What's the safest way to do my online banking: over a wired connection, powerline networking or Wi-Fi?

The answer doesn't matter as much as you might think, but asking the question does mean you're approaching your online security in the right state of mind.

Overall, a wired ethernet link is more secure than either Wi-Fi or powerline networking, in which the electrical wires in your home carry Internet data. To compromise an ethernet network, an attacker needs to get into your house and plug in a laptop, while Wi-Fi signals go beyond your home and powerline networks can leak information to adjacent dwellings.

Both Wi-Fi and powerline setups come with encryption options to scramble data flowing over the network; once you switch them on, an attacker would need to know the password to break in. But Wi-Fi's obsolete WEP encryption can easily be defeated — and is still presented as a valid option in routers' setup routines.

Furthermore, if you leave a router on its default administrative password, somebody who connects to your network can also monkey with the router's settings to redirect your traffic to rogue sites. For much the same reason, you shouldn't automatically trust third-party wireless hot spots.

Financial sites use encryption of their own to scramble data flowing to and from your computer — as reported by your browser with a lock icon in its toolbar that, when clicked, should display an info sheet including the bank's name — and that should almost always outweigh the security of your local network.

(A determined attacker could defeat a bank's login security by persuading a user to connect to a router running malware that subverts this encryption, but this seems to have been a theoretical exercise to date.)

Your local network, however, makes up only one part of the "attack surface" of online banking, and it may not be nearly as profitable as two others: your computer and your mind.

If an attacker can get a keylogger on your computer to record your keystrokes, the strength of your bank's encryption and the complexity and novelty of your password won't matter at all — each tap of the keyboard will have already been recorded and transmitted.

That's why it's important to keep up with security updates for both your operating system and your browser (if you haven't disabled Oracle's vulnerability-prone Java Web plug-in, now would be a fine time to do so).

And if an attacker can fool you into typing your username and password into a phony site by sending you a phishing e-mail, your security-fix fastidiousness won't matter either.

You can thwart phishing attacks with the extreme measure of using a separate computer for online banking and nothing else (recommended at a panel on identity theft that I moderated earlier this month) or the lesser step of throwing a Linux LiveCD into your regular PC and booting off that for online banking sessions isolated from your usual software. But it's just a little easier to remember this basic rule: Never log into a bank account by clicking on a link sent in an e-mail.

If you're not sufficiently depressed about the state of financial security online, Target's massive credit-card breach — apparently executed by exploiting the retailer's in-store systems — offers a reminder that many account compromises happen in places we can't control.

And the best way to watch for them is to monitor your account for unusual transactions — which means you should do more online banking, not less.

Many major sites, from Facebook to Google to Microsoft to Yahoo, now allow "two-step verification" to protect users' logins from the loss of a password. That option requires users to vouch for all logins, or only those from strange computers or locations, by typing in a one-time password sent to their phone via text message or to a specialized app like Google Authenticator.

Most financial institutions, however, have yet to tune in to this trend. There's Bank of America's SafePass, CitiBank's identification codes Ally Bank's Security Code, and not much else. But if your bank offers this option — which may require looking around its site — you should enable it right away. And if it doesn't, you might want to ask why.

HAHAHA...Francois Hollande, said its troops “have been put in a position to respond."

Britain is now in the German camp and the French, once decried as "surrender monkeys" over Iraq are stepping up to the plate...It sounds like The French are getting ready to invade Syria...they plan on firing "Troops" at the country, instead of cruise missiles.
Let me see how this goes. France, which has banned women from wearing the burka, intends to provide Military support to The Syrian Rebels while extremist elements of their numbers that are killing people indiscriminately for their religions beliefs, to get the people's mind of the mass unemployment in France.

Obama proceeds with an attack on Syria as soon as UN weapon inspectors leave, and somehow in the mix, British forces providing "consultation" and support to our allies, find themselves under attack with no option but to "retaliate".
Britain is left with "no alternative" but to respond to these "acts of aggression" carried out by Assad in response to a US Bombardment of his country, and  The Prime Minister, David Cameron makes an emergency statement saying Britain has begun bombing Syria as a "humanitarian peace effort"....
The German government however, says it currently has no plans to join military action against Syria. Government spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters in Berlin today that "we haven't considered any German military participation and still aren't doing so". His comments follow an interview Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle gave to the daily Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung in which he said Germany hadn't been asked to contribute to military action against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad following the alleged chemical attack that killed hundreds of civilians last week.

They're not going to stop are they?.
They're really going to try and find a way to try and Start World War III.  
These Maniacs are going to try and start World War III.

 

History teaches us that politicians never learn from history.

If Arabs want to go around slaughtering each other it is best to let them get on with it. They been doing it forever, and will continue to do so.  They will turn on us if we intervene, and when we give it up as a  hopeless task (Iraq ?) they will go back to killing themselves again. They all hate us in the West because we have what they do not. Let them get on with it...
The Kremlin has welcomed the British parliament's rejection of a military strike against Syria...
The US military have deep doubts about the impact and wisdom of a US strike on Syria, writes the Washington Post (which, incidentally, has been very hawkish editorially on Syria). It says:Former and current officers, many with the painful lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan on their minds, said the main reservations concern the potential unintended consequences of launching cruise missiles against Syria. Some questioned the use of military force as a punitive measure and suggested that the White House lacks a coherent strategy. If the administration is ambivalent about the wisdom of defeating or crippling the Syrian leader, possibly setting the stage for Damascus to fall to fundamentalist rebels, they said, the military objective of strikes on Assad’s military targets is at best ambiguous. “There’s a broad naivete in the political class about America’s obligations in foreign policy issues, and scary simplicity about the effects that employing American military power can achieve,” said retired Lt Gen. Gregory S. Newbold, who served as director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the run-up to the Iraq war, noting that many of his contemporaries are alarmed by the plan ...A young army officer who is wrapping up a year-long tour [in Afghanistan]...said soldiers were surprised to learn about the looming strike, calling the prospect “very dangerous.” “I can’t believe the president is even considering it,” said the officer, who like most officers interviewed for this story agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity because military personnel are reluctant to criticize policymakers while military campaigns are being planned. “We have been fighting the last 10 years a counterinsurgency war. Syria has modern weaponry. We would have to retrain for a conventional war.”

Berlin - The German Constitutional Court is not interested whether the European Central Bank's (ECB) actions in the euro-crisis were successful, but whether they were legal, the court's top judge said on Tuesday (11 June) in a public hearing. "Otherwise the end alone would justify the means," Andreas Vosskuhle, the presiding judge, noted. In the run-up to the hearing, ECB chief Mario Draghi had called his bank's bond-buying programme "the most successful monetary policy undertaken in recent time.  "It recently bought some €1.1 billion of troubled bonds, helping Italy and Spain to keep their heads above the water.The plaintiffs - a group which has so far challenged almost every euro-rescue step taken by Germany - also asked the Karlsruhe-based court to look at the ECB's Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) scheme.  Under the OMT, the bank is to buy "unlimited" bonds from troubled euro-countries, provided they sign up to strict reforms.   In this respect, the programme is different to the other bond-buying scheme, which comes with no strings attached on reform.  OMT has never been activated.

Nigel Farage tonight-Get your money out of europe-BANK RUN, NOW !!!!

Nigel Farage tonight-Get your money out of europe-BANK RUN

“I must say the thing I find the shabbiest about it is there insisting that it doesn’t need to be subjected to a vote in the Cypriot Parliament. I very much hope that the members of the Cypriot Parliament say, ‘To hell with that, we demand another vote.’

It’s funny isn’t it, the Germans are going to have a vote on it in their Parliament, but the Cypriots are being told that they shouldn’t have a vote on it. If that’s not moving into a German dominated Europe, I don’t know what is.

I said last week that I felt any savers who had money in other eurozone banks, particularly in the Southern eurozone countries, really ought to think seriously about getting their money out. Well, this afternoon something far more serious has happened. The Dutch Finance Minister, about an hour and a half ago, said that he saw the Cyprus eurozone bailout as now being a template of how they intend to act in the future. So the burden of all of this will now fall on the private sector, and not on the public sector.

Frankly, what that now says is that anybody that has money, or anybody that has big money sitting in a Spanish or an Italian bank, and particularly if you happen to be a financial officer for a company, it would be criminally negligent of you to now leave your money or a company’s money in a Spanish or an Italian bank.

I think what they’ve done today is to spark a major run on those banks. I see that some of the banks stocks have fallen 6% this afternoon, and I think in their desperation to keep the eurozone propped-up, I really believe that long-term they have made an absolutely fatal error. They have now crossed the bounds into one of complete criminality, and from this their reputations will never, ever recover.”

IT'S TIME TO DUMP THE EURO...

Cyprus took the unprecedented step on Monday of closing its banks until Thursday as officials scrambled to renegotiate the terms of a controversial bailout that threatens to force savers to take a €5.8bn (£5bn) hit to their deposits.

Finance ministers from the 17-country eurozone were holding an emergency video conference call amid recriminations over the aid package, particularly in Moscow, where a spokesman for Vladimir Putin attacked the plan as "unfair, unprofessional and dangerous".

Thousands of Russians have bank accounts in Cyprus, which has styled itself as a tax haven to attract international deposits into a banking system now at least eight times the size of the island's €17bn economy. Russia hinted that a separate but crucial €2.5bn loan to Cyprus could now be in doubt.

On a day of mounting uncertainty about the punitive conditions of the bailout and the impact on the banking sector:

• Britain temporarily withheld pension payments to more than 12,000 citizens who have retired to Cyprus amid concerns about the safety of the banking system. Up to 60,000 British people are thought to be affected by the proposal to penalise bank accounts to secure €10bn of aid from the eurozone.

• A vote on the aid package in the Cyprus parliament was delayed for a second day, until Tuesday, as it became clear that the bailout plan of the newly elected president, Nicos Anastasiades, faced defeat. There were reports on Monday night that he was preparing to tell eurozone ministers that he did have the votes to get the plan through.

• Stock markets fell – the FTSE 100 lost more than 100 points in early trading – before regaining losses amid speculation the raid on savers' cash would be scaled down. On the currency market the euro tumbled to a three-month low.

• European officials raced to defuse criticism that they had imposed the bank levy on a desperate nation, as the German flag was torn from its embassy in Cyprus.

• The US urged a resolution that was "responsible and fair and ensures financial stability".

Banks in Cyprus had been due to close for a normal holiday giving the authorities an extra 24 hours after the bailout was agreed in the early hours of Saturday – but they will not now reopen until Thursday. Demonstrating their anger at the impact on their savings, hundreds of Cypriots cut short traditional family picnics that mark the first Monday of Orthodox lent and gathered at the Nicosia parliament to protest.

Politicians continued talks behind closed doors on what changes could be made to the proposals before the parliament meets on Tuesday afternoon. Anastasiades has warned that an agreement must be reached if Cyprus is to avoid the collapse of one or all of its banks.

UPDATE 1: Cyprus's parliament Tuesday rejected a controversial bank deposit levy—a precondition for receiving a €10 billion bailout—effectively tearing up the four-day old loan deal the country had negotiated with European and international creditors that it needed to stave off default and a looming meltdown in its financial sector.

The stock market’s reaction to the Cyprus banking crisis is appearing to many as a case of wilful denial.

The vote, coming after days of fraught political talks in the Cypriot capital, means that a new deal—if one is possible–will have to be reached in days or Cyprus could face a complete collapse of its banks, an event that many analysts fear could also send the tiny island nation hurtling out of the eurozone.... In a conference call Monday night, euro-zone finance ministers were given "no heads up" on the new rate, a European official said. "They are playing poker." A second official confirmed that ministers and other European officials involved in the bailout talks hadn't been informed about the new tax plan by Nicosia. Apart from sparing small savers with less than €20,000, the draft bills sticks to tax rates that had been agreed Saturday morning at an emergency meeting in Brussels. European officials stressed Monday night that there was no flexibility on the €5.8 billion target. Euro-zone finance ministers did release a statement that allowed Nicosia to treat small savers differently, but stressed that the overall bailout from the euro zone and the IMF couldn't exceed the agreed €10 billion. But in his remarks to lawmakers, Mr. Demetriades said that Cyprus's central bank wasn't prepared for the deal that had been hammered out between euro-zone finance ministers, the European Central Bank and the IMF after a 10-hour meeting that ended early Saturday. "The measure is unprecedented. We didn't expect this development and we were surprised Saturday morning and found out after," he told lawmakers.

Update 2 :The European Central Bank has just released a statement, saying that it remains committed to providing liquidity to Cyprus's banks 'within the existing rules' Here's the statement: The ECB takes note of the decision of the Cypriot parliament and is in contact with its troika partners. The ECB reaffirms its commitment to provide liquidity as needed within the existing rules. There are fears that the ECB could pull the plug on the country's two biggest banks, by terminating the support provided under its Emergency Liquidity Assistance -- on the grounds that they could be insolvent. Cyprus could be gambling that the ECB won't risk turning the liquidity tap off: During Friday's marathon negotiations over the current bailout proposal, ECB executive board member Jörg Asmussen made clear to President Nicos Anastasiades that failure to agree on a deal that weekend would make it impossible for the ECB to provide a further extension of ELA since ECB rules don't allow national central banks to lend to insolvent banks. But any actual decision to withdraw ELA is a matter for the ECB's Governing Council and requires two-thirds of the council's members to vote in favor. 
Update 3 :In fact, there are really only two plausible scenarios: somebody - be it Europe or the IMF - gives Cyprus more money, in which case there is a chance that the crisis can be contained. Or Germany and the other hardline euro zone countries can insist that the deal is non-negotiable. In which case, the banks in Cyprus will go bust, risking widespread turmoil.

Given the precarious euro zone economy and the enfeebled state of European banks, cutting Cyprus a better deal looks like the safer option. The package could be restructured so that only deposits in
excess of €100,000 were taxed, the preferred option of Christine Lagarde at the IMF. Sparing those with savings of less than €100,000 from any pain would require the bigger depositors to pay a 15.5% tax to find the €5.8bn demanded of Cyprus. Alternatively, Europe could
easily find the extra €5.8bn itself.

The problem is that both options will cause political problems. Putin will bridle at suggestions that Russian citizens - who make up a large proportion of the €100,000 depositors - should be singled out. And Merkel could expect an almighty domestic backlash if she backtracked from the tough stance she adopted at the weekend. But the alternative is to let the banks in Cyprus go bust as soon as they are reopened after the extended bank holiday and hope that it really is a “special case”. That looks like an awfully big gamble.

Update, the report that Cyprus's banks might not open until next Tuesday comes from Dow Jones Newswires, which also has information that capital controls might be imposed to prevent cash leaving the country (sorry I don't have more info than that yet)

CONCLUSION : Agreed - it's time for Cyprus to dump the Euro and start printing it's own bank notes. That still leaves the problem of the Euro denominated debt - but that's easy as well - just walk away from it and go back to being a place for cheap holidays and Russian money. The EU will turn nasty - but that's easy too - just leave it and let the EU get on with economically destroying the rest of Southern Europe whilst Cyprus gets back on its feet - Iceland style.

Gold’s price slide has been going on for months, with February marking the fifth in which it fell, the longest run of monthly declines since 1997. Holders of gold know it is volatile, with everything from hints of central bank easing – sending investors to the metal as a protection from inflation – and movement in the dollar, to changing jewellery demand in India, shifting the price. Gold also has a curious status in that it can behave as both a “risk-on” and “risk-off” asset. While investors flocked to buy the metal in the summer of 2011 during the eurozone debt crisis, in still more extreme times of market stress, such as at points during the credit crunch, the price has plunged, as people start selling their gold to cover losses elsewhere. Investors were recently unnerved to see a particular signal at the end of last month, gold’s so-called “death cross”, when the price’s 50-day rolling average drops below its 200-day moving average. Two out of the last three such “death crosses” were followed by marked sell-offs. As sentiment turned more bearish, an eye-catching note from Goldman Sachs grabbed attention. The bank cut its forecast for the gold price this year to $1,600 an ounce from $1,810, and predicted that next year the price will be $1,450.

“The turn in the gold cycle has likely already started,” the bank’s analysts warned, pointing to “a quickly waning conviction in holding gold positions, especially ETFs”. Goldman is not the only one to notice that, Paulson aside, holdings in exchange-traded products backed by gold have been shrinking at a rapid rate. On Thursday, they fell to 2,486.2 tonnes, the lowest since September, according to data from Bloomberg.

The waning enthusiasm for gold among the ETF investors is being treated as particularly significant, as they are seen as long-term “buy and hold” types rather than more speculative investors.

Recent weeks have also seen other investment banks express similar views on the gold price to Goldman, BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse and Citigroup, to name a few of those turning sour.

But there is no consensus. Bank of America Merrill Lynch still expects prices to rise strongly next year to an average of $1,838 an ounce, although it sees prices turning lower in 2015.

At the more extreme end of forecasts, Capital Economics, the UK economics consultancy, says gold will reach a new record of $2,000 later this year, warning that the eurozone will flare up again and the rally in equity markets may run out of steam.

That is not quite as eye-popping a forecast as it might seem, as when the impact of inflation is factored in, the price of gold was considerably higher, at about $2,400 an ounce in “real” terms, in early 1980.

Crucially, Capital does not see the ETF movement as driving the gold price in the future, but rather reflecting what has already happened. If the price rises, investors would soon be heading back in, argues Ross Strachan, Capital’s commodities analyst. “You tend to get people looking at it as 'they are flowing out, that should push the price down’. But to some extent that has already happened,” he notes.  Still, he admits: “There is an inherent difficulty in valuing gold – it’s much trickier than for almost any asset you care to name.” .........Bears and bulls beware.

Mark Zandi, the chief economist of Moody's Analytics, said: "The job market remains sturdy in the face of significant fiscal headwinds. Businesses are adding to payrolls more strongly at the start of 2013 with gains across all industries and business sizes. Tax increases and government spending cuts don't appear to be affecting the job market."

The jobs figures and better than expected figures from the service sector helped drive up US stock markets this week. On Tuesday, the Dow Jones industrial average passed levels unseen since before the financial crisis.

In the UK, the stock market shrugged off poor construction figures to reach 6,483, up 44 points. The Office for National Statistics said output fell by 6.3% month on month having fallen by 16.3% in December from November. Worryingly for the chancellor, George Osborne, the figures revealed a sharp fall in infrastructure and civil engineering projects.

Alan Clarke, chief UK economist at Scotia Bank, warned that a triple dip recession was back on the cards without a major boost from other areas of the economy.

The German Dax and French Cac also nudged ahead as large firms, like their UK counterparts, looked ahead to better exports on the back of better news from the US. The US remains the world's largest economy and an important market for European goods.

Even the Italian stock market bounced after the non-farm payroll results, shaking off a credit downgrade that kept the country a few notches above junk status.

Fitch, which downgraded Italy's bond rating to BBB+, from A- with a negative outlook, said: "The increased political uncertainty and non-conducive backdrop for further structural reform measures constitute a further adverse shock to the real economy amidst the deep recession."

The agency expects Italy's output will shrink by 1.8% this year, as Europe's fourth-largest economy struggles in the throes of deepening recession.

Commenting on the British Prime Minister David Cameron's speech on the UK's future in the EU, the Chairman of the EPP Group, Joseph Daul, said: "I find it surprising that after forty years of partnership and common decisions, one of our Member States discovers that it is unhappy and wants to renegotiate the terms for a joint future. It is even more astonishing that it is a Conservative Prime Minister who is trying to wipe out the contributions of his predecessors: Conservative Prime Ministers such as Winston Churchill, Harold Macmillan, Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher, and John Major, who all helped forge the European Union of today. We will not renegotiate the fundamental principles which have given us peace and prosperity on this continent; principles which were negotiated and accepted by the United Kingdom for forty years.

For sixty years, Europe has worked to create a model that remains a beacon for the rest of the world, one that received last year's Nobel Peace Prize. Europe is no longer just about the nation state. It never was just a Single Market, a single currency or a set of common standards. Europe is above all a community of shared destiny with common values, founded on solidarity and responsibility.

The Prime Minister's speech is a retreat from these common values and a retreat from a shared common future. The United Kingdom was always at its highest point when it was working with its partners, not retreating from them. Today, I worry that this has been done for electoral purposes more than for the benefit of the British citizens. Europe cannot be taken hostage until 2017.

I want the United Kingdom to be a full Member State of the European Union but, I want a European Britain, just as I want a European France, a European Germany. Europe needs 27 Member States which are fully European. More than anything, we need a united Europe, an integrated Europe, a political Europe and I believe each Member State can contribute to this."

President Anibal Cavaco Silva called for urgent action to halt the “recessionary spiral”, warning Europe’s leaders that the current course had become “socially unsustainable”.

In a speech to the nation, he said Portugal would “honour its international obligations”, but in the same breath called for a tough line with the European Union-International Monetary Fund Troika over the pace of fiscal tightening under Portugal’s €78bn (£63bn) loan package. “We have arguments, and we should use them firmly,” he said.

“Fiscal austerity is leading to declining output and lower tax revenue. We must stop this vicious circle,” he said, cautioning the Troika that there would be no way out of the crisis until policy was set in the interests of the “Portuguese people” as well as foreign creditors.

His sombre speech was a reminder that Europe’s crisis is far from over.

Portugal’s jobless rate has risen from 13.7pc to 16.3pc over the past year, reaching 39pc for youth, even before the full impact of austerity hits.

Crass scaremongering by crass corrupt political "elite".

Crass scaremongering by crass corrupt political "elite".

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Viviane Reding, the vice-president of the European Commission, attacked the Prime Minister over the Government’s proposal to opt out of European Union law enforcement and policing measures. The justice commissioner expressed particular concern that the Government was “minded” to opt out from 135 EU crime and policing laws, including the European Arrest Warrant (EAW), which, she claimed, had “horrified” Britain’s own police force. “Do you want criminals and paedophiles running around freely on the streets? Is that really in the United Kingdom’s interest? It is crazy,” she said. In June 2014, the crime and policing legislation comes under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, handing control of sensitive extradition and policing issues to EU judges. Under the Lisbon Treaty, Britain must either opt out of every measure or allow the EU jurisdiction over all 135 pieces of European legislation, a substantial transfer of sovereignty.The usual and very clumsy socialist mantra, if you are not with us you're a fascist/pedophile/Nazi nut/racist or some such clap trap...English Common Law, based on hundreds of years of common sense, held us in good stead well before the perversion of EU Vermin Rights Charter screwed our society over....A lot of assertions by Reding about the importance of staying in the system that "she" has created, but no explanation as to the logic of her assertions, or why she thinks the world will come to an end the day we leave HER system. I think this is just a part of the orchestrated shadow boxing that we get daily from the EU functionaries, supported by the Cleggies, ahead of the much advertised Cameron speech, which itself may not amount to much anyway. Any attempt at a balanced debate will always be taken over by much loud shouting from the EU....Geez and I always thought all the paedophiles were in the parliamwnts (all, including the EU parliament) and now she screams they`re on the streets also?? Brussels help help-send over Inspector Clouseau !!!!

Italy woke up on Sunday to discover that politics was once again a world of bitter, personal attacks, sleight of hand, stunning egotism and shocking obsequiousness, meaning just one thing: Silvio Berlusconi was back. Overnight, the calm, grey world of Italy's technocrat prime minister, Mario Monti, vanished after the former EU commissioner said on Saturday he was resigning because Berlusconi, the 76-year-old media mogul and three-time prime minister, had withdrawn his parliamentary support. Hours earlier, Berlusconi had stood outside the gates of AC Milan, the football club he owns, declaring that after much soul-searching he would stand in elections, now likely in February. He boasted that after searching far and wide, he had failed to find a successor as brilliant as himself. Monti's austerity polices, tax hikes and spending cuts had dragged Italy to "the edge of an abyss", Berlusconi said last week, before his MPs were ordered via text to walk out of key votes and his party secretary, Angelino Alfano, told parliament: "We consider the experience of this government closed." Alfano then accused the centre-left Democratic party – currently riding high in the polls – of communist tendencies, jolting Italians back to Berlusconi's heyday of claiming commies boiled babies alive. Gian Antonio Stella, a leading commentator with Corriere della Sera, lamented: "I thought we had got beyond all that; it is so unpleasant to return to the 'You are either for me or against me' version of politics.

"Italians are sick of the Guelph and Ghibelline mentality, which cuts off the oxygen from political debate."

But for Berlusconi that vitriol is his lifeblood and he now has two months to turn up the heat on his TV channels and persuade Italians to take his side once again, following his resignation in November 2011 in the midst of sex scandals and an economic crisis that threatened to send Italy into meltdown.

Monti's plan to resign at the end of the year after he passes the 2013 budget, bringing elections forward a month from March, deftly denies Berlusconi the pleasure of shooting down the government's remaining bills as they struggle to get through parliament.

"The big question now is whether Monti himself wants to run as the head of a centrist group in the election," said Roberto D'Alimonte, a professor of politics at LUISS university in Rome.
Italy faces a return to political chaos - IN FACT , ITALY WANTS OUT FROM UNDER THE GERMAN BOOT - after Prime Minister Mario Monti announced at the weekend that he will resign, prompting his notorious predecessor Silvio Berlusconi to say he would attempt a comeback. The renewed uncertainty sent European shares into a slump as trading for the week began on Monday morning. Investors aren't the only ones worried, either. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told SPIEGEL ONLINE on Monday that the situation in Italy threatened to spark renewed financial problems in the euro zone. "Italy can't stall at two-thirds of the reform process," he said. "That wouldn't cause turbulence for just Italy, but also for Europe." Westerwelle's concerns were echoed by Klaus Regling, the head of the permanent euro-zone bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), who told German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung on Monday that he feared the heavily indebted country could abandon necessary reforms. "In the last year Italy has pushed through important reforms," he told the paper. "So far, the markets have honored that, although they have reacted with concern to the developments of recent weeks." The reform process must continue for the sake of both Italy and the entire currency union, Regling said. BERLUSCONI SHOUL GET iTALY OUT OF THE FOURTH REICH !!!!

Big credit bubble?! Big surprise!!

So the markets are overvalued? Big credit bubble?! Big surprise!! I've had the feeling the markets have been overvalued for years (about 12 years to be precise), and the same applies to almost all major currencies as well (most obviously, and most ludicrously, the Euro). There WILL be a crash. What really concerns me is how the aftermath of a crash will be dealt with. My guess is governments and banks will go looking for new income streams to replace the old, dead ones and we will all be conned even more than we are already. And on and on it will go until something big stops it (like an asteroid impact!)....Well : Anyone with a grain of financial acumen knows exactly why markets have risen - it is due almost entirely to the money printing and pathetic Interest rates arranged by almost ALL the westernised economies. Savers and Investors previously had countries like Australia, with rates giving a return on term deposits of 5-6%, risk free.....these rates have now gone due to pressure from the Oz Govt among others, on the RBA to lower rates for the benefit of borrowers and mortgagees in order that they might get re-elected next year....Now that these bolt holes are unavailable, people have no alternative but to put money back into low-risk, high dividend yielding shares. Bank shares in Australia, for example, bring a net return of around 7% and retirees etc have seen their standard of living continually falling in the Western world ever since the GFC began. Many are now at the stage where, even though they still don't trust the stock market and the smarter ones can still see the risks in the Eurozone , they have to act or see their nest eggs whittled away by ever-rising prices on utilities etc. The worry is that, as the BIS implies, this is NOT a sound rally and if another credit bubble recurs, investors risk another large slice of their pension funds etc being lost in the resultant crash... The elites' plan of denuding the middle class of their wealth is ALL going to plan....“Some asset prices appeared highly valued in a historical context relative to indicators of their riskiness,” said the bank in its quarterly report. Yields on mortgage bonds have fallen to the lowest level ever recorded. Spreads on corporate debt have narrowed to the wafer thin margins of 2007, even though default rates are currently three times higher than they were then for junk bonds and twice as high for investment-grade companies. The venerable Swiss-based institution – almost alone in warning of a global debt crisis in the build-up to the Great Recession – said it is rare for markets to gather steam at a time when the major forecasters are turning gloomy. The International Monetary Fund and the OECD have downgraded their outlooks for 2012 and 2013, with sharp cuts for much of Europe as well as for Brazil, China, and India. “Unusually, equity and fixed income gains coincided with a weakening of the global economic outlook. In the past, falling growth forecasts have usually been associated with rising expected default rates and higher bond yields,” it said....Money printing and flooding the banks with cheap cash is keeping the stock market and property bubbles inflated, keeping interest rates suppressed and removing any incentive for people to save for their own future. Supporting zombie companies is technically keeping bad debts of the Bank's books but is stifling real growth in the economy. Remember how politicians sold your and your children's future down the river for just one more election win, well they're still doing it.

Peace and prosperity has been guaranteed by nuclear weapons, not the EU....

Germany tried to conquer Europe in WWII using bombs and bullets. That effort cost them four million lives, untold numbers of wounded, one fifth of all the nation's housing destroyed, millions of their women raped, many of their cities reduced to rubble....and the nation's wealth and productivity wiped out. Their war was a total, abject failure, and an unprecedented human disaster. Someone correctly imagined that Europe could be conquered far more cheaply and easily.A masterplan for “completion of economic and monetary union” has been set out in a confidential document to be discussed by EU leaders at a Brussels summit next week. In the nine-page paper, seen by The Daily Telegraph, Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council – the monthly summits of EU leaders – charts a series of steps from ongoing financial reforms to overall political union for the eurozone. “The general objective will be to aim for a progressive pooling of economic sovereignty at the European level,” the paper states. Mr Van Rompuy expects the EU to have agreed an “operational framework” to give the European Central Bank (ECB) the role as single eurozone banking supervisor by March next year, despite continuing splits between France and Germany over the policy. The EU president then sees a second phase to a full “banking union” with legislative proposals next year for a shared bank bail-out fund and a euro-wide deposit guarantee scheme, proposals that are even more controversial than giving the ECB a supervisory role. Then, by 2014, the plan requires all eurozone countries to “enter into individual arrangements of a contractual nature with EU institutions on the measures and reforms they commit to undertake and on the means for their implementation”. ...Karl Marx could not balance his own household accounts, yet his theories are still hailed today as the solution to economic ills all over the world. The EU cannot get its accounts audited they are in such a mess and now they want to take economic sovereignty away from member states. Many years ago my parents taught me something valuable: If you are in a financial hole, stop digging it deeper. Someone take away the spades from these lunatics, please! Effin politicians, lying corrupt thieving and with a botched useless totalitarian plan tried to force this on people who deep down resent it. And Greec ena Spain and Portugal and Ireland are still saddled with a currency that violates all mathematical concepts of what is needed to gain competiveness, unless you pay them 50 euros a month and they all live in squalour. Either way the currency, the coupon, the filthy euro voucher is the problem now from the start and always will be. Only the dumbest halfwit cannot see that. Even if it was congealed under a stalinesque plan it STILL will not stop the imbalance .

A little known historical fact that will collapse even further the reputation of the City of London!

It will also disgust you!...But first... Abraham Lincoln had the US Treasury print interest free, non-repayable GREENBACKS dollars for the American people to pay their debts to the evil private bankers and he was assassinated. John Kennedy tried the same - and he was going to 'nationalise' the Federal Reserve and he too was assassinated in 1963 by Lee Oswald (altho, the banks try to blame the Russians).

In World War One... the English banks fell into trouble and the GOVERNMENT had millions of £pounds printed by the Bank of England, that they called BRADBURY's which were used to bail out the banks. These were also, debt and interest free. This truth was kept from the public at the time for fear of a run on the banks.

The crime of the government was that they could have continued to print free money, to pay for the defense of our country. Instead, they chose to then borrow at high interest from the banks and our national debt went from £650 million in 1914 to £7,500 million by 1918.   Lloyd George and his gang committed a heinous crime against the people of this country and that debt has been growing ever since until now when even many school kids are over their heads in debt - we are ALL tied in debt slavery and servitude - and it is getting worse, far worse. IT HAS TO STOP.

IT IS PERFECTLY LEGAL AND LAWFUL FOR THE GOVERNMENT - ANY GOVERNMENT, even Greece TO HAVE THE TREASURY PRINT AND ISSUE MONEY FOR THE CITIZENS TO USE AND SEND THE EVIL BANKERS PACKING FOREVER.

Let the banks challenge - under Common Law, WITH A JURY... THERE IS NO DEBT - and this country operates under Common Law. WE CAN START AFRESH.

Be it the United States or the European Union, most Western countries are so highly indebted today that the markets have a greater say in their policies than the people. Why are democratic countries so pathetic when it comes to managing their money sustainably? In the midst of this confusing crisis, which has already lasted more than five years, former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt addressed the question of who had "gotten almost the entire world into so much trouble." The longer the search for answers lasted, the more disconcerting the questions arising from the answers became. Is it possible that we are not experiencing a crisis, but rather a transformation of our economic system that feels like an unending crisis, and that waiting for it to end is hopeless? Is it possible that we are waiting for the world to conform to our worldview once again, but that it would be smarter to adjust our worldview to conform to the world? Is it possible that financial markets will never become servants of the markets for goods again? Is it possible that Western countries can no longer get rid of their debt, because democracies can't manage money? And is it possible that even Helmut Schmidt ought to be saying to himself: I too am responsible for getting the world into a fix ?

The European Commission has cut sharply its growth forecast for the eurozone, warning that the "difficult process of rebalancing will last for some time".

It now projects the bloc will narrowly avoid recession next year, growing by 0.1%, compared with its previous estimate of 1% growth, and thinks the EU economy will shrink this year.

Unemployment would also continue to rise next year, the Commission said. The revision helped push global stock markets lower.

The Paris and Frankfurt exchanges closed down 2%, while London's FTSE 100 ended the day 1.6% lower. New York's Dow Jones lost 313 points, or 2.4%, at 12,933, its lowest level since early August.

The euro also weakened against the dollar following the revision, falling by half a cent to $1.278. Against the pound, it fell by a fifth of a pence to 79.93p.

Figures released earlier on Wednesday showing the biggest monthly fall in German manufacturing output since April, also weighed on markets.

As did concerns about the upcoming so-called fiscal cliff in the US, now that the US election has been won by Barack Obama.

"Having been fixated on the US election and the preferred market outcome of an Obama victory, the initial morning feel good bounce [has fizzled out], as markets quickly moved on to the next potential banana skin," said Michael Hewson at CMC Markets.

"In this case there are several, starting with today's Greek parliamentary vote on austerity, not to mention concerns about how the newly elected president will deal with the US fiscal cliff concerns."

Under current plans, $600bn (£375bn) of tax rises and spending cuts will kick in in January, with many analysts saying this will push the US economy back into recession.

Opinion ....2...

Disaster was visited on the global economy 40 years ago with the Nixon 'shock' - the disengagement between the dollar and gold and other currencies with gold via their linkage with the dollar. That is the demise of the Bretton Woods agreement.
With the end of that arrangement countries were now free to create as much money as they liked and run as big a trade deficit as they liked. Under Bretton Woods, any trade defict had to be quickly reversed by cutting demand to maintain parity with the dollar and therefore gold
In 1963 Reginald Maudling tried to stimulate the UK economy only for UK business to fail to meet demand and so sucked in imports. That stimulus had to be quickly reversed. The same 10 years later with Anthony Barbour. The failure of Brits to create wealth goes back way before Margaret Thatcher. And way before GCSEs - but that's another matter.
Of course, Germany was the exception as the Bundesbank was not about to engage in this game of Monopoly.
Like all frauds, it starts small and the fraudster, having got away with it, then becomes more ambitious.
By 2007 the global economy had split into two camps - those who could create wealth, Germany (being smart and well-organised) and China (using slave labour) being the two prme examples, and those who could only consume wealth, the UK and US being the best examples. The US having exported a large chunk of its wealth creating capacity to the likes of China for the benefit of the few
The circle being squared with debt.
The Anglo-saxons convinced themseleves that crazy maths could be used to make even the worst debt perform.
In an attempt to maintain this farce from 2008 onwards the fraudsters now went one better by a quasi-monetisation of debt, quantative easing. Rather than solve the basic problem of not creating wealth they reach for their trusty tools of deceit and fraud.
Having got over the last few years with quasi-monestisation the UK, like all confident fraudsters, now becomes more confident and goes for full monetisation as Osborne claws back interest payments on bonds owned bythe BoE. One of the attributes of fraudsters is being adept at the use of convoluted logic to defy logic.
Eventually they will also write off the capital value of these bonds.
That gives a short breathing space but just as qe has solved nothing neither will that. The 'grand plan' seems to hope something will turn up.
But still there is this huge global trade imbalance that is being addressed by the default of everything just winding down as the there are fewer and fewer buyers for the sellers.

History explains all....

History explains all....The EU is experiencing its 'Stalingrad' moment....Sheer hubris makes it impossible for the EU to make the right decisions. Draghi's wears his vanity as if it alone is enough to save the EU. His vision is correct in his eyes, and to him that is all that matters, and that imprisons him in a course of action that is clearly failing. He is the only one who can't see it, though his generals nod their approval to maintain their salaries and privileges. Even Greece has deferred the worst effects of their austerity measures, which means that there will be no avoiding mounting civil disorder. If Golden Dawn show some political maturity (which they haven't so far) they'll walk in to power. Samaras is trying to defuse the Golden Dawn threat with some cynical changes to citizenship law but that's only upsetting his coalition partners. His government is doomed to collapse. European governments should focus on spending cuts, not tax rises to get their deficits down, according to the head of the European Central Bank. Mario Draghi said that the ECB's action (via its €1 trillion LTRO bazooka and announcement of the OMT programme) had helped to calm markets, but that it was up to governments to regain credibility.The growing tension between Germany and Greece was on show today as public sector workers stormed a building where officials from the two countries were meeting in the Greek city of Thessaloniki. Police had to form a shield around German Consul Wolfgang Hoelscher-Obermaier as he tried to enter the building. They also pelted him with water bottles and coffee in a protest against austerity measures. The workers chanted: "It's now or never!" and held up mock gravestones and banners proclaiming "Fight until the end!" ...Workers said that they were furious at comments by German envoy Hans-Joachim Fuchtel, who reportedly told journalists on Wednesday that it takes 3,000 Greek public sector workers to do the work of 1,000 of their German counterparts. Mr Fuchtel is Angela Merkel’s special envoy to Greece. Michael Meister, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party, told reporters that he could "live with" giving Greece more time to bring down its debt levels, adding that the EU had "many tools" to enable this to happen. However, he said that a writedown of Greek debt would be unacceptable to Berlin, and that MPs would not rush through a vote on the country's next aid tranche.

Why is everyone so surprised .........

Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, will cut short her trip to Asia to ensure that she is present at next Tuesday's Eurogroup meeting on Greece, according to a spokesman. Gerry Rice told reporters: The managing director will participate in the eurogroup meeting on November 20 as she usually does, and that will mean shortening her current trip to Asia. On Monday, Ms Lagarde openly disagreed with Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, over a critical target for reducing Greek debt levels. The EU wants to give Greece an extra two years to meet its debt reduction target of 120pc of GDP by 2022 instead of 2020. The IMF doesn't. The 2020 “debt sustainability” target was a condition for the IMF’s involvement in the second Greek bail-out. Speaking to an audience in Milan, Mr Draghi also said that Europe's debt crisis proved that there was still a need to complete economic and monetary union, though he added that countries faced a long road towards this, with much uncertainty. European governments should focus on spending cuts, not tax rises to get their deficits down, according to the head of the European Central Bank. Mario Draghi said that the ECB's action (via its €1 trillion LTRO bazooka and announcement of the OMT programme) had helped to calm markets, but that it was up to governments to regain credibility....Why is everyone so surprised by the fact the Eurozone is in recession (for that matter pretty much all or Western Europe!)???? The shock expressed on these threads staggers me!!! Lazy, stupid people have always been poor and always will!!
A continent populated by indolent masses addicted to cheap credit and state handouts and totally unwilling to do a hard day's work for a reasonable wage!! And you think that's a recipe for an economic miracle???  The only miracle is that the farce that is the Eurozone hasn't already imploded!!
I don't need a Belgian in a cheap suit to spout figures and forecasts at me.....I can pretty much tell you what's going to happen next unless you lot start rolling your sleeves up!!

Venice floods

Hundreds evacuated in Tuscany as Venice floods --- Some 200 people were evacuated in parts of Tuscany as heavy rains over the weekend left 70 percent of the city of Venice underwater, authorities said on Sunday. Sea levels peaked at 1.5 metres above normal levels before receding slightly.     

 Floodwaters drenched most of the tourist destination of Venice and led to the evacuation of 200 people in Tuscany, as bad weather hit northern Italy at the weekend, authorities said Sunday.  In Venice itself, heavy rains and winds from the south triggered "acqua alta" (high water) and 70 percent of the city was flooded, with sea levels reaching a peak of 1.5 metres (five feet) above normal before receding slightly, they said.  In Tuscany, around 200 people were evacuated because of heavy rains which flooded homes and caused mudslides, local officials said.  The most affected region was the province of Massa and Carrara, which produces the famous Carrara marble.  In Massa di Carrara alone, some 50 people were evacuated and a car was carried away by an overflowing river, but the couple in the vehicle were saved by firefighters.  The authorities have urged the local population to avoid going into the streets and to stay in the the upper floors of their homes.  In Pisa, some streets have been without electricity following the floods. In the large Tuscan port of Livorno, civil defence forces were on alert because of the heavy rains. In Liguria, the region bordering Tuscany, 30 people had to be evacuated, the authorities said. In anticipation of the floods two days ago, the authorities issued warnings and planned security measures to avoid any casualties after 13 people died in Tuscany and Liguria a year ago.  The bad weather was heading slowly towards the centre of the country and was set to hit Rome where civil defence forces have been put on alert.