France must reform its labour rules. The Unions must be tamed. The 35 hr week is nonsense. And employers must be allowed to hire and fire - mobility of labour is imperative. The only way economies can be rescued is by relaxing labour rules and by encouraging employers and would be employers to take on more workers - but the regulations must be permanent. If more people are in employment, social security payments will be reduced, income taxes will rise, overall production will rise and the voters will feel more content. Do not allow Unions to dictate nor politicians who buy votes by promising more entitlements. Many people will inevitably vote for freebies but politicians need to be responsible....The 35-hour limit to the working week, regardless of who you are and what you do (except of course M. Hollande, who has much more important things to do and not enough time to do them in...) stems from the stupid left-wing idea that there is a finite amount of work to go around. It was introduced as a way of supposedly reducing unemployment by sharing this work around. This naivety is shared by lefties everywhere, and explains why health, education and other needs of society must be shared out equally. Hence the leftie hostility to buying a better education or private health care. In fact work creates work (ask any successful self-employed person). Being creative, whether it be widgets, services or arty-farty things generates the demand for further widgets, services and art-farty things, and more jobs, for as many hours as people are willing to work. The French have been unbelievably stupid in failing to see this, so it is no surprise that they have shot themselves in the foot and their economy is barely breathing. Mind you, this disease is not limited to the French; the UK has a healthy dose too. The mind boggles at what this nation of ours could achieve if government and the EU was not stifling enterprise with excessive taxes, rules and regulations.

The global insurance industry covered $21bn (£12.7bn) of losses from disasters in the first half of 2014 as fewer natural catastrophes kept claims below their long-term average. The total economic cost of disasters in the first six months was $44bn of which natural events made up $41bn, figures from Swiss Re, the world's second-biggest reinsurer, showed. More than 4,700 people were killed by natural disasters during the period. The figure for overall economic costs was down from $59bn a year ago and was less than half the first-half average of $94bn in the last decade. The $21bn total bill for insurance companies fell from $25bn in the first half of last year and a 10-year average of $27bn. Natural disasters made up $19bn of costs in the first six months of 2014 with manmade events accounting for another $2bn. Insurance losses hit a record of $116bn in 2011 with most of the losses in the first half when the Japanese earthquake cost the industry $35bn. The most costly insured events in the first half of this year were the $2.6bn bill for May's thunderstorms and hail in the US and $2.5bn each for storm Ela, which hit France, Germany and Belgium in June, and a Japanese snow storm in February. The freezing winter that slowed the US economy in January also hit the insurance industry with insured losses of $1.7bn out of total losses of $2.5bn. Heavy flooding caused $4.5bn of losses in Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia and other east European countries but the cost to insurers was "moderate" because of low takeup of insurance, Swiss Re said.

Rampant inflation is the reason for stock markets gains ...IT IS NOT A GOOD SIGN !

Stock markets buoyed by hopes of Ukraine ceasefire they say - in fact the rising stock markets means that "inflation is rampant"

Wall Street has opened higher and European stock markets have been buoyed by news of an apparent ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine said its president Petro Poroshenko had agreed steps towards a “ceasefire regime” with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, but the Kremlin denied a deal had been struck, creating confusion on the eve of a NATO summit.However, Putin later said his views and those of his Ukrainian counterpart on finding a political solution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine were “very close” and held out hope that an agreement between Kiev and the pro-Russian rebels could by reached by Friday.The FTSE 100 index in London is up nearly 60 points at 6888.67, a 0.9% gain; the Dax in Frankfurt is 135 points higher at 9641.98, a 1.4% rise; and France’s CAC has climbed nearly 50 points to 4428.11, a 1.1% increase.Russia’s dollar-denominated RTS index jumped 5.5% while the rouble-based Micex gained 3.6%. The rouble gained 1.9% against the dollar.

Thieves covering for thives ...

The executive board of the International Monetary Fund has expressed confidence in its managing director, Christine Lagarde, after receiving a briefing on a French corruption investigation.

In a brief statement, the 24-member board said it continued to have “confidence in the managing director’s ability to effectively carry out her duties”. Lagarde called the investigation “without basis” after answering questions before magistrates in Paris on Wednesday. She and her former chief of staff are facing questions about their role in an arbitration ruling that handed 400m euros ($531m) to the French businessman Bernard Tapie.

Tapie had sued the French bank Credit Lyonnais for its handling of the sale of his majority stake in the sportswear company Adidas in the mid-1990s. In its statement, the IMF board said, “It would not be appropriate to comment on a case that has been and is currently before the French judiciary.”

In her statement on Wednesday, Lagarde said that after three years of proceedings and dozens of hours of questioning, the court had found no evidence that she had done anything wrong and that the only remaining allegation “is that I was not sufficiently vigilant”.

She said she was returning to Washington and her work at the IMF.

Under French law, the action to put Lagarde under official investigation is equivalent to a preliminary charge, which means there is reason to suspect an infraction. Investigating judges can later decide to drop the case or issue a formal charge and send the matter to trial.

B.S. de jour from the western press .....

Leaders from the 28 Nato countries are expected to approve the plan at the alliance's summit in Wales when the Ukraine crisis tops the agenda on Friday. The Nato secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said the force, drawn on rotational basis from Nato allies, could be in action at "very, very short notice".

Rasmussen described it as a mixture of regular troops and special forces that could "travel light but strike hard". It would be supported by air and naval forces as needed. He declined to say how many troops would be engaged but Nato officials said it would number around 4,000 and would be expected to deploy to any alliance member country within 48 hours.. "It is so that we are ready should something nasty happen," a senior Nato official said. Russia is likely to view the creation of the high-readiness force as an aggressive move. Nato has struggled to find a response to Russia since the Ukraine crisis began in February, beyond increased military exercises in the Baltic states. One of the biggest criticisms of Nato's response to Russian actions has been its lack of speed and flexibility. The spearhead force does not help with the immediate crisis in Ukraine, which is facing Russian incursions in the east and south of the country. But the force might have a deterrent effect if Russia was considering destabilising the Baltic states. Since the annexation of the Crimean peninsula by Russia in March, Poland and other east European and Baltic state members of Nato have demanded the alliance take a more active and high-profile role in their defence. Other allies, however, have been wary of doing anything that might endanger a 1997 agreement with Moscow under which Nato pledged not to base substantial numbers of soldiers in eastern Europe on a permanent basis. Officials said that troops would be constantly rotated, in order not to violate the 1997 agreement. However, the constant rotation will in effect mean Nato will have a permanent presence in the Baltic states. Airfields and seaports in the region could also be upgraded to permit their use by the force, Rasmussen said. Officials said the creation of the force, formally named the high-readiness joint task force, had been triggered by the Ukrainian crisis and military planners have been working on it since. "Elements of the force should be in place by Christmas," an official said.

OECD: Advanced economies grew 0.4% in last quarter:  Growth has picked up in the world’s major developed economies, with the UK and US making up for the weakness of Japan and the eurozone.  That’s according to a new report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reports. It says GDP across the 33 countries who make up the OECD area rose by 0.4% in April-June, up from 0.2% in January-March.  There was “a wide spectrum of patterns across countries”, though. Real quarterly growth in the US surged by 1%, followed by Britain with 0.8%.  Japan contracted by 1.7% as a new sales tax hit spending, Germany shrank by 0.2% and France was flat.  Over to Greece where the debt-stricken country’s central bank has devised a new “code of ethics” to deal with the ever worsening problem of non performing loans.  It’s a problem that has mirrored Greece’s seemingly never ending debt crisis: the issue of non performing loans. With some 35% of all lender loans no longer being serviced, the country’s central bank reckons that an estimated €75bn in total is currently owed to banks, among the largest amounts in global financial history and for a nation off just over 11 million proportionately by far the largest in the EU. “It’s the biggest headache for our banking system and a major drain on our ability to provide credit,” said one banker requesting anonymity. “The new code has been a priority over the summer.” Ahead of EU-wide stress tests in October, Greece’s central bank has now devised a new code (yet to be fine-tuned) that reportedly allows ‘compromise solutions’ to be found for lenders and debtors.   Rubber-stamped by the Committee of Credit and Insurance Matters on Monday the code, say insiders, foresees “haircuts” being extended to loans, revisions on interest repayments, the conversion of mortgages into rental contracts and the voluntary return of properties to banks (a way for lenders not to be seen to be forcibly requisitioning assets). Foreclosures will be activated if mortgage borrowers are seen to be deliberately uncooperative - with the collapse of property prices many Greeks, hit by austerity measures, simply gave up on repayments as the crisis intensified.   “Such steps have been taken in other [EU] countries to handle non performing loans. Frankly we’ve dragged our feet. It’s in no one’s interest to have this hanging,” said the banker. “All round this should be a relief.”   Former finance minister Yannis Stournaras who assumed the post of governor of the bank of Greece earlier this summer, is believed to be pushing hard for the code of ethics to be applied before the stress tests later this year.   Bankers have not hidden their concerns that Greek lenders may need big capital injections to survive (despite huge injections received so far) following the tests.