Western stock markets seem to be assuming that this little spat with Russia will blow over, and that it will soon be business as usual.

It won't. There's a terrible inevitability to events.

The annexation of Crimea was a no-brainer, since Russia needed to protect its naval bases there. The installation of puppet Russian administrations in the Southern and Eastern Ukraine is also inevitable. The problem here is that the process will not be peaceful, and the appearance of Russian tanks in Ukraine to "protect" Russian-speaking people is a certainty.

This will trigger off draconian economic sanctions by the USA and the EU, and Russia will inevitably respond the only way it can, by turning off the gas pipeline. It is impossible to predict events beyond that, but what we can be sure of is that it will not be pretty and it will not be good for world stock markets....Anyone who has worked in resources realizes that to-date, there has been enormous levels of Western investment into Russia, especially into the energy sector; the demand from which will not dissipate over time. If push came to shove, massive debts to Western (especially German) banks would be dishonored entirely, coupled with the nationalization of EU energy assets. There is no doubt Russia will have a tough time of it - but understand that the Russian psyche can handle it. The confiscation of wealth from the West (Germany) as a net creditor, and UK based resource companies would be a very, very large financial blow, which could take decades to recover from. Not including the resultant damage to European manufacturing from massively higher energy costs.

Nothing in life is simple. Cliché characterizations are unless, Putin is doing what he thinks is best... don't forget, the guy is a student of history. Perspective is everything. History does nothing but demonstrate time and time again, its the small insults, the loss of pride in a relatively benign situation, that quickly spins out of control; underlying the unpredictability of human emotion maybe.

I assume the EU never did any forward inductive analysis before they backed a group that overthrew a democratically elected government !!! Because this was always the most obvious outcome under any Game Theory analysis. It is abundantly clear (to me at least) that since Crimea has left, any future Ukrainian elections will no longer allow ethic Russians (numerically) the chance of political power. It is a mathematical inevitability that they will increasingly become a sidelined as massive minority.

Furthermore, given the Ukrainian leadership has no intention of allowing political and economic devolution (which is also opposed by the EU) – realistically, the only political and logical outcome for this minority is self-determination via force of arms. Of course Russia will inevitable have to enter the fray (remember the Falklands anyone???).

AEP's economic threats are mere futile war drum beats from yesterdays story. This book has already been written. The best that strategists can hope to glean from this transition, is to make it as comfortable and as less disruptive as possible. But given nationalism is not a fertile field for logical outcomes - the risk remains that this situation could get a lot larger and uglier as well. The Ukrainian government for one, appears desperate to want to ramp this up significantly...

Whilst Washington is throwing paper darts in the form of notional Russian debt obligations to insolvent Western banks, the Russians just dig up more oil, gas, gold (whatever, you name it..) and trade with China, India, Brazil etc.
All the US government has is paper money and missile systems that don't work, a rigged stock market, a rigged US treasury market and shale gas/oil that takes more dollars to extract (ex. tax break) than it costs in the market.

The only reason there aren't riots outside Wal-Mart is the debt forbearance shown by China for the plastic junk the infantilized US population seem to need to live the American dream (or is that nightmare..?).

The US empire is running on empty and we're seeing the results now in this last desperate attempt to show they're still a 'contender'. If it wasn't so scary it would be pathetic - what a sad end for that marvelous tool for what could have been human emancipation, the American constitution.

Instead of leading the world (which I think was a possibility before the NeoCon tragedy), they are vaporizing men, women and children with drones in countries most American couldn't even find on a map, under some phony pretext, to boost the military-industrial complex. It's like watching a person destroying themselves with drugs and their family members around them....I'm genuinely saddened by it.

In Germany, the finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has completed an outspoken week with a flourish.

Speaking to German daily Handelsblatt, in an interview published this morning, Mr Schaeuble revisited talk of a third bail-out for Greece, following on from his surprise admission about the prospect earlier this week. Today, he added that, while Greece is likely to need another rescue package, that the sums involved will not be as high as the earlier deals, which totaled €240bn. He's also insisted that Greece will not get another debt haircut.

We have held out the prospect of further aid, on condition that the government in Athens meet its agreed commitments and on the expectation the sums involved will be much smaller than before.

I don't want to be accused, after the election, of not having said the truth before the election.

I'm happy that the broad public is aware of what I've been saying for a long time, that we'll have to look next year at further measures for Greece.

Best wishes to the Greek people. Considering that I am a right of centre poster I'm not always that impressed by some strikes. Much of that comes from the British memory of the 1970s 'I'm alright Jack' (Peter Sellers film) type of Union action which was unhelpful to the British economy.

 Greece is an entirely different case, and more or less the only avenue that your average Greek citizen has left to register their protest at the troika and corrupt Greek political class. Though one day mass walkouts can only go so far, and have to wonder if more sustained action will eventually be needed to bring down the government.

Eurozone industrial output slips in May - Industrial output in the eurozone has come in largely as expected, slipping 0.3% in May from April.

In annual terms, output fell 1.3%, according to data from Eurostat.

There was some mildly positive news in revisions to previous data, with output now believed to have expanded 0.5% on the month in April, compared with a previous reading of 0.4%.

Further details from Eurostat also bring some welcome cheer for Portugal, which tops the industrial growth league in May. Eurostat reports:  Among the European Union member states for which data are available, industrial production fell in thirteen, rose in nine and remained stable in the UK. The largest decreases were registered in Romania (-10.7%), Lithuania
(-6.3%) and Sweden (-3.8%), and the highest increases in Portugal (+6.1%), Latvia (+2.2%) and Estonia (+2.0%).

Looking at the drivers of production throughout the eurozone, Eurostat says:  In May 2013 compared with April 2013, production of durable consumer goods dropped by 2.3% in the euro area. Capital goods decreased by 1.5%. Energy rose by 0.1%. Intermediate goods grew by 0.4%. Non-durable consumer goods increased by 0.6%.

ROME—Italy's new government took its first concrete steps Friday, announcing some €3 billion ($3.86 billion) in economic measures aimed at offering relief to households and workers amid the country's longest postwar recession. Prime Minister Enrico Letta, who was sworn in last month as head of a coalition cabinet, said an unpopular tax on primary residences would be suspended and an extra €1 billion would be pumped into a wage-supplement program.  The measures were the bare minimum of what the new government has pledged. Notably, none of the announced benefits address what politicians have identified as the national priority: youth unemployment. Still, they signal a breakthrough of sorts given the stark political differences among the politicians that make up the patchwork majority behind Italy's first bipartisan government in more than 60 years.  Mr. Letta and his deputy, Angelino Alfano representing the mainstream left and right parties respectively—were upbeat about the day's cabinet meeting, where ministers managed to avoid the squabbles that have characterized recent meetings.  "We scored a goal on our first try," said Mr. Alfano, whose conservative People of Freedom party had demanded that the new property tax—introduced by former Prime Minister Mario Monti be scrapped. Mr. Letta, however, emphasized that only the summer installment of the tax on primary residences is being suspended. That is because the government intends this summer to overhaul the way Italy's tax code impacts real estate overall. Rome draws €44 billion in revenue from taxes, tariffs and other levies related to private property. About half of that is linked to ownership and the rest to service charges. The planned reform will "help households and the construction sector," the prime minister said, adding that businesses would be offered tax credits and breaks on properties they owned as part of production processes.  The decision to lower a tax on property is popular, because of Italy's high home-ownership rates. But it also reduces the government's room to maneuver on another important issue: lowering income and business taxes. Italian income taxes are unusually high even by European standards and hobble competitiveness and output, said Timo del Carpio, an economist at RBC Capital Markets in London.  The property tax was an efficient tool to spread out Italy's painful fiscal adjustment amid the euro-zone debt crisis, said Mr. Carpio. The decision to undo it shows that Mr. Letta's "fragile coalition is already proving to be an obstacle" toward that goal, he said.  While Mr. Alfano's party demanded the property tax cut, supporters of Mr. Letta's center-left Democratic Party wanted more money for a welfare program that has come under strain amid the economic downturn. The measure announced on Friday will provide new money for furlough schemes, helping companies keep their workforces intact. However, because those on furlough aren't part of the hoards of jobless people in Italy, the new measures do little to help tackle the country's 11.5% unemployment.  Mr. Letta is also working on a plan to offer tax breaks for new hiring but no final decisions have been taken, in part because the program is likely to prove far more costly than the measures announced Friday.   In an important shift from the past two years of Italy's economic policy, the latest measures will be "100% funded by public spending cuts and not by shifting the tax burden somewhere else," Mr. Alfano said. He didn't give details.  As things stand, Rome has little margin in making its future moves. Mr. Letta reiterated his intention to keep this year's budget deficit below 3.0% of gross domestic product, in accordance with European Union rules. That should allow Italy to be released from European strictures on countries with excessive deficits—an outcome cabinet officials expect will provide further fiscal relief by lowering sovereign borrowing costs.   "These are just our first steps," Mr. Letta said.

The plot thickens...The European Commission has told reporters in Brussels that large uninsured depositors could to be "bailed-in" to help rescue a bank, under a new draft EU law on bank resolutions.

The comments came as the EC fielded questions on Jeroen Dijsselbloem's (the governor of Ciprus designate) comments yesterday that Cyprus showing the way ahead for handling financial crisis.

Brandenburg civil servant pensions exposed to Cyprus.

The German state of Brandenburg has admitted that around €2m of its civil servants' pension fund is in Cypriot bonds.   Much of the rest of the fund is in other crisis countries such as Ireland, Spain, Portugal as well as the Cayman Islands. Its finance minister Helmuth Markov from the far-left Linke party says he's confident their value will bounce back. (well, he has to say that, doesn't he?)Will perhaps trigger a bit of much-needed Schadenfreude in Cyprus?

Schäuble blames classroom jealousy...Remarkable comments from Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, this morning -- he's compared criticism of the tough German approach to the negotiations to classroom envy.

Here's the quotes (via Kathimerini) : "It always works out like that,” he told ZDF television.  “This also happens in classrooms. Sometimes when you have better results, others have difficulties with this, sometimes they are even a little jealous."

Ironic timing, as children in Nicosia left the classroom to protest against the bailout terms.

His Cyprus counterpart, Michalis Sarris, looked like a man still reeling from a nasty encounter with an exam paper* this morning. He told Bloomberg that there's been little Esprit de corps during Sunday's negotiations. Europe Union should be about showing support to fellow members, but...We did get some support from some participants, but there was a definite hard line by others.

So, as a good socialist I transfer the debt to the average Joe

The vast majority of the EU states are socialist, so I believe, the main aim of socialism is to transfer wealth from those that have to those that have not to make it a fairer society.--- So as a good socialist I transfer the debt to the average Joe tax payer to protect the wealth of shareholders, bondholders and depositors. So Joe tax payer gets poorer and the rich get richer.---So I am a capitalist, I believe in a free market....Joe tax payer is protected for small amounts by the government i.e. all taxpayers. Its just insurance really Joe taxpayer has already paid for with his taxes. The bank goes bust free market forces. The shareholders, bondholders and wealthy depositors get stuffed. Wealth redistribution at a stroke with out the need for expensive tax collection and redistribution....I am sure all the educated people will tell me were I am going wrong....The wealthy by winning the competition have power to circumvent the market forces. So no pure market exists or is possible, and if ever it happened it would destroy itself in monopoly. It is even doing a good job of this at the moment without this 'purity'....Question - rhetoric : With so much continuing financial doom and gloom around Europe, the Euro and Spanish banks why have European stock markets followed far East markets and risen by more than 1% on opening this morning?. Is there something happening out there in the 'markets' that only a select few are aware of?... The ECB has  let the broader M3 money supply contract for the whole eurozone late last year, badly breaching its own 4.5pc growth target. This was not purist hard-money discipline. Let us not dress it up with the bunting of ideology, or false authority. It was incompetence, on a par with the errors of 1931.

Spain’s Bankia fiasco has merely brought matters to head, though the details are shocking enough. A €4bn bail-out in mid-May. A €23bn bail-out two weeks later. You couldn’t make it up.

Europe's leaders, have been warned to adopt a more "cautious" approach when discussing multiculturalism. The Norwegian chairman of the Nobel peace prize committee has told them they risk inflaming far-right and anti-Muslim sentiment. Thorbjørn Jagland, a former prime minister of his country, said leaders such as the British premier would be "playing with fire" if they continued to use rhetoric that could be exploited by extremists. Four months ago in Munich, Cameron declared that state multiculturalism had failed in Britain, a view immediately praised by Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, as "a further huge leap for our ideas into the political mainstream". Marine Le Pen, vice-president of the far-right National Front party in France, also endorsed Cameron's view of multiculturalism, claiming that it corroborated her own party's line. Jagland's comments come in the wake of the Oslo bomb and the massacre on Utøya Island that left 77 people dead. The killer, Anders Behring Breivik, said he was inspired by the right-wing English Defence League. Breivik sent his manifesto, published online hours before the attacks, to about 250 British members of the BNP, the EDL and the Stop Islamisation of Europe group. Jagland, who is also secretary general of the Council of Europe, told the Observer: "We have to be very careful how we are discussing these issues, what words are used. "Political leaders have got to defend the fact that society has become more diverse. We have to defend the reality, otherwise we are going to get into a mess. I think political leaders have to send a clear message to embrace it and benefit from it.

Two of the leading Petrom top managers, who were in the company's management team ever since the privatisation of the oil and gas producer in 2004, have this year left to carry out the reorganisation of OMV's latest acquisition: Petrol Ofisi."I won't be talking about Petrom today because it is already going in the right direction, of integration. Let's talk about Turkey." This was one of the opening messages conveyed by Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer, CEO of OMV in London, at the latest media summit organised by the Austrian oil group, Petrom's majority shareholder.
In mid-October, OMV finalised the acquisition of Turkey's biggest petrol station chain, Petrol Ofisi, for which it paid one billion euros, securing a significant share of a market credited with the biggest chances of growth in the next period.Reinhard Pichler, 49, former CFO of Petrom, left his position last week, being replaced by Daniel Turnheim, a member of the OMV group since back in 2002. Pichler is not leaving the group, however, but will go to Turkey, where he will fill the same position he has occupied in Petrom since 2004.At the beginning of this year Tamas Mayer, who used to be in charge of Petrom's marketing operations, i.e. of the nearly 550 distribution stations, left the position to become Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Petrol Ofisi. According to some sources, Mayer will be running marketing operations within Petrol Ofisi, as well.Agerpres, Mediafax, Romanian Vancouver Sun,Global News, Financial Times,Tribune, ,Wall Street Journal,The Washington Times,Athens News,The New York Times,USA Today,Le Monde

China - the new frontier for EU Investors

China's rapid growth is easing to a manageable pace and Beijing can do more to reconfigure its economy to promote domestic consumption and reduce reliance on trade, the World Bank said Wednesday. Inflation that has risen steadily this year should level off and is unlikely to be a serious problem, the bank said in a quarterly China outlook. The Washington-based bank raised its 2010 growth forecast from 9.5 percent to 10 percent and said the expansion should slow to 8.7 percent next year. Growth eased to 9.6 percent in the three months ending in September, down from 10.3 percent the previous quarter, as the government imposed lending and investment curbs.
"We think that coming from this very strong growth, China should be able to ease into a more sustainable growth rate in the long term," said the report's main author, Louis Kuijs, at a news conference.
The outlook reflects China's status as the first major economy to rebound from the global crisis on the strength of a flood of stimulus spending and bank lending. While Washington and others are trying to shore up growth, Beijing faces the challenge of cooling inflation and restoring normal conditions.
Beijing needs to boost wages and consumer spending and promote growth of private and service businesses to reduce reliance on exports and energy-intensive heavy industry, the World Bank said.
"The need to rebalance to more domestic demand-led, service sector-oriented growth seems stronger now than five years ago," said Kuijs. "Internationally the environment is less favorable than it was."
Communist leaders made raising domestic consumption a priority in their latest five-year economic plan crafted at a meeting last month. But it also was a goal in their previous plan and private sector analysts say Beijing has yet to take major steps to shift emphasis away from manufacturing and construction. The World Bank recommended opening up more industries to private business, changing the way energy prices are set to encourage efficiency and nurturing private-sector research and development. The bank cautioned against abrupt steps such as mandating sharp wage hikes, saying Beijing instead should look at gradual changes such as allowing more rural workers to move to cities and changing energy prices that favor heavy industry."We are looking for a market-oriented, market-friendly way of getting this consumption growth, consistent with continued strong growth," Kuijs said. Inflation that hit 3.6 percent in September, well above the 3 percent government target, should level off but might stay as high as 3.3 percent next year, the bank said. Kuijs said that in developing economies such as China, inflation of 3 to 5 percent might be acceptable as industries grow rapidly and demand for resources shifts."We still do not think China's inflation is at a very serious risk of escalating but we also do not think China will go back to the very low rate of inflation it saw in 2005," he said.
The bank also cautioned that China's politically contentious trade surplus is likely to rebound in 2011 after narrowing temporarily this year.
The multibillion-dollar trade gap has strained relations with Washington and other trading partners and prompted some U.S. lawmakers to demand sanctions over Chinese currency controls blamed for widening the surplus.

Fate of the Romanian Economy in 2011 depends on talks with IMF

Yesterday saw the start of two weeks of negotiations with the Fund, which are set to provide some answers to essential questions as far as next year is concerned.
Romania could find out in about two weeks' time if and how much economic growth it will see next year, what the main taxes will look like - flat rate, social contributions, VAT, what the new arrangement to be signed with the IMF in spring will look like and implicitly how big the RON/euro exchange rate volatility will be.
The first official talks between the IMF's review mission and the authorities began yesterday.Jeffrey Franks, the mission chief, says the Fund's forecasts regarding the Romanian economy could be adjusted, but not significantly.Forecast modifications have become a current practice over the course of the arrangement sealed in the spring of 2009, with the IMF so far only revising its calculations for the worse, after failing to anticipate the economic trends. Now the Fund expects a 1.5% GDP growth for 2011.The final forecasts will be an essential tool towards building next year's budget. The draft that recently featured in the press but has yet to be officially assumed is already suspected of overestimating the revenue potential. Things are made even more complicated by the chaos on the political scene, which was reflected yesterday in the Parliament in the decisions on introducing a 5% VAT rate on basic food items and on exempting from taxation pensions of less than 2,000 RON, after there had been talk of taxing all incomes of this type.If these decisions are politically assumed, by the head of state inclusively, attempts by the main ruling party PD-L to talk to the IMF about cutting the flat rate to 12%, cutting overall social contributions to 41% and increasing the minimum wage to 700 RON will fail.