Frankfurt, Germany • European Central Bank head Mario Draghi says some eurozone banks "face challenges" but that the system is more resilient due to oversight that was strengthened after the global financial crisis. Draghi said Monday that thanks to new supervision at the European Union level, banks were in a position to bring down the amount of bad loans burdening their finances "in an orderly manner over the next few years." His comments in the European Parliament follow a week of violent swings in the stock prices of major European banks including Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale. Draghi said some banks faced challenges from litigation and restructuring costs as well as working off soured investments. The recent sharp drops in stock prices reflected fears banks might be exposed to risks in commodity producing markets, companies and countries. Commodity prices have dropped amid fears about the health of the global economy. Draghi said the situation was "amplified" by perceptions that banks may have difficulty adjusting to an economy with lower growth and lower interest rates. Low interest rates, in part the result of central bank policies, have squeezed bank earnings by narrowing the difference between the rate at which they borrow and the rate at which they lend.
Gideon plan A has failed us all. If we don't start investing soon we truly will be under that water. Investing in social housing will create jobs, investing in hospitals will create jobs, investing in transport will create jobs. Investing in some Tory friends crooked business or awarding contracts will not create jobs, just angry bitterness that the taxpayer is being ripped off by the Tories yet again. Any investing from now on in, needs to be for the tax paying people, who after all is paying for it. There really needs to be a public run accountability body to approve spending by any government and to check that the politicians are not linked in some way or another to a certain company or holding shares or family and friends have an interest. We really need to clean up Parliament corruption....I would turn around and say though...What on Earth do you mean by less austerity? There is no austerity, merely less, marginally less credit expansion. Now, I'm firmly in the camp of a annual social wage. So, don't be calling me some kind of crazy neoliberal, race to the bottom type, but let's not lose track of reality. Classical economics has collapsed, period. Droning on about cuts, cuts, cuts, misses the bloody great gorilla in the room, namely that without credit expansion the global economy would have never recovered, let alone prospered after the first oil shock of 1973. The rest of history, real history, since has been about growing credit roughly online with productive output, minus 10% to keep the Poles in-line.
The European Commission has cut its forecast for economic growth in the eurozone this year. It has cut its prediction for the 19-country bloc in 2016 to 1.7% from the 1.8% it had forecast in November. That figure would still mark a moderate increase from the figure of 1.6% in 2015. The Commission said government spending had been unexpectedly high because of the number of migrants arriving in Europe, which had boosted GDP. But it warned that the crisis posed "major political challenges" that could undercut growth if not properly handled. And vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis said: "Europe's moderate growth is facing increasing headwinds, from slower growth in emerging markets such as China, to weak global trade and geopolitical tensions in Europe's neighborhood." "It is important to continue structural reforms that can help our economies grow, withstand shocks in the future and improve job opportunities for our population." The Commission cut its inflation forecast for this year from 1.0% to 0.5%, even further below the European Central Bank's target of about 2%. Consumer prices fell by 0.3% in 2015, largely as a result of the fall in energy prices.
The US dollar has suffered one of the sharpest drops in 20 years as the Federal Reserve signals a retreat from monetary tightening, igniting a powerful rally for commodities and easing a ferocious squeeze on dollar debtors in China and emerging markets. The closely-watched dollar index (DXY) has fallen 3pc this week to 96.44 and given up all its gains since late October. This has instant effects on the world’s inter-connected financial system, today more geared to the US exchange rate and Fed policy than at any time in modern history. David Bloom, from HSBC, said the blistering dollar rally of the past three years is largely over and may go into reverse as weak economic figures in the US force the Fed to pare back four rate rises loosely planned for this year. A more dovish Fed and a weaker dollar is a bitter-sweet turn for the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank as they try to push down their currencies to stave off deflation. Their task has become even harder. The euro has rocketed by more than 3pc this week to $1.12 against the dollar. In trade-weighted terms the euro is 5pc higher than it was in March, when the ECB began quantitative easing, showing just how difficult it has become for authorities to drive down their exchange rates. Everybody is playing the same game. Global recession is now a certainty. The only question is how soon? For the Europe, it spells Armageddon. Once the housing bubble bursts and those 2 million zero hours minimum wage service sector jobs disappear very rapidly, a Sterling crisis, bank bust and we have to beg for an IMF bailout will rapidly follow.
What a shock. Listening to the news this morning it was clear to me that Shell has done slightly better than expected and the market was happy. In fact Shell is up 60 this morning. Imagine my surprise when I read the "shock horror" headline, and this from a, so called, Business Reporter. Not having read the accounts I am assuming that the "exceptional items" include a great deal of write downs which of course do not affect the cash position. More information and less hyperbole would have been helpful. Royal Dutch Shell has become the latest victim of the oil price rout after it confirmed 10,000 jobs would be axed amid its sharpest decline in income in 13 years. Pummelled by low crude prices, income for the year slumped 87pc to $1.9bn. The oil major said earnings on a current cost of supplies basis, its preferred way of measuring profits, tumbled 56pc in the final three months of 2015 to $1.8bn, compared to $4.2bn in the previous year. The torrid quarter took its toll on the Anglo-Dutch group, dragging its full-year profit from $19bn in 2014 to $3.8bn - an 80pc fall. Excluding exceptional items, profits for the year came in marginally below market expectations at $10.7bn. Earnings in Shell's upstream business - which seeks out and produces oil - were hindered by “the significant decline in oil and gas prices”, the group said. Ben van Beurden, chief executive, said: “We are making substantial changes in the company reorganising our upstream, and reducing costs and capital investment, as we refocus Shell, and respond to lower oil prices”.
A senior Romanian government source, who also insisted on anonymity, added: “We are analysing this proposal. Changes like this have been considered a red line for us until now so we are debating what to do and how to react.” He said Romania would “not want to be the one blocking a compromise which would lead to Britain leaving the EU. But we have to analyse whether it passes our red line.” Some commentators argued that eastern Europe should swallow welfare cuts for a greater good. “In the case of a Brexit, the EU would be weakened, economically but also politically towards Russia … and more focused on the euro, which would be of detriment to countries (such as Poland) that have not adopted the single currency,” Tomasz Bielecki argued in the liberal Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza. “For that reason, the government … needs to be willing to compromise on the question of migrant workers. It is better to forego certain benefits than face Brexit.”... Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, said Warsaw – a vocal opponent of any measures that might discriminate against its citizens working in Britain – broadly approved of measures to strengthen sovereignty and bolster EU members’ ability to stop legislation, but was looking carefully at the proposal to suspend in-work benefits for migrant workers. “This is a preliminary deal; let us see how the negotiations unfold,” Duda told the TVP Info news channel. “But free movement of workers and services is a fundamental value of the EU. There is a clause saying that in the case of a sudden influx of wage migrants, some benefits could be curbed. We will see what the interpretation [of the clause] is.”..The European council president Donald Tusk’s plan, which must be accepted by all 28 EU member states, seeks to address Britain’s demand for reforms to stem immigration and boost British sovereignty. It includes welfare reforms that are controversial in several east European countries, including Poland, which have sizeable populations of migrant workers in the UK. The Polish foreign minister, Witold Waszczykowski, told a press conference with his Hungarian counterpart on Wednesday that both countries aimed to present a joint statement on the UK reform package in Budapest on Monday. While sentiment towards the proposal was generally positive, Waszczykowski said, and “we share the UK’s push to respect the will of sovereign countries more, we must not see any solutions that discriminate against some groups of people”. Up to 1.3 million Poles are thought to live in Britain.
The f*cking psychopaths running our economies are hellbent on leading us to war. We should have put the whole establishment against the wall in 08 when we still had some power. Now they will be putting us all up against the wall. As I said it will be a miracle if this decade doesn't end with a major conflict. All of the financial world is hocus pocus and the digital age was the ultimate magic wand to send it in overdrive. It's all bullshit and we all know it. Yet these financial wizards, these insincere quacks preach at the high altar of capitalism and we are forced to take their mass. Our politicians sit at the front row of this mass and nod their heads like obedient dogs. Anybody who votes for the mainstream political parties is a vote for this corrupt Kabbala. Mainstream parties always belittle the fringe parties as incompetent nutjobs followed by the media who always paint them as unviable. More importantly they the establishment always cynically point out that there is no point voting for a small party by stating they will have no impact on the stream of general opinion. We are all doomed by our feckless complacency...eat the shit of the 'celeb age'whilst we rob you of everything. The greatest freedom the liberals have won for us is the freedom to be ignorant of the reality which betrays us.
Frankfurt, Germany • European Central Bank head Mario Draghi says some eurozone banks "face challenges" but that the system is more resilient due to oversight that was strengthened after the global financial crisis. Draghi said Monday that thanks to new supervision at the European Union level, banks were in a position to bring down the amount of bad loans burdening their finances "in an orderly manner over the next few years." His comments in the European Parliament follow a week of violent swings in the stock prices of major European banks including Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale. Draghi said some banks faced challenges from litigation and restructuring costs as well as working off soured investments. The recent sharp drops in stock prices reflected fears banks might be exposed to risks in commodity producing markets, companies and countries. Commodity prices have dropped amid fears about the health of the global economy. Draghi said the situation was "amplified" by perceptions that banks may have difficulty adjusting to an economy with lower growth and lower interest rates. Low interest rates, in part the result of central bank policies, have squeezed bank earnings by narrowing the difference between the rate at which they borrow and the rate at which they lend.
The European Commission has cut its forecast for economic growth in the eurozone this year. It has cut its prediction for the 19-country bloc in 2016 to 1.7% from the 1.8% it had forecast in November. That figure would still mark a moderate increase from the figure of 1.6% in 2015. The Commission said government spending had been unexpectedly high because of the number of migrants arriving in Europe, which had boosted GDP. But it warned that the crisis posed "major political challenges" that could undercut growth if not properly handled. And vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis said: "Europe's moderate growth is facing increasing headwinds, from slower growth in emerging markets such as China, to weak global trade and geopolitical tensions in Europe's neighborhood." "It is important to continue structural reforms that can help our economies grow, withstand shocks in the future and improve job opportunities for our population." The Commission cut its inflation forecast for this year from 1.0% to 0.5%, even further below the European Central Bank's target of about 2%. Consumer prices fell by 0.3% in 2015, largely as a result of the fall in energy prices.
