The “will they, won’t they” saga over European economic stimulus continues. Analysts are divided over whether the European Central Bank will announce a bigger boost for the struggling economies of the eurozone at its monthly meeting on Thursday.  The ECB is already buying asset-backed securities (bundles of bonds) in an attempt to stimulate lending, but many economists would like to see some more aggressive stimulus to pull the eurozone out of its current economic morass. Figures released last Friday revealed that unemployment in the 18-country currency zone is stuck at 11.5%. In Italy the jobless count has risen to 13.2%, while in Greece and Spain, a quarter of the working population is out of work. But Jens Weidmann, the ECB’s hawk-in-chief, said that central banks didn’t have “an Aladdin’s lamp that you just have to rub to make all wishes come true”, dampening hopes that the bank might announce a full-blown quantitative easing programme next week. The head of the ECB, Mario Draghi, is likely to step up his calls for further economic reform within troubled eurozone countries. In a speech last week he warned that lack of reform could create a permanent divergence within the currency union, which would have “potentially damaging consequences for us all”... In reality, the central bankers (guided by anonymous stockholders) and their "paid for" puppet politicians have managed in a few years to turn all of Europe into a nightmare mirror image of the USA! They have torn up the social safety nets, wreaked havoc on economies, brought in cheap labor from third-world countries, created homelessness and unemployment, destroyed small business, manipulated currency and stock markets, expanded the dangerous drug trade, child porn, and on and on. Club Med's economy is in "the toilet" thanks to the central bank owners - and now the vulture bastards are making money off of the "bones" of dying countries like Greece! Presumably the BoE, the FED and the ECB - disguised as governmental agencies - are there to regulate the banking industry? That's like asking a coke addict to regulate the amount of cocaine coming out of Columbia!  Minimum wage, temporary jobs and wild speculation in the markets have replaced “real growth” while central banks such as the BoE, the FED, the IMF and the FED-backed ECB have created “A sow’s ear from a silk purse” when it comes to the major and minor economies of the civilized world:

1. Austerity in Europe has halted growth and is destroying ClubMed ***

2. Control by Signor Draghi and other Goldman Sach’s henchmen in Brussels prohibit fair referendums in Europe

3. When the Fed so much as hints about an exit from stimulation, the world's stock markets begin to panic

4. Japan's desperate stimulus plus devaluation is already looking fragile with major buying attacks on the Yen

5. QE hasn't had any lasting economic effect in the USA or Great Britain

6. Negative Flash PMI data from China along with uncertainty about the US Federal Reserve’s bond-buying program saw Russian stocks slump

7. The ECB forced German central banks to bear the brunt of the bailouts – thus depleting taxpayer’s savings, having weaker nations blame Germany for the austerity, and destroying Germany’s export markets!

It is time to open central banking books for two overall reasons: either they are totally incompetent imbeciles or this depression is being orchestrated for financial gain and control of sovereign nations. Whatever the answer may be, banking officials need to be reviewed by independent government panels and then removed for crimes against humanity.

After all, these bankers have steeled themselves to loss of life and livelihood for generations – the rest of us need to steel ourselves to getting rid of them pronto before their scheme for ultimate control is finalized. For a start, fair referendums need to be allowed in all EU nations for an end to this “Euro Madness” and a return to individual currencies printed directly by government treasuries.

European stocks tumbled after Mario Draghi, head of the eurozone's central bank, failed to give a concrete sign that it would undertake sovereign quantitative easing following a highly-anticipated policy meeting.  Spain’s IBEX index fell as much as 1.5pc, the FTSE MIB dropped as much as 1.6pc and both Germany’s DAX and London’s FTSE 100 slid 0.4pc after Mr Draghi said the European Central Bank (ECB) would reassess the impact of existing economic stimulus measures “early next year” .  The euro also climbed on signs that Mr Draghi was in no hurry to inject further stimulus. It climbed as high as $1.24, having fleetingly touched a two-year low as the ECB President began to speak.  He said: “Should it become necessary to further address risks of too prolonged a period of low inflation, the Governing Council remains unanimous in its commitment to using additional unconventional instruments within its mandate.”   At the same time, the ECB slashed its forecasts for Eurozone growth. The economy is now expected to grow by 0.8 pc this year, 1pc next year and 1.5pc in 2016.   As expected, the bank did not cut rates, with the main refinancing rate staying at an all-time low of 0.05pc and the deposit rate at -0.2pc. ... In order to drag the Euro Zone out of the economic mire more than 5 billion Euros of QE is required. This is never, never, never going to happen! The most likely outcome for the Euro Zone is a prolonged period of disinflation\deflation. We are going to import Euro Zone deflation, it is already here, visit your local Lidl supermarket and check out the prices.... The press conference ended with Draghi slapping down the idea that a sovereign QE program  would be illegal.  "Not to pursue our mandate would be illegal, he replies."  Hi Ho Hi Ho it's off to court we go!  Further his comments that QE did not even need a majority vote will infuriate AFD and perhaps many more in Germany.  Can't wait for the German court to rule on this after the ECJ return their answer to the German court's question.  Maybe Draghi assumes that QE is ultra vires and is just 'talking the talk' to calm things down until the legal reality come known. After all, his dubious but famous 'do what ever it takes' comment, also awaits the same determination, but no one can deny the fact that his 'talk' saved the EU (or the €) at that time.... Mario has slashed growth predictions to almost to no growth - 0.8% in 2015. The revised down numbers for 2016, 2017 barely matter.   I do not think Mario has any effective measures he can undertake. The till says 'NO SALE'.  TLTRO uptake will be risible in a few days time and in those countries where it is just a giggle, the carry trade will be used to Botox bank balance sheets and not to lend to the private sector, so no consumer demand incentive there.   ABS - is he sure there are any, or enough assets to act as collateral for the balance sheet the ECB has got to have to become a lender of last resort in a non-growth €Z.   Sovereign bonds are almost a joke, especially as, if wrong will accept correction, he has to buy in some form of national proportionality. Germany first, France second, Italy third, Spain (perhaps not too bad) fourth.  More currency. Well he'd better pick the right nations to do it to unless he wants intra-euro capital flows in the shoots of spring.   Mario seems to have no means of exciting any consumer demand left so that export items can be bought or supply chain imports purchased to unblock this incestuous, nigh protectionist, 'single market' trading circle that all 18 highly divergent economies are monolithically, irrespectively and overly locked into because of the misshapen bairn hatched out of Brusstraslux.  I suspect there is an acceptance of a long period of deflation and non-FDI, not that the imperial court in Brusstraslux could care and the only measures we will see are the arraignment of taxpayers savings, pensions and a whole plague of new taxes. 'Cypress' will be the new funding source. Hopefully the last gasp but it will be a very long one.

Everyone came to realize that efforts to deepen Ukraine's ties with the EU had failed. But no one at the time was fully aware of the consequences the failure would have: that it would lead to one of the world's biggest crises since the end of the Cold War; that it would result in the redrawing of European borders; and that it would bring the Continent to the brink of war. It was the moment Europe lost Russia.  For Ukraine, the failure in Vilnius resulted in disaster. Since its independence in 1991, Ukraine has strived to orient itself towards the EU while at the same time taking pains to ensure that those actions don't damage its relations with Moscow. The choice between West and East, which both Brussels and Moscow have forced Kiev to make, has had devastating consequences for the fragile country.  But the impact of that fateful evening in Vilnius goes far beyond Ukraine's borders. Some 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and almost 70 years after the end of World War II, Europe is once again divided. The estrangement between the Russians and the Europeans is growing with Moscow and the West more inimical toward each other today than during the final phase of the Cold War. It's a reality that many in Europe have long sought to ignore. The story of the run-up to Vilnius is one filled with errors in judgment, misunderstandings, failures and blind spots. It is a chronicle of foreign policy failure foretold -- on all sides. Russia underestimated the will of Ukrainians to steer their country toward the EU and was overly confident in its use of its political power over Kiev as a leverage.  For its part, the EU had negotiated a nearly 1,000-page treaty, but officials in Brussels hadn't paid close enough attention to the realities of those power politics. Even in Berlin, officials for too long didn't take Russian concerns -- about the encroachment of NATO and the EU into Eastern Europe -- seriously enough. The idea that Moscow might be prepared to use force to prevent a further expansion of the Western sphere of influence didn't seem to register with anyone.

With the special role it plays and the special responsibility it has for Europe, the meltdown also represented a failure for Germany. Foreign policy has long been considered one of Chancellor Angela Merkel's greatest strengths, but even she ignored the warning signs. Merkel has proven herself over the years to be a deft mediator who can defuse tensions or work out concrete solutions. But crisis management alone is not enough for good foreign policy. Missing in this crisis was a wider view and the ability to recognize a conflict taking shape on the horizon. Instead, officials in Berlin seemed to believe that because nobody wanted conflict, it wouldn't materialize.

Merkel did say at the summit that, "The EU and Germany have to talk to Russia. The Cold War is over." But the insight came too late.

Reasons why oil prices are dropping:

1. 1. Obama is against Keystone XL because he wants the oil to be still in the ground when his Islam take over Canada and the United State.
2. 2. As long as prices stay high in the U.S. the people will keep DEMANDING that Obama approve of the Keystone XL. Only a large oil country like Saudi Arabia could solve that problem by se; omg oil to the U.S. at much lower prices, which they are doing.
3. 3. When the gasoline and heating oil prices drop to a reasonable amount to quiet the public. the drop will stop and remain constant for a long period during which time the Islamic terrorists will get their attacks moving on a large scale to take over Canada and the U.S..
4. 4. At the point when both Canada and the U.S. are taken over then the Islamic terrorists will have no one to capture except other Islamic countries; which will surely happen.
5. 5. However, I do not think that the Islamic terrorists will succeed in taking over Canada and the U.S. and I think the suicidal efforts will fail to capture and in the meantime many other Islamic captives will begin a world-wide rebellion and Islam will be done for 10,000 years....
6. In order for the U.S. economy to continue with the Fed’s goal of 2% inflation moving forward, Americans need to start spending more money. The strategy of low interest rates to stimulate the housing market and consumer spending has exhausted.  With QE coming to an end, what’s left to stimulate the American economy?
7. As the holiday season nears next month, oil prices continue to fall, with global oil prices posting a fifth consecutive weekly loss. Is it simply a coincidence that oil’s decline has come on the heels of the end of QE?  Is it possible for the United States to manipulate the price of oil to further stimulate growth?

Auditors have identified a black hole in European Union budgets that could lead to extra demands for cash from the British taxpayer of up to £34billion over the next six years.

David Cameron will be legally obliged to make up a share of a shortfall of £259billion by 2020 with liabilities for the Treasury estimated at £33.7bn, calculated at the usual rate of Britain’s EU contributions.  The hole in EU spending has been identified by the European Court of Auditors and represents a political disaster for the Prime Minister who has made after repeated pledges to bring down the amount Britain pays into Brussels budgets.  In a special report earlier this week, EU auditors identified the sum in outstanding bills for legally binding spending commitments made by the European Commission over the last four years. “Assuming that commitments will not be de-committed, and we don’t see how most of them could, it might be problematic to get this money from member states to finance the expenditure foreseen,” Igor Ludborzs, an EU auditor, told the Euractiv website. The shortfall is known in Brussels jargon as “reste à liquider”, or “outstanding amount” and, while Britain has a veto on going above the maximum payment cap, national contributions are still expected to reach record highs.  Hitting the ceiling would push British EU contributions to above £13billion a year over the next six years, higher that the previous record high £11.3bn paid into Brussels coffers last year.

“If the EU spends right up to the payment ceiling, as now seems to be likely, that means that national contributions will go up,” said an official. Implicitly conceding that contributions could increase, British officials said that the “bottom line” would be ensuring that spending did not go above the payment ceiling, negotiated at a historically low level by Mr Cameron last year. “We’re making sure that the EU sticks to the budget limit that the Prime Minister successfully negotiated last year, and which is crucial to controlling the cost of the EU to Britain,” said a diplomat. “The figure from the European Court of Auditors does not affect the ceiling in the current long term EU budget.”

I have found that sometimes the more unlikely scenarios are the ones that actually pan out to be true. We don't know how big the world population would get,how many new emerging economies would come online, How much oil and gas would be discovered, technology that would limit oil use would come online.  Sometimes we say something because we so desire that result. Sometimes we say something because we actually believe what we say. Either way our thoughts are meaningless things are going to happen the way their going to happen whether we can see what would be a possible factor or not.  We simply dealing with too many variables which makes a myriad of future possibilities true.  Based on all the press, comments oil prices could drop below $30 a barrel or go above $150 a barrel. People who are predicting what the future would be like are fools. No one knows what's going to happen in the future.  We don't know which factors would become important and which ones would be nothing more than ghost threats. It's a fact up to 2003 that oil prices were in their 20s and the expectation was for them to stay at that price or lower.  No one ever expected the emerging markets China, India and other new markets to grow as fast as they did. Setting in place the current regime of prices far above $20 a barrel ever since. Also all prices by the late 70s were expected to be near extinction by now.  Yet we seem to have more oil than ever to handle the worlds population that has grown by almost 50% since.  So predicting the future for prices of oil and who would be a big player and who would slip into insignificance is impossible to say. None of us can see the future. I guess with inability to do so. We just have to sit back and see what this crazy and wild ride called life brings us... It wouldn’t be the first time that a meeting of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) has taken place in an atmosphere of deep division, bordering on outright hatred. In 1976, Saudi Arabia’s former oil minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani stormed out of the Opec gathering early when other members of the cartel wouldn’t agree to the wishes of his new master, King Khaled.  The 166th meeting of the group in Vienna next week is looking like it could end in a similarly acrimonious fashion with Saudi Arabia and several other members at loggerheads over what to do about falling oil prices.   Whatever action Opec agrees to take next week to halt the sharp decline in the value of crude, experts agree that one thing is clear: the world is entering into an era of lower oil prices that the group is almost powerless to change. 

This new energy paradigm may result in oil trading at much lower levels than the $100 (£64) per barrel that consumers have grown used to paying over the last decade and reshape the entire global economy.  It could also trigger the eventual break-up of Opec, the group of mainly Middle East producers, which due to its control of 60pc of the world’s petroleum reserves has often been accused of acting like a cartel.

Swiss elections, gold, currency and such...

With the prospect of the ECB engaging in full-blown quantitative easing in the coming months, it is possible that the SNB will have to buy up more euros to keep it above the 1.20 franc cap. If this were to be the case, a vote in favor of the “Save Our Swiss Gold” campaign would have meant further gold purchases to maintain the 20pc quota. The sales ban would mean gold making up an increasing proportion of the central bank’s balance sheet when it attempts to shrink its euro holdings.  "The resolute ‘no’ to Switzerland’s referendum on re-building its gold reserves is clearer than expected," said Reto  Foellmi, Professor of International Economics at the University of St Gallen. "The result is certainly due to the fact that the Swiss population is largely confident in the monetary policy pursued by the Swiss National Bank.   "It sends a clear sign that there will be no immediate change in Swiss monetary policy."   Recent opinion polls predicted that the motion would be defeated, but the price of gold may fall further on Sunday’s confirmation.  Voters also strongly rejected strict limits on immigration that could have threatened Switzerland's relationship with the EU, as well as voting against tax privileges enjoyed by wealthy foreigners.   I note the US Treasury released a statement last Wednesday afternoon revealing that they had been forced to issue $1,040,965,000,000 in new debt since fiscal 2015 started just eight weeks ago in order to raise the money to pay off Treasury securities that were maturing and to cover new deficit spending by the government. I don’t know how long this international printing money out of thin air (Ponzi Scheme) can go on for, but the Swiss vote notwithstanding, I’m keeping my pile of gold sovereigns safely tucked up in my mattress...  Gold is mostly a speculative bubble. It's intrinsic value is marginal compared to what it is traded at. The value of Gold largely depends upon the whim of the people who like to own it and the amount of disposable money they possess .If you notice today huge swathes of Indians and Chinese are buying gold. They are only buying because of increased disposable wealth they are generating due to actual economic activity and growth. If that economic activity ceases - gold will lose its value pretty fast.  The situation was the same in ancient times - when kings and local warlords had excess disposable wealth. Those tiny group of people drove gold demand. Today more people are driving the demand - all thanks to increased economic activity. If the world economy collapses gold value will also collapse along with it.  Gold value depends on economic activity. If economy grows - the value of gold increases. Or else your gold is only worth the eye of the beholder - glitter. You cannot eat it, nor can make any tools out of it.