Portugal's Socialist party is poised to form a left-wing alliance with the eurosceptic radical Left in a bid to become the country's new government. Following an election stalemate in which the opposition Socialists came in second place to the incumbent conservatives, leader Antonio Costa has said he is ready to strike up an alliance to become the country's new prime minister.  Mr Costa - whose party is on the moderate Left and supports Portugal's membership of the euro - has been making overtures to extreme Leftist parties who saw a surprising surge in October's general election. The eurosceptic Left Bloc and Communist Party both received 10.2pc and 8.3pc of the national vote share respectively. However, Mr Costa has affirmed that he will only head up an alliance that would pursue policies that will keep the country in the euro, four years after it received an €78bn international bail-out. "Although the negotiations are obviously still underway, at this moment, everything indicates that the Socialist Party is in better condition to be able to lead a more stable government solution,” said Mr Costa, a former mayor of Lisbon...The continuing Eurosceptic growth should arrive as no surprise. It is currently being fueled by Merkel's open door policy to economic migrants. How many times do we see images of purported Syrian refugees, on our television screens, made up mostly of young delinquent looking men who hardly look Syrian? Not long ago, on our television screens, a report of mongoloid and negro looking economic migrants where heralded as Syrian refugees. It should be very clear that this migration crisis is being orchestrated to fill the purported aging working population with young economic migrants. The EU, if it continues with this UN backed project, will perish as will the Vatican's current Communist Pope.

The European Central Bank is expected to hint at fresh stimulus measures to ward off the threat of deflation when it holds its next monetary policy meeting on Thursday.  This week’s gathering takes place in Malta, under the governing council’s policy of occasionally departing from its Frankfurt HQ to visit other areas of the eurozone.  But although the location will be different, the event will be dominated by familiar concerns after the region’s inflation rate fell below zero last month, to -0.1%, for the first time since March.  City economists predict that ECB president Mario Draghi will repeat his pledge from September to add more stimulus if needed. However, few expect decisive action this week.  “The ECB’s October meeting is for watching. Draghi’s message will be dovish, but it’s not time to act yet”, said Holger Sandte, chief European analyst at Nordea Bank.  The ECB is currently committed to buying €60bn (£40bn) of government and corporate bonds each month until September 2016, in an €1.1tn attempt to stimulate growth, inflation and bank lending.  But last week, ECB policymaker Ewald Nowotny declared that it was “quite obvious” that additional instruments would be needed, as the ECB is now “clearly missing” its inflation target.  Nowotny’s comments mean that “further ECB stimulus as soon as next Thursday certainly cannot be ruled out,” said Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight.  Capital Economics’s Jonathan Loynes said that ECB will boost its QE firepower €80bn a month in December, but does not totally rule out an announcement this week.
The eurozone’s return to negative inflation is driven by cheaper energy costs, which fell 8.9% year-on-year following the tumble in oil prices. This countered a 1.2% rise in service sector prices, and a 1.4% rise in food, alcohol and tobacco costs.

An awakening perhaps. The 2014 May MEP elections increased the anti(ish) EU proportion of the new 750 (and never bigger) + 1 (Schickelschulz) EUParl from about 4% to 30 - 35%.  Landslide I said , but for any parliamentary system a massive change. Unfortunately not a big enough democratic tremor to change very much, especially with Schickelschulz controlling 'political groups' and the amendment of legislation.  Nevertheless, the new opposition were able to show their supporters what a controlled utterly by the executive (Commissionaires) 'rubber-stamp' outfit they had elected their opposition representatives to. This was followed: I saw and heared it in France, Spain,Italy, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia; by more popular demands as to how the system worked and where the power lay.  Thus it was learned that the power lay with the Commissionaires and they purportedly pursued the wishes of the Council of Europe - aka Council of Ministers - a body peopled by the same folk that ran their national government.  A revelation! Opposition to the imperial court through what we thought was a parliament but is not really a legislative instrument at all - no legislation initiation, no veto, no repeal, 'engineered' amendment, some minor delay - but still with enough power (just) to 'out' a Commission.  So this national government clone sitting in the imperial court with due privilege according to the size of the nation sending their voice is the problem.  Thence a realisation that only opposition in EUParl and the Council of Ministers (within the QMV constraints) will allow the people to be heard. The pro-EU lobby is slowly losing control of every single country.  Soon the EU parliament will be the only one they control and that control will be gone in 2019. Do not underestimate the effect of a UK exit from the EU. It will be perceived worldwide as a two fingered salute to the EU. We will have labelled the Brussels regime as "rubbish" and the world will listen because history says they dare not to do so. That's going to happen in May 2017 and will signal the end of French/German hegemony over Europe. By May 2019 the europhiles will be facing the loss of the EU parliament.

The British people are very misunderstood on the continent. I have heard it said that the Dutch are the only people to truly understand them, although I have little idea why.

The fact is that the British people have already made up their minds about the EU and we will be leaving. I expect a majority in the realm of 60-70% in favour of doing so. Ignore opinion polls that suggest that the vote will be close because it will not. The europhile campaign is actually in full swing but the British people are ignoring them. We are just not listening to EU rubbish any more. Every decision made in Brussels is now another nail in the europhiles coffin and it can only get worse.

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.

The International Monetary Fund concluded its annual meeting in Lima with a warning to central bankers that the world economy risks another crash unless they continue to support growth with low interest rates.  The Washington-based lender of last resort said in its final communiqué that uncertainty and financial market volatility have increased, and medium-term growth prospects have weakened. “In many advanced economies, the main risk remains a decline of already low growth,” it said, and this needed to be supported with “continued accommodative monetary policies, and improved financial stability”. The IMF’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, said there were risks of “spillovers” into volatile financial markets from central banks in the US and the UK increasing the cost of credit. The IMF has also urged Japan and the eurozone to maintain their plans to stimulate their ailing economies with an increase in quantitative easing. But she urged policymakers in Japan and the eurozone to boost their economies with an expansion of lending banks and businesses via extra quantitative easing. But the policy of cheap credit and the $7 trillion of quantitative easing poured into the world economy since 2009 has become increasingly controversial. A quartet of former central bank governors responded to the IMF’s message with a warning to current policymakers that they risked sowing the seeds of the next financial crisis by prolonging the period of ultra-low interest.  In a study launched in Lima to coincide with the IMF’s annual meeting, the G30 group of experts said keeping the cost of borrowing too low for too long was leading to a dangerous buildup in debt.  The study was written by four ex-central bank governors, including Jean-Claude Trichet, former president of the European Central Bank, and Axel Weber, previously president of the German Bundesbank, and now chairman of UBS...Perhaps the Rothschilds owned IMF can stop getting the whole world into their debt. Perhaps the privately owned fakely named federal reserve can stop ripping off America with its interest laden currency. Perhaps the owned American government could grow some real balls and print their own interest free money, it's not hard a 10 year old could do it, SHAMEFUL. Then perhaps the IRS could stop stealing people's labor money in illegal tax. Income tax on people's labor in the USA is VOLUNTARY., no law exists to make people pay tax on their hard labor. Every cent of people's labor tax in the USA is illegally stolen from the workers by the IRS and given to the Rothschilds fakely named federal reserve as interest to them for printing ink onto paper. Get rid of the greedy central Rothschilds controlled central banks ( like Iceland and Hungary have done ) our world would not be in their continual war induced shit hole.

???? "DUCH" REFERENDUM ON uKRAINE ???? WHY "DUCH" ???

A Dutch referendum is to be held on an EU agreement for closer relations with Ukraine, after 427,000 people backed a citizens' initiative.The No Level movement is taking advantage of a new law allowing advisory referendums.  The Dutch parliament had already backed the EU deal, which removes trade barriers between the EU and Ukraine.  But campaigners fear that it could be a step towards EU membership and would cost Dutch taxpayers billions of euros.  "This is a chance to say we're here too," says Eurosceptic Thierry Baudet, who argues that Dutch voters should have their say on policies such as EU expansion, legislation and aid packages.   In particular he says the treaty would enable Ukrainians to travel without visas across Europe when their country is in conflict with Russia. Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych triggered months of unrest in Ukraine and eventually his overthrow when he pulled back from signing the EU Association Agreement in November 2013. Since then, Ukraine's new government has signed the deal and parts of the treaty have provisionally come into place. The trade part of the agreement will come into provisional effect on 1 January 2016, but will not be fully in force until all 28 EU member states ratify it. Six countries have yet to do so.

"A very big part of the agreement such as political dialogue on financial co-operation [will come into effect] but not everything," a spokeswoman told the BBC. Under the new Dutch law, which requires 300,000 signatures to trigger a vote, the referendum has to take place within six months. Although the result will not be binding on the government, it will have to be considered if turnout is above 30% and a majority votes against the agreement. Jan Roos from No Level ("GeenPeil" in Dutch) said it was vital for turnout to go above 30% as it would then be "hard for the cabinet to again ignore the voice of the people".

The creation of a "United States of Europe" has been seen as a necessary step to insulate the eurozone from the financial contagion that bought it to its knees after 2010.  It is a view shared by Mr Blanchard's successor at the IMF, American Maurice Obstfeld, who has championed deeper eurozone integration as the best way to plug the institutional gaps in EMU. Mr Blanchard, however, said no institutional fixes would bring back prosperity back to the single currency.  Without the power to devalue their currencies, peripheral economies would forever be forced to endure "tough adjustment", such as slashing their wages, to keep up with stronger member states, he said.  In this vein, Mr. Blanchard dismissed any talk of a growth "miracle" in Spain - which has been hailed as a poster child for Brussels' austerity diktats. He added he was "surprised" that sluggish eurozone economies were not doing better in the face of a cocktail of favorable economic conditions.  "When people talk about the Spanish miracle, I react. When you have 23pc unemployment and 3pc growth, I don't call this a miracle!!!!!!!!" "I thought that the zero interest rate, the decrease in the price of oil, the depreciation of the euro, the pause in fiscal consolidation, would help more than they have", he said. I don't want to leave the EU because "there are technocrats I don't like."  I want to leave because it is the only way DEMOCRACY will be restored to Romania ! I do not want foreign politicians and foreign bureaucrats making laws which will be imposed on me when our own Government has opposed them because they are not in our interests. I want the ability to vote OUT the people who make the laws. The issue is SOVEREIGNTY and DEMOCRACY.