilor, operate de bănci centrale pentru a stimula creditarea şi consumul,  au distrus randamentele plasamentelor monetare, iar cantităţile uriaşe de lichiditate disponibile a trebuit să îşi caute randamene mai bune pe pieţele de capital, alimentând noi bule bursiere. Creşterea cotaţiilor bursiere este responsabilă, astfel, şi de mare parte din avansul fondurilor de investiţii cu plasamente în acţiuni, în timp ce fondurile de piaţă monetară, cu plasamente în depozite bancare, şi-au continuat declinul. Din cele 11,34 trilioane de euro cât totalizează activele fondurilor de investiţii europene, peste 70%, respectiv 8 trilioane de euro, sunt active ale fondurilor mutuale (deschise). Acestea au avut, de altfel, cea mai mare rată de creştere (16,3%), reuşind să înregistreze şi un maxim istoric al vânzărilor, în sumă de 472 miliarde de euro. Fondurile mutuale cu orizont lung de investire (toate în afară de cele de piaţă monetară) au atras partea leului din intrările de bani, cu 476 miliarde de euro, în creştere cu 45% faţă de cele 328 miliarde de euro din 2013.  Pe categorii, fondurile de obligaţiuni au atras cei mai mulţi bani (191 miliarde de euro), la mare concurenţă cu fondurile mixte (multi-asset în noua terminologie folosită începând cu 2015 pe plan global) şi cu un nivel remarcabil de 61 miliarde de euro înregistrat de fondurile de acţiuni. „Din martie 2012, fondurile de piaţă monetară au un regulament foarte draconic, astfel încât majoritatea administratorilor le-au mutat în categoria «alte fonduri»“, spune Neacşu, care administrează în România şi singurul fond de piaţă monetară existent (Erste Money).

ECB board member Benoît Cœuré has hinted the bond-buying is likely continue past the initial 18-month period.   The first round of purchases are expected to begin next week, amid a backdrop of easing deflation and a rise in consumer confidence in the currency union. Data from February showed a moderate uptick in inflation, with analysts suggesting consumer prices may have bottomed-out at -0.3pc last month. ...Why 1.1 trillion? Why not 2.1 trillion? If it is such a good idea, why not more?  Because it's all a lie. The printing is a way to transfer the failure of mandarins to the proles. Printing to pay off the debt, inflating the value away, meaning the stupid prole's standard of living decreases.  And to think, the stupid proles vote for these policies by electing politicians who install and maintain these policies. The proles love their chains as evidence by their votes time and again. Chains, sport, and dance shows.  Debt which cannot be serviced is the route by which central bankers and their proxies STEAL the LAND, LABOR and RESOURCES of their host countries. It is warfare, make no mistake about it. This is done through QE,FRACTIONAL RESERVE LENDING, COMPOUND INTEREST, ZERO INTEREST ON SAVINGS, USURIOUS INTEREST RATES on homes, cars, education, credit cards, taxes, fees,inflation and the like. All of this is done with money created out of thin air.  Is it any mistake that none of these bankers- DRAGHI, PAPADEMOS- brood of GOLDMAN SACHS, and countless others have not been brought to justice for  SECURITIES FRAUD, MONEY LAUNDERING AND MARKET MANIPULATION?  Can anyone dispute the fact that Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Diamond, Fred Goodwin, Dick Fuld, Mozilo, John Thain etc etc etc are all free men even though they have been CAUGHT RED HANDED COUNTLESS TIMES?  These snakes need to be indicted and prosecuted for treason and high crimes before they descend the world into chaos. If the representatives of supposedly democratic and freedom loving countries do not uphold their respective oaths, it is clear who they really represent.

The European Central Bank is getting ready to announce details of the unprecedented programme of government bond-buying it hopes will lift the bloc out of recession and a vortex of falling prices.

Convening in Cyprus on Thursday, President Mario Draghi and his 25-member governing council will be signing-off on plans to purchase €60bn-a-month in government and private sector assets first announced in January.   The move came after the ECB president fought a protracted struggle with the eurozone's creditor bloc to unleash a wave of stimulus and rescue the bloc from deflation. Thursday's meeting of the ECB is expected to iron out a number of the technicalities involved in the package, such as the proportion of risk which will be shared by the eurozone’s national central banks and the ECB.   Mr Draghi is also likely to be quizzed on the open-ended nature of the asset purchases. Speaking earlier this year, the Italian said the intervention would run to September 2016, or until the ECB saw "a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation" towards its 2pc target rate... "The central bank has introduced QE at a time when many see signs that the cycle may be turning for the better in the eurozone," said Mauro Vittorangeli, of Allianz Global Investors.

"The big question for markets in coming months will be how long QE will last if the cycle starts to pick up. In those circumstances, it is possible that the ECB might decide to taper before September 2016," he added.   Mr Draghi is also likely to face questions on Greece's funding crisis. The ECB could move to restore normal lending operations to Greek banks after refusing to accept the country's bonds as collateral in February.   Speaking to the European Parliament last week, Mr Draghi said the bank was “ready to reinstate the waiver as soon as the governing council will decide that the conditions for a successful completion of the programme are in place”.   The Bank will also release its latest set of economics forecasts. Economists expect growth will be revised up from the 1pc annual GDP increase predicted in December.   The collapse in global energy prices is expected to see inflation revised downwards for 2015, and begin to approach, rather than hit, the 2pc target rate by the end of the ECB's forecast horizon in 2017, according to Societe Generale.

(Reuters) - Greece is tapping into the cash reserves of pension funds and public sector entities through repo transactions as it scrambles to cover its funding needs this month, debt officials told Reuters on Tuesday.  Shut out of debt markets and with aid from lenders frozen, Athens is in danger of running out of cash in the coming weeks as it faces a 1.5 billion euro loan repayment to the International Monetary Fund this month.  The government has sought to calm fears and says it will be able to make the IMF payment and others, but not said how.  At least part of the state's cash needs for the month will be met by repo transactions in which pension funds and other state entities sitting on cash lend the money to the country's debt agency through a short-term repurchase agreement for up to 15 days, debt agency officials told Reuters.  However, one government official said they could not be used to repay the IMF unless Athens was able to repay the state entities the cash it borrowed from them...Debt officials sought to play the repos as advantageous for both sides, arguing that the funds get a better return on their cash than what is available in the interbank market.

"It is not something new, it's a tactic that started more than a year ago and is a win-win solution. It's a proposal, we are not twisting anyone's arm," one official said.  In such repo transactions, a pension fund or government entity parks cash it does not immediately need at an account at the Bank of Greece, which becomes the counterparty in the deal with the debt agency.  The money is lent to the debt agency for one to 15 days against collateral - mostly Greek treasury paper held in its portfolio - and is paid back with interest at expiry.  The lender can always opt to roll over the repurchase agreement and continue to earn a higher return than what is available in the interbank market. One source familiar with the matter has previously said Athens could raise up to 3 billion euros through such repos, but that it was not clear how much of that had already been used up by the government.   "There is a sum that has already been raised this way," the debt official said without disclosing specific numbers.   Athens - which has monthly needs of about 4.5 billion euros including a wage and pension bill of 1.5 billion euros - is running out of options to fund itself despite striking a deal with the euro zone to extend its bailout by four months.  Faced with a steep fall in revenues, it is expected to run out of cash by the end of March, possibly sooner, though the government is trying to assure creditors it will not default.   "We are confident that the repayments will be made in full, particularly to the IMF, and there will be liquidity to get us through the end of the four-month period," Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said during a late-night talk show on Greek TV on Monday. "March is sorted." (Additional reporting by Renee Maltezou, editing by Deepa Babington/Jeremy Gaunt)

The agreement signed between Greece and the EU after three weeks of lively negotiations is a compromise reached under economic duress. Its only merit for Greece is that it has kept the Syriza government alive and able to fight another day. That day is not far off. Greece will have to negotiate a long-term financing agreement in June, and has substantial debt repayments to make in July and August. In the coming four months the government will have to get its act together to negotiate those hurdles and implement its radical programme. The European left has a stake in Greek success, if it is to beat back the forces of austerity that are currently strangling the continent.   In February the Greek negotiating team fell into a trap of two parts. The first was the reliance of Greek banks on the European Central Bank for liquidity, without which they would stop functioning. Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, ratcheted up the pressure by tightening the terms of liquidity provision. Worried by developments, depositors withdrew funds; towards the end of negotiations Greek banks were losing The second was the Greek state’s need for finance to service debts and pay wages. As negotiations proceeded, funds became tighter. The EU, led by Germany, cynically waited until the pressure on Greek banks had reached fever pitch. By the evening of Friday 20 February the Syriza government had to accept a deal or face chaotic financial conditions the following week, for which it was not prepared at all.  The resulting deal has extended the loan agreement, giving Greece four months of guaranteed finance, subject to regular review by the “institutions”, ie the European Commission, the ECB and the IMF. The country was forced to declare that it will meet all obligations to its creditors “fully and timely”.   Furthermore, it will aim to achieve “appropriate” primary surpluses; desist from unilateral actions that would “negatively impact fiscal targets”; and undertake “reforms” that run counter to Syriza pledges to lower taxes, raise the minimum wage, reverse privatisations, and relieve the humanitarian crisis.   In short, the Syriza government has paid a high price to remain alive. Things will be made even harder by the parlous state of the Greek economy. Growth in 2014 was a measly 0.7%, while GDP actually contracted during the last quarter. Industrial output fell by a further 3.8% in December, and even retail sales declined by 3.7%, despite Christmas. The most worrying indication, however, is the fall in prices by 2.8% in January. This is an economy in a deflationary spiral with little or no drive left to it. Against this background, insisting on austerity and primary balances is vindictive madness.  The coming four months will be a period of constant struggle for Syriza. There is little doubt that the government will face major difficulties in passing the April review conducted by the “institutions” to secure the release of much-needed funds. Indeed, so grave is the fiscal situation that events might unravel even faster. Tax income is collapsing, partly because the economy is frozen and partly because people are withholding payment in the expectation of relief from the extraordinary tax burden imposed over the last few years. The public purse will come under considerable strain already in March, when there are sizeable debt repayments to be made.  But even assuming that the government successfully navigates these straits, in June Greece will have to re-enter negotiations with the EU for a long-term financing agreement. The February trap is still very much there, and ready to be sprung again.  What should we as Syriza do and how could the left across Europe help? The most vital step is to realise that the strategy of hoping to achieve radical change within the institutional framework of the common currency has come to an end. The strategy has given us electoral success by promising to release the Greek people from austerity without having to endure a major falling-out with the eurozone. Unfortunately, events have shown beyond doubt that this is impossible, and it is time that we acknowledged reality.   For Syriza to avoid collapse or total surrender, we must be truly radical. Our strength lies exclusively in the tremendous popular support we still enjoy. The government should rapidly implement measures relieving working people from the tremendous pressures of the last few years: forbid house foreclosures, write off domestic debt, reconnect families to the electricity network, raise the minimum wage, stop privatisations. This is the programme we were elected on. Fiscal targets and monitoring by the “institutions” should take a back seat in our calculations, if we are to maintain our popular support. At the same time, our government must approach the looming June negotiations with a very different frame of mind from February. The eurozone cannot be reformed and it will not become a “friendly” monetary union that supports working people. Greece must bring a full array of options to the table, and it must be prepared for extraordinary liquidity measures in the knowledge that all eventualities could be managed, if its people were ready. After all, the EU has already wrought disaster on the country.   Syriza could gain succour from the European left, but only if the left shakes off its own illusions and begins to propose sensible policies that might at last rid Europe of the absurdity that the common currency has become. There might then be a chance of properly lifting austerity across the continent. Time is indeed very short for all of us. ( source : The Guardian)