Unnerved by the escalating sovereign debt crisis, American fund managers had viewed European stock markets as far too risky a proposition in recent years. But confidence in the region’s political stability and economic recovery has started to grow, and European stock markets climbed this year as US investors poured money into equities again.

“Clearly 2013 was the year when we saw large inflows from the US into Europe for the first time in several years and it has contributed to a significant expansion of equity valuations in Europe,” said Emmanuel Cau, an equity strategist at JPMorgan Cazenove. Data from Lipper showed that in the week ending Wednesday December 18, American funds investing in European shares saw a record 25th consecutive week of inflows.

“Investors have been much more comfortable with the tail risks in Europe,” Mr Cau said, adding that the process began in July 2012, when European Central Bank President Mario Draghi pledged to do “whatever it takes” to protect the euro.

Boosted by that revival in confidence, Germany’s DAX index has risen 25.5pc this year and hit record highs, the CAC 40 in France is up 18pc, Spain’s IBEX has gained 21.4pc and the Italian FTSE MIB has advanced 16.6pc.

PREDICTION - Jason Burke in Delhi FOR THE GUARDIAN...

No one doubts that 2014 will be another year of dramatic change in south Asia. Economies in India and its neighbours are struggling to create growth and jobs to satisfy hundreds of millions of young people. In Bangladesh, whatever the result of polls in January, the battle between Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia will continue to paralyse politics – and could hinder efforts to better conditions for workers in the country's vast garment industry.

In India, a general election in May – the biggest democratic exercise in history – will pit an ailing Congress party (led by the scion of the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty) against the Hindu nationalist opposition, whose candidate is the controversial Narendra Modi. There have been upsets before but all the indications are that the Congress party is in trouble. There is a huge list of outstanding issues – from major structural economic weaknesses to violence against women – to be dealt with by whoever gains power in May.

That task may be complicated by the aftermath of the US and Nato pull-out from Afghanistan. All that country's neighbours have a stake in the aftemath and will do whatever they need to protect their interests. In disputed Kashmir, 2013 saw an increase in clashes along the de facto border splitting the former kingdom between India and Pakistan. Violence is likely to worsen this coming year. There is likely to be trouble elsewhere in the mountains too, as Nepal tries yet again to find some kind of political stability.

Down in the Indian Ocean, President Mahinda Rajapaksa will seek to further bolster his hold on power and his popularity in Sri Lanka. Many in the Maldives will simply want calm. By the end of 2014, there will be plenty of others across this region who will share that wish.

In a letter to the Open Government Partnership, the inventor of the web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who collaborated with more than 100 free speech groups and leading activists condemns the hypocrisy of member nations of Open Government Partnership in signing up to an organisation which aims to preserve freedom while at the same time running one of the largest surveillance networks the world has ever seen. The organisations that have signed up include Oxfam, Privacy International and the Open Rights Group, and the individuals include Satbir Singh of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and Indian social activist Aruna Roy. The letter calls on member governments to overhaul their privacy laws, protect whistleblowers and increase the transparency around their surveillance mechanisms.

"We join other civil society organisations, human rights groups, academics and ordinary citizens in expressing our grave concern over allegations that governments around the world, including many OGP members, have been routinely intercepting and retaining the private communications of entire populations, in secret, without particularised warrants and with little or no meaningful oversight," the letter states.

"These practices erode the checks and balances on which accountability depends, and have a deeply chilling effect on freedom of expression, information and association, without which the ideals of open government have no meaning."

The letter underscores the difficulty the UK and USA have had in maintaining that countries like China and Iran should ease restrictions on the internet in the face of revelations from the NSA files that they themselves are intercepting private communications.

"Laws to limit the state’s power to spy on its citizens are fundamental to democracy’s checks and balances. But these laws are outdated," said Anne Jellema, the chief executive of the World Wide Web Foundation, which was founded by Berners-Lee to promote a free internet.

"With digital technologies making it trivially easy to collect and store billions of pieces of data on entire populations, and with public interest whistleblowers receiving little protection, the whole system of checks and balances on state power is being pushed dangerously close to breaking point," Jellema continued. "We are calling for an urgent public debate to review and strengthen the safeguards that will keep our societies open".

The Open Government Partnership was formed in 2011 to aid reformers committed to making their governments more accountable, open and responsive to citizens. The UK and USA were two of the first countries to join, and the partnership has since grown to include 62 nations from Australia to Mongolia.

When German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, a trained lawyer, announced an agreement on Wednesday night in Brussels on the long negotiated EU banking union, observers might have been left thinking that he is precisely this type of lawyer.

On paper, Schäuble and his negotiators are right about very many points. They succeeded in ensuring that in 2016, the Single Resolution Mechanism will go into effect alongside the European Union banking supervisory authority. The provision will mean that failing banks inside the euro zone can be liquidated in the future without requiring German taxpayers to cover the costs of mountains of debt built up by Italian or Spanish institutes.

They also backed the European Commission, which wanted to become the top decision-maker when it comes to liquidating banks. The Commission will now be allowed to make formal decisions, but only in close coordination with national ministers from the member states.

But it goes even farther. Negotiators from Berlin have also created an intergovernmental treaty, to be negotiated by the start of 2014, that they believe will protect Germany from any challenges at its Constitutional Court that might arise out of the banking union.

They also established a very strict "liability cascade" that will require bank shareholders, bond holders and depositors with assets of over €100,000 ($137,000) to cover the costs of a bank's liquidation before any other aid kicks in. The banks are also required to pay around €55 billion into an emergency fund over the next 10 years. Until that fund has been filled, in addition to national safeguards, the permanent euro bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism, will also be available for aid. However, any funds would have to be borrowed by a national government on behalf of banks, and that country would also be liable for the loan. This provision is expected to be in place at least until 2026.

The government in Berlin put a strong emphasis on preventing the ESM, with its billions in funding, from being used to recapitalize debt-ridden European banks. Schäuble was alone with this position during negotiations, completely isolating himself from the other 16 finance ministers from euro-zone countries. Brussels insiders report that it was "extremely unusual because normally at least a few countries share Germany's position."

BBC article ....short version

It was a banking crisis, in late 2011, that almost destroyed the eurozone - and would have done, if the European Central Bank hadn't weighed in with unprecedentedly cheap loans to struggling banks and a pledge to do "whatever it takes" to keep the monetary-union show on the road.

But the ECB's succour represented short-term emergency treatment, not the kind of long-term reforms that would succeed in breaking the vicious connection between bloated weak banks and individual sovereign states lacking the resources to bail out those weak banks.

Which is why the stakes were so high for the so-called "banking union" being created to accompany "monetary union" and - in particular - the creation of what is known as a "Single Resolution Mechanism", intended to minimise the collateral damage from bank failures.

A successful resolution system has to achieve two things when a bank gets into difficulties, if the damage to all our wealth is to be minimised - there needs to be speedy action to maintain the really essential functions of the bank, and the financial costs of propping up the good bits of the bank and quarantining the bad need to fall as little as possible on taxpayers.

So after all the fraught negotiation to create the Single Resolution Mechanism, will it meet those two criteria - or is it a traditional eurozone plate of fudge and mudge, a breakfast concoction fit primarily for canine consumption.

I shall let you to be the judge of that.

Russia's economy is now forecast to have grown in 2013 at less than half the pace expected at the start of the year and will perform only slightly better in 2014, weighed down by weak investment and tapering consumer demand.

A Reuters poll of 15 economists said that gross domestic product had risen just 1.4 percent this year, when last December they had predicted an expansion of 3.2 percent.

Economists are also more pessimistic about the economy's well being next year than the government, envisaging growth of 2 percent, against the Economy Ministry's forecast of 2.5 percent.

Russia's economy decelerated sharply this year, reflecting deep structural problems that analysts and officials say undercut its long-term growth potential.

Investment by firms disappointed and international money has been flowing out of Russia, in part due to companies' concerns about political freedoms and the likely consistency of the legal backdrop in years ahead.

The fading of an economic success story that buoyed Vladimir Putin's first decade in power is increasingly a challenge to the president as he seeks reelection in 2018.

Economists now say there has been no growth in investment in tangible assets, such as buildings and plants, this year. A year ago, they had expected such expenditures would grow by 6 percent in 2013. For next year, they now expect a small rebound to 2 percent growth.

The pickup will come mainly from the expected spending from one of Russia's oil windfall revenue funds on infrastructure.

"However, their positive impact in 2014 should not be overestimated, as most likely it will not appear before the second half of the year," Maria Pomelnikova, an economist at Raiffeisenbank, said.

The People's Bank of China is seeking to allay fears of a credit crunch after a shortage of day-to-day cash among commercial banks in the world's second biggest economy drove market interest rates to almost 10% on Monday.

Beijing said it would top up the $50bn in liquidity provided to the markets last week as it sought to counter concerns that China's financial sector is gripped by the sort of squeeze that caused havoc among western banks during the crisis of 2007-08.

Benchmark interbank rates – the rates at which banks lend to each other rather than to the public – climbed to 9.8% at one stage on Monday, their highest for six months, despite the central bank's cash injections last week.

The actions by the PBoC were a response to signs of tensions in the far east's financial markets, caused by an earlier tightening of policy by the central bank, aimed at reducing the risk of cheap credit causing asset bubbles.

Banks in China often find themselves short of cash at the end of the year as companies increase their demand for capital and institutions have to meet tough regulatory requirements. China's growing shadow banking system, which tends to offer higher interest rates to investors, has also been draining funds from traditional banks.

Lorraine Tan, director of equity research at S&P Capital IQ, told CNCBC that the PBoC may need to take more action.

"I think it's just a momentary thing … it's a seasonal issue, a rush for cash. Definitely the PBoC needs to pump in more money, which it has been doing, but a little bit more is probably necessary."

Beijing pumped trillions of yuan into the economy during the global meltdown of 2008-09 and succeeded in ensuring that recession was short-lived. But officials have grown increasingly concerned that the stimulus encouraged excessive borrowing by commercial property companies and by local government. The PBoC has been pushing up interest rates in recent months to rein in credit growth without causing a "hard landing".

Investors fear the combination of Fed tapering – the gradual winding down of America's quantitative easing programme – and tighter China interest rates could weigh on emerging market currencies and assets, as it did back in June.

Worries about the banking system contributed to a 2% drop in Shanghai shares on Friday, although the stock market steadied on Monday after Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said she would be revising up her forecasts for US growth in 2014.

The export-focused economies of east Asia are heavily dependent on demand from the world's biggest economy, and Lagarde said recent data from the US suggested that the Fund's estimate of 2.6% for 2014 was too low....Four years ago I predicted that China would fragment.
The utterly corrupt, booming golden triangle would dump the dirt poor hinterland. In China today vast, mega-mega cities are growing in an uncontrolled way with rural workers flooding into these cities. Result? lawlessness, destructive pollution, slave labour and mini oligarchies. The collapse of China will be a black swan. It will come suddenly. One final nail in their coffin. You cannot pay off real debts with paper money and theory assets.

Excellent article by Jerome Vitenberg

Some 50 years ago, Njord, the mythological Norsk god of wealth, smiled on the hardworking fishermen and lumberjacks, and presented Norway with the gift of oil. In financial terms, this was a handsome gift indeed, currently translated into a natural bounty worth $740 billion. Successive Norwegian governments pledged to save this wealth for the welfare of future generations. Yet, half a century after this windfall began, questions increasingly arise of whether Norway’s handling of its oil wealth has even withstood the test of the past, much less the future.

The country’s 2013 election campaign spawned a debate about the government’s management of the massive Norwegian Oil Fund. Norwegian citizens, however, have been trapped within a virtual bubble: Far from raising and discussing serious concerns, the debate in which the country has been engaged is fundamentally flawed. Behind the rosy picture that Norway’s leaders have painted of the country’s economy lie some difficult truths. We have only to chip away a little at this bright façade to realize that a far less glittering reality lies beneath the surface. First, the oil fund is a mathematical artifice. At three-quarters of a trillion dollars, the Norwegian Oil Fund appears to provide plenty for a country with scarcely 5 million citizens. Yet the country has accumulated a foreign debt that, at $657 billion, is almost as massive. Subtracting the debt from the fund’s $740 billion leaves a balance of only $83 billion. In other words, there is a treasure chest, but it is almost empty: Njord’s prize for future generations is only a little more than 10 percent of its putative value.

Even if we take the fund’s worth at face value, its future is not guaranteed. In a 2011 analysis, “What Does Norway Get Out Of Its Oil Fund, if Not More Strategic Infrastructure Investment?” University of Missouri economist and Wall Street financial analyst Michael Hudson offered a stark assessment: The Norwegian oil monies are invested mainly in the unstable economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China, or in volatile real estate in the West.

Although the fund records short-term profits from its holdings of bond and stocks, its strategy is one of “speculate and diversify.” It is based on the hope that spreading the risk widely enough can hedge against a catastrophic collapse in a particular region or sector. Yet in today’s turbulent economic environment, this seems to be a strategy for multiplying exposure to speculative risks rather than protecting against them. Thus, not only does Norway’s massive debt render the fund’s true value largely illusory, the future of the fund itself is highly precarious.

The second awkward fact Norwegians have yet to confront is that their country’s disproportionate dependence on oil hangs like an economic sword of Damocles above its head. In August, the Economist predicted that following improvements in shale-gas technologies and the development of electric cars, a significant decrease in the demand for oil is rapidly approaching. Although marginally referenced in the Norwegian Finance Ministry’s most recent self-congratulatory white paper, “Long-term Perspectives on the Norwegian Economy 2013,” Norway’s administrators chose to gloss over this glaring issue, preferring the relative safety of a somewhat theoretical and speculative prognostication about the country’s economy in 2035-2060.

If technical improvements in the field of alternative energy indeed continue, and if forecasts of an imminent and substantial drop in demand for oil is correct, the consequences for Norway could be catastrophic. Its gross domestic product (GDP), today concentrated on oil and its derivatives, could collapse. Its exports will crash, and with its current massive levels of public-sector spending, the important ratio of public debt to GDP — currently at around 30 percent — will spiral, bringing the country close to default. Norway could, very quickly, find itself in a much worse economic state than it was before the discovery of oil.

The flip side of this dependence on oil provides the third major structural weakness in the Norwegian economy: The country’s non-oil industrial infrastructure has been seriously neglected. Although the election campaign yielded talk of improving it, such plans may be too little and too late. Oil and its related industries drain the labor force, driving up labor costs as relatively few hands are available for more productive sectors.

Moreover, the accountants and bankers who manage the oil fund claim that spending too much on domestic infrastructure and investments in industrial production would overwhelm the small local economy and cause inflation. Incredibly, only 4 percent of the fund may be utilized for such purposes. This compares with the 60 percent that Mr. Hudson recommends be used for direct investments in domestic and regional enterprises to ensure that the Norwegian economy is viable after the oil wells run dry.

The Norwegian people are understandably proud of the massive nest egg they think they possess. The truth hidden from ordinary Norwegians is that much of the country’s oil bounty has already been squandered. If Norway is to avoid being drawn inexorably into the abyss, it must fundamentally reassess its policies and learn the lessons of the global developments that have affected the world of finance and real estate since the 1960s.

After 50 years of complacency, time is now working against the Norwegian people. Njord is no longer smiling on them, but will they notice?

Jerome Vitenberg is an international political analyst. He has taught Political Science and International Relations for the London School of Economics and Political Science via the University of London’s International Programs.

The Eurozone was doomed from the start. The sooner it is disbanded the better. The EU itself should be reformed, with trade agreements being the main objective. No more idiotic EU rules and regulations. No more open borders, just a common market.

Rarely has the "economic gulf" that separates the English-speaking world and continental Europe looked quite as wide as it does today. While much of the eurozone remains mired in an economic funk, Britain and America are recovering fast, with rising demand and near record levels of private-sector job creation.

As if the last, crisis-ridden three years haven’t already given Europe’s policy elite enough to think about, this juxtaposition in fortunes must surely have awoken them to the truth: monetary union isn’t working. Unfortunately, the reality is that euroland continues to stumble blindly from one botched response to another, neither able to reconfigure the single currency in a more sustainable form nor enact the sort of measures that might give it a credible future. This week’s blueprint for a banking union is only the latest example. Even in Brussels, they struggled to call it a job well done; this was meant to be the most significant leap forward for European integration since the launch of the euro itself, but in the event it was just another messy compromise.

Overly complicated and chronically underfunded, it fails some of the most basic tests for any credible banking union. Decisions on whether to wind up failing banks remain subject to national veto; more crucially still, there is no agreement on collective responsibility for the costs. At some stage in the future, these things are meant to fall into place, but Europe really doesn’t have the luxury of time. Even major economies such as France, Italy and Spain are right on the edge of social and political fracture. The euro offers no plausible path back to growth, yet they cannot or will not give up on it.

Not that these failings should be cause for triumph in Britain and America. Europe’s tragedy is Britain’s misfortune, forcing the UK artificially to support demand via the palliative of extreme forms of monetary stimulus to avoid the same fate. This can work for a while, but eventually Britain needs to rebalance its economy away from consumption to trade and investment.

European leaders tend to console themselves with the thought that the UK’s economic recovery is therefore just a conjuring trick, which cannot last. Even so, they can no longer ignore the contrast. Their own forced march to ever closer union seems to have resulted only in policy paralysis and economic ruin. By pursuing their own solutions outside the madhouse of eurozone integration, Britain and America seem to have kickstarted growth. Europe needs monetary stimulus but thanks to a dysfunctional single currency cannot have it; it needs labour market reform, but outside Germany and its satellites, is unwilling to enact it; and it needs burden-sharing, but its nations are still too fiscally sovereign to contemplate it. European leaders naively seem to assume that recovery is just around the corner. The truth is that they have made themselves hostage to the storm even as America and Britain navigate their way out...It was always going to be the case that a feeble currency union could only work with political union. That is why if the Euro is to survive, the Eurozone must become a single country. This new country will include all the current Eurozone Members. Whatever name they chose to call it, in reality, it will ruled by Germany. The plan seems to be working...It was always going to be the case that a feeble currency union could only work with political union. That is why if the Euro is to survive, the Eurozone must become a single country. This new country will include all the current Eurozone Members. Whatever name they chose to call it, in reality, it will ruled by Germany. The plan seems to be working...  

Bitcoins tumbled in value after Chinese authorities acted to curb trading in the virtual currency.

The government has banned domestic third-party payment companies from providing clearing services for virtual currency trading platforms, according to a report in the China Business News.

BTCChina, the country's biggest Bitcoin trading platform, and other Bitcoin exchanges in the country rely on third-party providers to handle the transactions for bitcoin trading as they are not licensed to handle clearing services that enable investors to deposit and withdraw their money.

BTCChina, on its Twitter-like Weibo account, told users it "has no choice but to stop accepting yuan deposits".

Although traders can still make deposits in other currencies, the move has pummelled volumes on BTC and slashed bitcoin's value.

Prices on BTCChina stood at 2845 yuan ($468) each early on Wednesday, down 60pc from their high of 7,588 yuan in November. 

^{Chart from BTCChina showing sharp fall in value of Bitcoins}

Chinese speculators have poured money into Bitcoins this year, driving the BTCChina price up 9,122pc from January 1 to November 30 and making the country at times the world's biggest Bitcoin market.

Authorities have raised concerns and two weeks ago China's central bank ordered financial institutions not to provide Bitcoin-related services and products and cautioned against its potential use in money-laundering.

Bitcoin is a form of cryptography-based e-money that offers a largely anonymous payment system.

China’s central bank has rushed to pump money into the stalling banking system but markets across Asia still fell sharply amid fears that the world’s second-largest economy faces a credit crisis.

Cash rates on China’s money markets jumped after the move by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) to ease a liquidity squeeze on banks. Both the Shanghai Composite Index and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index also fell amid concerns over structural problems in China’s financial system.

The Chinese seven-day bond repurchase rate, which essentially measures liquidity in the financial system, climbed to 7.6pc its highest since fears over a banking crisis in China first emerged over the summer.

State media in China had reported that the PBOC has unexpectedly pumped $33bn (£20bn) into the domestic money market through what it refers to as “short-term liquidity operation”.

“The focus is again on China where there is plenty of discussion on the squeeze in interbank funding markets,” said Deutsche Bank in a note to investors Friday. “The repo rate is now higher than yesterday amid market talk of a missed payment at a local Chinese bank. This is something to monitor over the next few days.”

Fears over a looming Chinese debt crisis spurred by a poorly regulated and opaque financial system stoked fears over the summer that the Asian powerhouse could finally be on the brink of a sharp slowdown in growth.

Much concern also surrounds what has become known as the “shadow banking” system that allows the Chinese to borrow money beyond their means.

EU finance ministers are seeking to cobble together a deal over a new system aimed at heading off a renewed eurozone bank crisis , under intense pressure to seal an agreement on their new flagship policy ahead of a two-day Brussels summit.

EU officials announced a "crucial breakthrough" on a backstop for rescuing or winding up failing banks in the Eurozone.

But the details were inconclusive and were still being haggled over by all 28 EU finance ministers in Brussels as Wednesday drew to a close, with the summit due to start on Thursday.

Germany has balked at the notion of pooled taxpayer liability for the eurozone banking sector under a banking union.

The key issues were: who pays to wind up or recapitalise a failing eurozone bank, and who decides when a bank should be closed down?

EU officials said the breakthrough meant a "common" or pooled Eurozone backstop would be available for dealing with troubled banks. The common backstop would not be available until 2025 at the earliest and would consist of a €55bn (£46bn) pot of money raised by the banks themselves via a levy over the decade from 2015.

In the meantime, Germany conceded that the eurozone's €500bn bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), could be used as a last resort for rescuing failed banks if governments did not have enough money.  But the agreement looked fragile, hedged with conditions and caveats, and was attacked as inadequate by the European Central Bank (ECB), whose credibility is at stake as the new supervisor of most of the eurozone banking sector under the new regime. EU leaders need to agree on the banking wind-up arrangements, known as the Single Resolution Mechanism and the Single Resolution Fund, at their summit on Thursday and Friday if the deadlines for getting the new system operational are to be met.

Two weeks of late-night meetings in Brussels and Berlin have pushed issues to the brink. There will be big problems with getting the deals agreed with the European parliament, and with national ratifications of a new treaty between participating governments on the funding of banking resolution.

The French-led group of southern countries, the European commission and the ECB opposed this.

"It's a choice between a banking union that's not perfect or nothing," said a senior EU official. In the transitional decade, from 2015, the issue is what happens in a banking crisis. Under German insistence, there will be no European response except as a last resort; nor will there be any escape from adding to national debt burdens to fund a bailout. The original aim of the scheme was to break the link between bad banks and sovereign debt levels. National authorities will be responsible for bailing out banks if funds from the bank levy, as well as contributions from bank creditors, investors, and shareholders, are insufficient.

The governments concerned would also be able to ask to tap the ESM in an emergency, but according to existing restrictive rules. This was the main German concession.

Stupid is what Stupid does ...judge for yourself !

Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's incited the ire of European Union officials on Friday when it snatched away the region's top AAA rating, citing tensions between member states and a deterioration in their overall financial health.

Downgrading the EU to AA+, the agency said the 28 countries' combined creditworthiness had declined – but officials and leaders shot back with an assertion that the region had barely any outstanding debt relative to GDP.

EU rules say that countries using the euro are not allowed to have an annual deficit of more than 3% of GDP, but several countries have failed to keep to that rule in recent years.

Note that Germany, Italy and France were all among the first countries to break the Maastricht rule during the last decade, while Spain and the Republic of Ireland ran surpluses before the 2008 crisis. Since 2008, peripheral economies such as Spain, Greece and Portugal have run big deficits, because their economies have slumped, generating less tax revenues and requiring more unemployment benefit payments.
Ireland experienced an exceptionally enormous deficit of 31% of its GDP in 2010, largely due to the cost of rescuing its banks.
Italy, however, has faired surprisingly well. In fact, if you exclude the cost of interest payments on its enormous debts (which the graph does not), the Italian government has consistently run budget surpluses.

The "banking union" deal was announced, without the publication of detailed legal texts setting out how new structures would work, in the early hours of Thursday morning just ahead of an EU summit after talks between European finance ministers that lasted over 12 hours.

"We have been successful," said Rimantas Sadzius, Lithuania's finance minister, who chaired the talks. "It is an extremely complicated dossier. There is still room for simplification."

Michel Barnier, the French EU commissioner, hailed the agreement as breaking the "vicious circle between banks and sovereigns" but acknowledged concerns over the complexity of the new structures.

"Today is a big momentous day for banking union...we are introducing revolutionary change to Europe's finance sector," he said. "The commission does not agree on every point but real progress has been made."

Negotiations focused on the creation of a eurozone Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) with the powers to close failing banks combined with a new financial supervisor for the eurozone under the auspices of the European Central Bank.

The talks were protracted because of deep divisions over who should have the last say over when a bank is to be wound up, combined with legal and practical difficulties of combining an EU regulation with a separate inter-government treaty to set the resolution body.

The commission and the ECB are concerned that complicated and unwieldy SRM structures, that have been defined by German objections over the mutualisation of banking risk, will not be able to take difficult decisions to close a bank quickly or secretly enough to prevent financial chaos.

The text of the agreement leaves it open for governments, meeting in a council of finance ministers, to block decisions by the SRM's board raising question over whether difficult decisions can be taken without blocking vetoes led by larger countries, such as Germany or France.

"Decisions by the board would enter into force within 24 hours after their adoption, unless the council, acting by simple majority on a proposal by the commission, objects or calls for changes," said the agreement.

The "banking union" proposals were drawn up in response to the financial and eurozone debt crises that brought down many banks and nearly destroyed the EU's single currency as governments had to be bailed out after rescuing their banks.

The key sticking points, which have yet to be conclusively resolved, have deeply divided Germany and France over the question of will have the final say in deciding to close a bank and how this will be paid for.

The agreement also fell short of creating a "common backstop" for a "single resolution fund" to help with the costs of bank failure in a deal that has left lingering questions over whether "banking union" can actually work.

During talks on Tuesday, Germany made a major concession to establish a common fund by 2025 that can provide mutualised support from eurozone governments to the bank resolution fund should its limited resources be overwhelmed in a crisis.

The climbdown was an important victory for France, Italy and the European Commission but there is no agreement or detail of how much the backstop will be or what form it should take.

"During this transitional phase, a common backstop will be developed, which would become fully operational at the latest after ten years. The backstop would facilitate borrowings by the fund. It would ultimately be reimbursed by the banking sector through levies, including ex-post," said the agreement.

In the meantime, an agreed fund comprising "national compartments" will be built up over 10 years from 2015 onwards from bank levies. It will only total €55bn (£46bn) by 2025, raising fears that it will not be enough to support a bank's restructuring in the event of a crisis.

EXPORT-IMPORT BANK BOARD ADOPTS REVISED ENVIRONMENTAL GUIDELINES TO REDUCE GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS  Washington, DC — The board of directors of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) today adopted revisions to its environmental procedures and guidelines governing high-carbon intensity projects, aligning the Bank with President Obama’s goal of reducing carbon pollution, while maintaining the Bank’s focus on continuing to help create and support American export-related jobs.

“No one has been more supportive of U.S. exports and the American jobs they produce and maintain than this Bank and this board. Since 2009, we have supported nearly 1.2 million jobs.” said Fred P. Hochberg, Ex-Im chairman and president. “We can’t do it, however, without considering the environmental costs associated with transactions.”

The revised guidelines adopted today require carbon capture and storage in most countries in order to secure Bank financing for coal-fired power plants, but would provide flexibility for the Bank with respect to the important energy needs of the poorest countries in the world.

The policy revisions were drafted by Ex-Im Bank staff and reviewed extensively by exporters, the public, leading environmental groups, the Administration and other federal agencies through an extensive and transparent vetting process.

“The Bank engages in an important balancing act — in supporting our exporters, we have to weigh the potential impacts on the environment associated with our financing,” Hochberg said. “This balancing act is a Congressional mandate, is a directive in our Charter, is part of our mission and it is something we at the Bank take seriously.”

Hochberg noted that: “Our proposed guidelines would balance the Bank’s obligations to its many different stakeholders and also its efforts to support the growth of export-related U.S. jobs.”

“Without guidelines or limits, ever-increasing numbers of new coal plants worldwide will just continue to emit more carbon pollution into the air we breathe,” said Hochberg. “But America cannot do this alone. I strongly support the Administration’s efforts to build an international consensus such that other nations follow our lead in restricting financing of new coal-fired power plants.”

Ex-Im has been a leader among the world’s export credit agencies (ECAs) in adopting measures to protect the environment while financing exports.

In 1995 the Bank was the first ECA to adopt environmental procedures and guidelines governing its export financing. In 1999 the Bank began tracking and publicly reporting projected carbon emissions produced by projects it financed. Even today Ex-Im is the only ECA that tracks and reports carbon emissions. In 2009 the Bank approved a formal carbon policy, and in 2010 it approved supplemental guidelines for high-carbon intensity projects.

The guideline revisions approved today are not designed to impact mining projects or coal exports produced by American coal miners. Ex-Im staff have worked with other agencies to ensure that the flexibility of these guidelines would be consistent with those of other federal agencies.

In addition to approving the revisions to its environmental guidelines, the board today approved seven transactions that together will support more than 11,200 U.S. export-related jobs.

ABOUT EX-IM BANK:

Ex-Im Bank is an independent federal agency that creates and maintains U.S. jobs by filling gaps in private export financing at no cost to American taxpayers. In the past five years (from Fiscal Year 2008), Ex-Im Bank has earned for U.S. taxpayers nearly $1.6 billion above the cost of operations. The Bank provides a variety of financing mechanisms, including working capital guarantees, export-credit insurance and financing to help foreign buyers purchase U.S. goods and services.

Ex-Im Bank approved $35.8 billion in total authorizations in FY 2012 – an all-time Ex-Im record. This total includes more than $6.1 billion directly supporting small-business export sales – also an Ex-Im record. Ex-Im Bank's total authorizations are supporting an estimated $50 billion in U.S. export sales and approximately 255,000 American jobs in communities across the country.

Concept design for new polymer £5 note featuring former British leader Winston Churchill. Photograph: AP

Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, has formally announced that Britain will switch to using plastic banknotes in 2016, ending 320 years of paper money.

After a public consultation in which 87% of the 13,000 respondents backed the new-style currency, the Bank said it would introduce "polymer" notes, as it prefers to call them, in two years' time, starting with the new £5 note featuring Winston Churchill in 2016 and the Jane Austen £10 a year later.

Speaking at a press conference in the Bank's Threadneedle Street headquarters, Carney said: "Our polymer notes will combine the best of progress and tradition. They will be more secure from counterfeiting and more resistant to damage while celebrating the history and tradition that is important both to the Bank and the nation as a whole."

The move follows Carney's native Canada, where plastic notes are being rolled out, and Australia, where they have been in circulation for more than two decades.

Carney launched a public consultation on polymer banknotes, seen as cleaner and more durable, shortly after arriving at the Bank this summer. However, the Bank's notes division has been considering plastic money for several years.

Bank officials have been touring shopping centres and business groups around the country with prototype notes to canvas public opinion.  The Bank has promoted its polymer notes, featuring a see-through window and other new security features, as less threadbare and tougher to counterfeit. It has sought to quell concerns about the environmental impact of printing on plastic by suggesting they can last up to two-and-a-half times longer than the cotton-paper notes in circulation at the moment. The durability will also compensate for the higher production costs and save an estimated £100m, the Bank claims. Its laboratory tests showed polymer banknotes only begin to shrink and melt at 120C, so they would fare better in washing machines but could be damaged by a hot iron.

In Greece, the govt is starting to make public the conditions under which homes could be foreclosed. Kathimerini:

Foreclosures will not be allowed if: The taxable value of the property is under 200,000 euros; gross household income (not including social security contributions, income tax and solidarity tax) is no more than 35,000 euros; and the owner’s total assets are under 270,000 euros.

The criteria will be relaxed a little for families with three or more children.

The ministry also proposes that those with a household income of less than 15,000 euros per year should pay a monthly mortgage payment of 10 percent of their net monthly income.

Those earning between 15,000 and 35,000 euros per year should pay monthly mortgage payments that amount to 10 percent of their first 15,000 euros of income and 20 percent of anything they earn above that.

The unemployed will be allowed to forgo monthly payments until they have an income.

Pasok is accepting those criteria. Some ND MPs are still reluctant. If those are indeed the criteria implemented, it seems protective. As often in Greece, salaried people will be more easily hit than professionals since their income is available.

The German government has recently signaled willingness to compromise on the issue of which body would be responsible for deciding if a bank needs to be liquidated. Initially, a newly created committee with representatives of national authorities would assume this responsibility, but the formal decision could then be left to an EU body like the European Commission. In disputed cases, the European Council, the powerful body that includes the leaders of the 28 member states, would be brought in to arbitrate.

Berlin has also agreed in principle to calls for a liquidation fund for failing financial institutions that would have a capacity of €55 billion ($76 billion) within 10 years. But the EU member states are supposed to agree among themselves on how these funds can actually be used, with greater voting weight being given to more populous countries. This idea hasn't gone over well with some governments, because they fear that Berlin, working together with a few small countries, would be able to block decisions. In addition, the money in the fund would not be available for use until it is transformed into an official EU instrument in 10 years' time.

Under the "liability cascade" plan being promoted by Schäuble, however, bank shareholders will be required to pay part of the costs for liquidating a bank starting in January 2016. Owners and creditors would first be required to cover any liquidation costs before any taxpayer money could be brought in. Berlin has had success so far in negotiations on this point. The German government had wanted to introduce this rule as early as 2015. But other member states like Italy pleaded for it to start at the earliest in 2018. They fear the move to start in 2015 might frighten investors.

And there's one additional play to safety: Germany continues to oppose using the European Stability Mechanism, the permanent euro-zone rescue fund, as a backstop for fledgling banks. Other countries have suggested employing the fund's billions of euros as part of a future banking union resolution mechanism.

People using bitcoins and other virtual currencies are on their own when it comes to losses, the EU banking watchdog said on Friday in a formal warning to consumers on the risks of using unregulated online currencies. The European Banking Authority said there was no protection or compensation for people whose "digital wallets" are hacked, or when a transfer of virtual money goes wrong or a platform is shut. The warning follows a similar announcement from the Bank of France. The EBA stopped short of telling consumers not to use online currency markets but said if they end up out of pocket there will be no safety net like compensation given to deposit holders when a mainstream EU bank goes bust.

"Currently, no specific regulatory protections exist in the EU that would protect consumers from financial losses if a platform that exchanges or holds virtual currencies fails or goes out of business," EBA said in a statement.

Ireland is to regain its sovereignty after three years under the thumb of the EU-IMF Troika, the first of the eurozone crisis states to return to the free market.
The crippled Celtic Tiger has been subject to intrusive controls after a banking collapse forced it to seek a €78bn loan package from the EU and the International Monetary Fund in November 2010, compelled to cut wages and inflict a fiscal squeeze of 19pc of GDP. The country will not break free of its shackles entirely. Inspectors will continue to carry out visits twice a year until 2031 “at the earliest” under a surveillance mechanism. Ireland will face binding constraints under Europe’s deflationary Fiscal Compact.  The "poster child" of EU austerity, Ireland has taken its medicine stoically without street violence or a lurch towards extremism, thanks to a close-knit tripartite system of trade unions, business and the government working together.
European officials have hailed Ireland’s recovery as a vindication of their strategy of “internal devaluation”, a policy of wage cuts aimed at clawing back lost competitiveness within monetary union. Yet it remains far from clear whether Ireland is really out of the woods or whether debt-stricken countries in southern Europe can replicate the feat. Ireland has a highly-competitive export base, akin to Asia’s tigers. It is the fruit of an industrial strategy 20 years ago that lured in American software and pharmaceutical firms, and built a financial service sector. Exports equal 108pc of GDP, compared with 39pc for Portugal, 32pc for Spain, 30pc for Italy and 27pc for Greece.  This trade "gearing" makes it far easier for Ireland to export its way out of trouble. The current account surplus is 4pc of GDP, though the Viagra and Lipitor “patent cliff” has cut exports by 17pc this year.  Ireland does not have an overvalued currency, unlike EMU’s Latin bloc. Its crisis stemmed from a credit bubble, caused by super-loose monetary policy set for German needs. Real interest rates averaged -1pc for seven years, a disaster for a young fast-growing economy.

The Chinese central bank has warned the country's financial institutions not to trade in bitcoin, saying that the digital currency doesn't have "real meaning" and lacks legal protections.

However, no explicit risk to China's financial system was identified by the bank, and it reiterated that individual citizens were free to use bitcoin provided they were aware that they were taking the risk on themselves. The bank also identified money laundering and other illegal uses of the currency as areas of concern.

Bitcoin has recently achieved a measure of popularity in China, with FiatLeak and other bitcoin trading information sites showing large inflows of the currency through Chinese exchanges.

China Telecom, the largest mobile phone provider in the country, launched a promotion allowing a Samsung phone to be bought with bitcoins, and Baidu, the Chinese Google, is accepting payments for its firewall service in the currency.

But there's also suspicion that a large measure of the bitcoin's Chinese popularity is the result of fringe-legal uses. The currency is perfect for getting around the country's tight capital controls, which prevent rich Chinese citizens from moving too much money overseas. While bitcoin remains unregulated, it is easy for users to buy a large sum in Chinese yuan and sell it in US dollars, evading those regulations. The potential of bitcoin in China is seen as a large part of the reason for the currency's seven-fold increase in price over November, and the news that the Chinese central bank is taking a less-than-welcoming stance to it has sent markets tumbling.

The value of one bitcoin fell by 28% over two hours on Thursday morning, before settling into its more normal pattern of rapid large price swings in both directions.

The warning follows a similar cautionary tone from the Dutch central bank, which noted that there is no central issuer which can held liable for bitcoin, and no deposit guarantee scheme in the event of bitcoin banks failing.

The former head of the Dutch bank even compared the bitcoin bubble to the Netherlands' tulip mania in the 17th century – but pointed out that at least when that bubble burst, investors were left with tulips at the end.

The head of the venerable Deutsche Bank reprimanded like a schoolboy... UUUU

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble recently gave a German banker the most brutal lesson to date -- delivered in a series of apparently incidental comments. At a press conference last Thursday afternoon, Schäuble launched into one of his notorious lectures on sound fiscal policy in times of crisis.  But then, finally, he had an opportunity to air his frustration over the incorrigible banker caste. A journalist asked Schäuble about his response to recent comments by Deutsche Bank co-CEO Jürgen Fitschen. The previous day, Fitschen had accused Schäuble of irresponsibility and populism, because the finance minister had insinuated that the banks were still bypassing financial industry regulations.

 "I don't know if Herr Fitschen has understood what I mean," Schäuble complacently replied. He also noted that he had only recently reminded the bank executive that the financial crisis had not been caused by politicians. Then, as if he hadn't already sufficiently lambasted one of the country's leading bankers, Schäuble added: "If Herr Fitschen carefully reviews his statement, he will undoubtedly come to the conclusion that he is incorrect in this matter." And Fitschen has undeniably adopted the wrong tone, he said.   The head of the venerable Deutsche Bank reprimanded like a schoolboy? Ouch.  

Schäuble's slap in the face is a warning to Deutsche Bank. The minister's portfolio includes Germany's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin). These days, the Bonn-based financial watchdog is conducting far more than the usual number of investigations into Germany's largest bank, and the consequences of these probes -- for the bank and its co-CEOs Fitschen and Anshu Jain -- are ultimately a political issue.

Yves Mersch, the governor of Luxembourg's central bank and a member of the European Central Bank's executive board, has exposed tensions within the ECB over the prospect of quantitative easing.

While the Bank of England and the US Federal Reserve have turned to QE to boost economies, the ECB has refrained, and it is unclear whether it is legally allowed to.

However, the prospect has been raised in recent weeks as the eurozone's stricken southern economies suffer from deflationary pressures. Peter Praet, also on the board, said last month that the ECB could use QE.

In a speech today, Mr Mersch says:

Friedrich August von Hayek [a famous libertarian economist] stressed that only the free market system contains all relevant information and so could guarantee meaningful allocation [of assets]. The "social engineers" who want to plan a society on the drawing board, he accused of the presumption of knowledge

Only in exceptional circumstances may direct purchases of securities by the central bank serve to correct acute market failure. In general, however, it is preferable that market actors determine appropriate pricing.

Northern eurozone economies are far less keen on QE, and the disagreement threatens to open a wound within the eurozone, as Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reported last month.  The ECB's founding mandate is supposed to be monetarist. Now we learn -- as we suspected -- that it is full of closet Hayekians.

Mr Mersch says central banks lack the skill to pick assets and value them correctly. Quoting the Austrian School guru von Hayek, he says that the free market alone has the necessary information, and that it is "social engineering" to interfere with the price system. Central banks should buy assets only in exceptional circumstances to counter stress.

Some would say that If this is the position of the ECB, it is an abdication of traditional monetary policy (dating back to the 19th Century) to use open market operations to counter deflation risks.

Hayek changed his view anyway in the late 1930s, admitting that "nature's cure" was not what he had hoped

A Nobel prize-winning economist will on Thursday withdraw his support for the euro saying it has created a “lost generation” unemployed youngsters and should be broken up.   Sir Christopher Pissarides was once a key proponent of a single currency but will on Thursday accuse the euro of “dividing Europe” and say action is needed to “restore the euro’s credibility in international markets” and the “trust that Europe’s nations once had in each other”, according to the Daily Mail.   Speaking at the London School of Economics, where he teaches, Professor Pissarides will say: “The euro should either be dismantled in an orderly way or the leading members should do the necessary as fast as possible to make it growth and employment-friendly,.   “We will get nowhere plodding along with the current line of ad hoc decision-making and inconsistent debt-relief policies.   “The policies pursued now to steady the euro are costing Europe jobs and they are creating a lost generation of educated young people. This is not what the founding fathers promised.” The Cypriot-British economist, who won the Nobel prize in 2010, is speaking days after Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, insisted the crisis in the eurozone was not yet over.   The eurozone economy grew by just 0.1 per cent in the third quarter of the year compared with 0.8 per cent in Britain and 0.9 per cent in the US.   Unemployment within the single currency area now stands at 12.1 per cent, meaning more than 19million people are out of work   Some economists argue Europe cannot enact the policies needed to boost growth and create jobs due to the huge variations in economies across the region.   German taxpayers are unwilling to pay out to help crumbling economies such as Greece or Spain while even France now faces financial crisis.   Explaining why he had worked hard to persuade Cyprus to join the currency union in 2008, Professor Pissarides will say: “I was completely sold on the idea.  “Back then, the euro looked like a great idea. But it has now backfired. It is holding back growth and job creation and it is dividing Europe. The present situation is untenable.”   Professor Pissarides, 65, is the regius professor of economics at the LSE and chairman of its new Centre for Macroeconomics. He was knighted in June.(sourse , telegraph.uk)....The simplest way is to describe the EU as a centralizing, top down, all controlling, undemocratic project designed to force compliance and standardization on European peoples in all things in order to serve a New World Order controlled by International Corporates and Financial markets. It Doesn't matter what you want to call the dominant political parties in the EU structure, or what you make of their politicians' claims to be on the Left, whatever that means.
We know that they want to impose mass immigration and destroy national identity - so that makes them anti-nationalist socialists , who tend to be much the same in practice as National Socialists, just without the nationalism- isn't that what we have got? Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism"(borrowed from H.G. Wells) is a useful term which embraces left and right.
It's the outcomes we should concentrate on not what they choose to call themselves.

Greek deflation rate hits new high

Greece has lurched further into deflation, with prices tumbling at the fastest rate recorded as the country's long economic slump continues.

The Greek consumer prices index shrank by 2.9% in November, showing deflation accelerated after October's reading of minus 2.0%.

Prices in Greece have been falling steadily over the last three years, hitting deflation in April for the first time since records began in the 1960s.

This graph tracks Greek CPI (red) against eurozone inflation (blue):

Photograph: ELSTAT

Today's data shows that some retailers have slashed prices drastically, having seen demand slide among customers buffeted by austerity cutbacks and record unemployment.

Clothing and textile prices tumbled by over 11%, according to national statistics body ELSTAT. Household equipment costs were down 3.7% year-on-year, as this chart shows:

Photograph: ELSTAT

Greece's austerity programme has forced wages and pensions down in an attempt to boost competitiveness -- so deflation has not come as a surprise. It could even be taken as a sign that the Troika's plan is having its intended effect.

The damage wrecked on the wider Greek economy rather undermines the argument that deflation's a good thing, though, especially as Athens isn't able to inflate away some of its national debt.

We've also heard confirmation this morning that the Greek economy shank by 3% on a year-on-year basis in Q3, which confirms that the five-year recession is easing. 

Italian third-quarter GDP revised from contraction to stagnation. The Italian economy did not contract in the third quarter of the year, it was merely flat, according to today's revision of the initial estimate.  The GDP figure has been revised from 0.1pc growth to 0.0pc.  This may not sound great, but it is the first quarter that the economy has not contracted since the second quarter of 2011.  Italy is also outgrowing France for the first time in over two years - France shrunk at 0.1pc in the third quarter...

Meanwhile, Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, has warned that long-term prospects for growth in the eurozone look bleak unless politicians act urgently to stoke domestic demand and tackle youth unemployment.  After months of relative calm in financial markets, and with Ireland due to end its painful bailout programme and end its reliance on the IMF this weekend, some European politicians have declared the worst to be over for the 17-member single currency zone.  But speaking at the European Economic and Social Committee in Brussels, Lagarde warned against prematurely declaring an end to the economic crisis.  "Can a crisis really be over when 12% of the labor force is without a job? When unemployment among the youth is in very high double digits, reaching more than 50% in Greece and Spain? And when there is no sign that it is becoming easier for people to pay down their debts?"  She warned that high youth unemployment could jeopardize the economy's ability to grow in the future, by creating a generation of young people without the skills to take their place in the jobs market. "What is at stake is Europe's potential for growth in the future," she said.  "Unemployment at a young age means a lack of on-the-job training, depreciating skills, and possible withdrawal from the labor market. Experience tells us that long spells of unemployment lead to a less productive workforce down the road."  Lagarde called for a raft of reforms, including fixing the battered banking sector, to "jump-start growth", and warned that with monetary policy all but exhausted, and interest rates already close to zero, governments might yet need to resort to a new fiscal stimulus if recovery fails to take hold.  "In the event growth is low for a protracted period of time and monetary policy options are depleted, fiscal policy will need to provide more support to domestic demand," she said.  In a veiled criticism of Germany, which has tended to rely on an export-led growth model, Lagarde suggested that boosting Europe's growth potential will require stoking demand at home, too.  "Most of the demand for European goods and services comes from abroad, not from within, leaving the economy at the mercy of the ups and downs of global trade. European demand for European products remains lackluster."   After The ECB President Mario Draghi unexpectedly announced a cut in interest rates last month to stave off deflation, Lagarde called for the ECB to "keep interest rates low and convince investors that it will do so for as long as is necessary."  The IMF would also like to see a series of labor market reforms, including making it easier for skilled employees to cross Europe's borders in search of work; cutting employment regulation; and shifting the burden of taxation from income on to consumption, in the hope of boosting future job prospects. "There can be no letting up on reforms until growth has recovered sufficiently to arrest the rise in unemployment and debt", Lagarde said.

Agreement among the WTO’s 159 member economies

Ministers meeting in Bali sealed agreement among the WTO’s 159 member economies for the pact, which eases barriers to trade by simplifying customs procedures, limiting agricultural subsidies, and promoting trade with least-developed nations. 

The deal could boost global trade by $1 trillion and create 20 million new jobs, keeps alive the WTO’s broader 12-year marathon Doha Round of trade negotiations designed to reduce international tariff barriers, well ...I've just found out that governments from the United States to Australia and from Canada to the EU are secretly negotiating trade deals that will give global corporations the right to sue our governments and overturn our laws.

Details have leaked out on what is called the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP) that will massively expand the power of corporations to sue our governments.

Thousands of corporate lobbyists are helping to write these secret pacts -- but we're not allowed to see them. Governments know that we won't like these corporate power grabs, so they're hoping to keep them under the radar until it's too late to stop them. But if we can raise our voices now, we can expose these corporate charters and kill the deals forever.

Two secret new global pacts- the TTIP and TPP -could massively increase the power of corporations to sue our governments when they pass laws to protect our environment or our health. Unsurprised, its just four companies talking to each other - 8 largest U.S. financial companies (JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, U.S. Bancorp, Bank of New York Mellon and Morgan Stanley) are 100% controlled by 10 shareholders and we have 4 companies always present i...n all decisions: BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard and Fidelity - who control the Federal Reserve. The same “big four” control the vast majority of European companies counted on the stock exchange. These same people run the IMF, the European Central Bank & the World Bank. The 10 largest US financial institutions hold 54% of US total financial assets. 90% of US media is owned by 6 corporations. We will tell you what the news is - the news is what we say it is - it turns out it is not illegal to falsify the news. 37 banks have merged to become just four since 1990. We are speaking of 6, 8 or maybe 12 families who truly dominate the world (perhaps Goldman Sachs, Rockefellers, Loebs Kuh and Lehmans in New York, the Rothschilds of Paris and London, the Warburgs of Hamburg, Paris and Lazards Israel Moses Seifs Rome). With Google accounting for over 65% of all web searches in the US and over 70% market share in most other countries, the top 10 owners of Google’s stock are Fidelity, BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard Group, Capital Research, T. Rowe Price, Capital World, Alliancebernstein, Marsico Capital. This is the world we live in.