Greece’s radical former prime minister Alexis Tsipras returned to office on Sunday night after his far-left Syriza party won a clear victory in Greece’s general election.  Despite a tepid campaign that saw Mr Tsipras’s personal popularity fall sharply, preliminary results showed the 41-year-old’s far-left Syriza party had won sufficient seats to form a coalition government in the coming days.

After a tight race, Syriza ran out comfortable winners, with initial projections showing them falling only five or six seats short of the 151 seats needed to govern. Greece's centre-right Independent Greeks confirmed they would again team up with Mr Tsipras, continuing their eight month coalition which is on course for a total of 155 seats. Terence Quick, a spokesman for the nationalist party (Anel) told The Telegraph that his party would form a coalition with Mr Tsipras. "Tsipras will be the PM and we will be the guarantee of stability," he said on the sidelines of a victory rally in Klafomonos Square in Athens.

THE ONLY HOPE  FOR GREECE IS TO LEAVE THE eu AND SCRAP THE EURO !!!!...
Once again I have to look at the Syrzia and ask 'What the hell was the point of this?' They were the ones that called for this election. My head is still trying to wrap itself around their ridiculous referendum. "We won't accept this deal. Vote no!" (all the while hinting that it would mean leaving the EU) ... "Okay, you voted no. We've turned downed that deal and accepted one that was much worse" (all because their floundering and referendum made the situation worse)
Its like they can't act with out approval from else where.

“The real pr0blem Despite the incessant jawboning to the contrary by Fed and central bank mouthpieces - who under an honest system would be charged with currency manipulation - there is zero possibility of a rate rise. You can't taper a Ponzi scheme, and central bankers are not about to give up their most effective tools for asset-stripping the 99% and transferring their wealth to the .1% in the financial sector. The City of London and Wall Street must keep luring in new suckers and new money, and since the supply of Greater Fools is running out and the retail investor herd is starting to get spooked, the Fed has no option but to maintain ZIRP. Moreover, it will need to print new trillions in QE4/helicopter money and shower them on its TBTF banker cohorts to keep the Ponzi levitated long enough to lure in the last of the retail bag-holders before the pump & dump. So on Thursday Yellen will announce continued ZIRP and foreshadow a new round of "stimulus." No other outcome is possible. The con game is becoming more brazen even as people are finally waking up and rejecting the crony capitalist status quo, as seen by the meteoric rise of anti-establishment political contenders in the US and UK. problem isn’t what the Fed may do, but the ultimately unavoidable consequences of what the Fed has already done. The cost of reckless Fed-induced yield seeking will likely be felt first in the financial markets as  previous paper gains evaporate, while defaults on excessive low-quality covenant-lite credit will emerge over the course of the economic cycle, and the  impact of investment will be to limit productivity and economic growth over the longer run. This is all rather inevitable except in the eyes of those who haven’t watched and memorized a dozen adaptations of the same movie…my view is that activist Fed policy is both ineffective and reckless (and the historical data bears this out), and that the Federal Reserve has pushed the financial markets to a precipice from which no gentle retreat is ultimately likely. Similar precipices, such as 1929 and 2000, and even lesser precipices like 1906, 1937, 1973 and 2007 have always had unfortunate endings... A quarter-point hike will not cause anything. The causes are already baked in the cake. A rate hike may
be a trigger with respect to timing, but that’s all. History suggests we should place our attention on valuations and market internals in any event.”

Federal Reserve meeting: Will US interest rates rise, and should they? -- Well they should and years go, but they wont, unless the Fed is ready to crash the dollar now?, keeps moving the goalpost, that was all signed and sealed and in the plans in 2010, with Obama using the many executive orders he creates to bypass the normal route, like every other day, which Dave is now partaking in, in full swing too, but first lets create tensions between whole nations, bomb a few before we do, we can blame it all on that, having the solution already up their selves, like before WW1, that's your Bankers who pull all the strings via their creations the UN, EU/EURO NATO, CFR, the works basically, their system/web, the politician's are brought and paid long before they hit any public office anywhere in the world, and tend to have strong family ties, but anyone who goes against their grain, either is made to look a fool, hounded, or snuffed out, so they are greedy and scared and the agendas carry on, the facts are it's all about the creation of a global system that they want to be controlling 100% , money, food, water, energy , every last nook and cranny, and its very close to completion, they really do think they are Gods of the Earth, no their sociopath's with the means, people just need to wake up to the facts, you see the real wealth is in our labour, all these taxes and fines people around the world endure is there for only one purpose, their pockets, we all have a legal fiction, which in corporate law is always guilty, cause the queen and anyone serving her takes their oaths to uphold common law, so every last one of them is committing treason on mass day in day out, debt is money today, they don't loan anything they have that you and I make payments on, they make it up as they go along, which clearly they knew was unsustainable ever since the formation of the Fed a 100 yrs ago, root system starting at the BoE's door in 1694, that's how long we've been taken for fools, we need to remove the central banks role of being in charge of the money supply, the politician's should be the creators of a country's wealth interest free, it's how they used to operate before it was corrupted.  We Are Going To Kill The US Dollar says Obama Administration....

The UN warned that failure to agree on a united response to the crisis endangered the concept of European unity. Peter Sutherland, the UN’s special representative on international migration, said: “If there is no agreement to share refugees between the countries of the European Union, it risks undermining the very essence of the European project.”Europe’s biggest refugee crisis in 70 years atomized into a chaotic series of border confrontations and diplomatic disputes this weekend, as crowds of refugees were blocked from passing through a number of crossings in central Europe, prompting the UN to warn that the concept of European unity was at risk.  Hungary sent armored vehicles to its border with Croatia, while Slovenian police sealed several crossings after Croatia attempted to offload tens of thousands of refugees who are using it as an alternative entry point to the European Union. Croatian policemen accompanying hundreds of migrants into Hungary were disarmed by their Hungarian counterparts and turned away, while Slovenian police used pepper spray to ward off hundreds, mostly Syrians and Afghans, trying to cross to reach the countries of northern Europe.  The chaos had been sparked by Hungary’s decision to shut off its southern border with Serbia, blocking a well-trodden refugee railroad that has brought more than 170,000 refugees into the EU since the start of the year. .. Cultural differences. When there is a crisis, Austria, Germany, France, Holland, Italy, Belgium, Sweden all talk to each other and try to solve the problem together. Whereas Eastern Europe starts a bitching war amongst each other. Old EU and the new kids in it. Not sure it was wise to take them in. Not only do they only cost money, they also start beating each other up. Maybe just suspend them for 10 years from the EU until they have grown up?

The Federal Reserve declined to raise interest rates from their record low of near-zero on Thursday, citing concerns that the still fragile world economy may “restrain economic activity” and further drag down already low inflation.  While some economists had expected a rate rise – the first since 2006 – recent stock market turmoil in China and fears that a slowdown in the world’s second largest economy could dampen the global economy appear to have put off the decision for now.  Janet Yellen, the Fed chair, said the central bank had maintained the federal funds rate at 0-0.25% – where it has been since the 2008 financial crisis – because of “heightened concerns” about a sharp slowdown in China and lower-than-desired inflation.  She said the US recovery from “the great recession” meant that there was an argument to be made for increasing rates – and the bank’s poliycmakers had that argument today – but in the end they still needed more evidence that there was a sustained global recovery. The Federal Reserve was not expected to pull the trigger on an interest rate rise until next year in the wake of a global stock market sell-off triggered by economic turmoil in China.  The US central bank held fire on its first rates rise in more than nine years as it admitted on Thursday night that “uncertainties abroad” had made it more risky to tighten policy.  A slump in equities over the past month, sparked by fears over the strength of China’s economy, “may restrain economic activity”, it warned. The Fed’s policymakers said that this could put “downward pressure on inflation in the near term”.   “We’ve long expected some slowing in Chinese growth over time, as they rebalance their economy,” Fed chair Janet Yellen said. “The question is whether there might be the risk of a more abrupt slowdown than we expect.”   Yippeee! Free money forever. It always works, printing, borrowing, spending. Every time. Everywhere. No fear. Borrow away. Low or no interest. I'll have to check, but I believe I posted on the day that QE1 was launched that once you start down the road of 'Stimulating' the economy with ZIRP and QE it is impossible to stop. However - and this is the kicker - just like the Weimar experience, by the time the 'Serious people' come to accept that their clever, clever schemes are not working, it is too late.

Rudy von Havenstein wasn't stupid, he didn't look at the hyperinflation of the mark and do nothing because he was dumb. He did it because for a long time his policies produced no significant inflation and indeed appeared to be working. By the time his folly became clear he could not stop without triggering an immediate collapse.  Seems familiar, somehow.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has cut its inflation and growth forecasts for 2015 and the next two years.  It expects inflation in the eurozone to remain "very low" for some years as threats to economic growth increase.  ECB president Mario Draghi said Europe's economic recovery would continue, "albeit at a somewhat weaker pace than expected".  The euro fell sharply as Mr Draghi also hinted that the bank could expand its stimulus programme if necessary.  He was speaking after the ECB kept its main interest rate on hold at 0.05%.  The ECB is now forecasting economic growth in the eurozone of 1.4% in 2015, down from 1.5%, and 1.7% in 2016, compared with its previous projection of 1.9%.   However, Mr Draghi said that risks to the outlook for economic growth and inflation had worsened since mid-August, when the latest projections were calculated.  "Lower commodity prices, a stronger euro, somewhat lower growth, have increased the risk to a sustainable path of inflation towards 2%," he told a news conference in Frankfurt.  The euro fell sharply following Mr Draghi's comments, dropping a cent against the dollar to $1.1127. He also admitted that inflation could turn negative in the coming months. The bank expected inflation to be 0.1% for 2015, rising to 1.5% in 2016 and 1.7% in 2017, dampened by lower energy prices.  The ECB made no change to its bond-buying programme, but Mr Draghi said it could be extended beyond its planned conclusion in September 2016 if necessary.

The Federal Reserve could raise interest rates for the first time since 2006 at this week's meeting Wednesday and Thursday. A debate is raging whether this would be the right time to do it. Economic growth has been slow and jobs growth has lagged. Leaders from The World Bank to the International Monetary Fund to former Treasury secretary Larry Summers have publicly asked the Fed to hold off on the first rate hike in the face of a sluggish global economy and plummeting commodities prices. Of course traditional thinking is that lower oil and gasoline prices will ultimately help consumers and encourage them to spend more money which will lead to economic growth. But we have yet to see that happen. So I turned to one of my favorite independent research analysts: Stephen Schork who writes The Schork Report, and got a dreadful picture of the global economy. He says the drop in commodities is critical because it is a sure sign of a recession on the way. Our interview follows, edited for length and clarity...The Fed has painted itself into a corner. Just from a credibility standpoint, it's probably a better than 50% chance that they do raise rates. But I think that obviously is going to add a further blast to economic growth going forward. The biggest takeaway here is that commodities don't lead economies. Economies lead commodities. And falling commodity prices are a big telltale for us all.