Jun 212015
 


Unknown Army of the James at completed Dutch Gap canal, James River, Virginia 1864

Hollande Is Implored to End ‘Financial Blackmail’ of Greece (Bloomberg)
The Fight To End Greece’s Great Euro Depression (Telegraph)
Greek Episodes Of Despair And Drama As Moment Of Truth Nears (Helena Smith)
Greece, The Euro and Gunboat Diplomacy (Karl Whelan)
As Greece Stares Into The Abyss, Has Spain Escaped From Crisis? (Observer)
Greek PM Prepares Last-Ditch Offer To Avoid Default On Debts (Observer)
The Greek Crisis Reveals The EU’s Democratic Deficit (Coppola)
Rising Child Poverty Across Britain ‘Halts Progress Made Since 1990s’ (Observer)
‘It’s Time To Hold Physical Cash’: Senior UK Fund Manager (Telegraph)
Steal from Taxpayers, Blame the Poor (Paul Buchheit)
Russia Slams Renewed EU Sanctions, Says Measure Is ‘Hopeless’ (RT)
Ukraine is a ‘Black Hole’ for European Taxpayers’ Money: German Media (Sputnik)
Powerful People In The West And In Kiev Do Not Want Peace – Stephen Cohen (RT)
Nomi Prins: There Is No Saving This Global Financial System (KWN)
Liars, Cowards, Freaks & Fools: Trump for President? (Paul Craig Roberts)
Why the Pope’s Environment Encyclical Is a Big Deal (Newsweek)
All Kangaroos Are Left-Handed (Discovery)
The Latest Global Temperature Data Are Literally Off The Chart (Guardian)
The Sixth Mass Extinction Is Here (Stanford.edu)

Potential big deal. Hollande’s chance to show -independent- leadership. France is pivotal to Europe, but it must speak up to make that count.

Hollande Is Implored to End ‘Financial Blackmail’ of Greece (Bloomberg)

French President Francois Hollande received an appeal from a group of lawmakers including some from the ruling Socialist Party and other political figures to end the “financial blackmail” of Greece by its European creditors. The message of France “cannot be a docile reminder of the rules at a time when the house is burning,” the lawmakers said in an open letter to Hollande published on the website of France’s Communist Party. “We are asking you to take the initiative to unblock the talks between the euro group and the Greek political authorities.” The letter highlights the domestic political pressure Hollande faces to help broker a deal between Greece and its creditors as the region’s most indebted nation is on the brink of a default.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Hollande spoke by phone on Friday after a meeting of euro area finance ministers failed to advance toward an agreement with Greece. So far the two biggest economies in the 19-nation euro bloc have presented a united front against Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who has spent his five months in power trying to roll back the austerity policies underpinning the country’s bailout. At the finance minister’s meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday, French Finance Minister Michel Sapin pressed hardest for a compromise, while his German counterpart, Wolfgang Schaeuble stayed largely silent and ministers from other countries stepped up the pressure on Greece, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The French lawmakers, including Socialists such as Pouria Amirshahi and Fanelie Carrey-Conte, told Hollande to place France “at the side of the people of Greece.” “Bring explicit support to the healthy measures taken by the Greek authorities, notably those addressing the humanitarian crisis in the country” they said. “Accept the principle of a restructuring of Greek debt, of which a large part is notoriously illegitimate.”

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“There Is No Europe Without Greece.”

The Fight To End Greece’s Great Euro Depression (Telegraph)

Nikos Athanassiou, a 61-year-old Athenian pensioner, is at the heart of Greece’s struggle to maintain its fragile 14-year membership of the euro. Like many of his compatriots, Nikos took early retirement having worked most of his life labouring in the country’s now defunct construction industry, aged 58. He is one of the 2.6m pensioners in Greece who have become the unlikely battleground in the latest game of brinkmanship between the radical Left government and its paymasters. A member of Communist Party of Greece (KKE), Nikos spends his retirement resisting Troika-imposed cuts to public services as a union representative for his local district in northern Athens “It is my duty to demand dignity for Greeks. We are collapsing as a country,” says Nikos.

His resolve is not unusual in a society where the bulk of proposed cuts will hit the elderly and newly retired. The IMF is demanding the Greek government slash €1.8bn in pensions spending in 2016. At 16.2pc of GDP, Greece’s outlay is highest in the eurozone. Even with overhauls to the retirement age and spending cuts, this will still only fall to 14.3pc in 45 years time – the third highest in the EU. Nikos’s pension is €750 a month. He is among nearly half of all Greek pensioners who provide the sole source of income to support three generations of one family. But his pension is barely enough to provide for his seven-year old granddaughter and her parents. “When I think about my granddaughter’s future, I panic. I want her to live in an independent Greece – not a protectorate.”

Resentment against creditors’ determination to suck more funds from the country’s pension system is rife. Greeks have already seen a 40pc fall in their pension provision over five years – a shrinkage that has been ruled unconstitutional by the country’s highest administrative court. One of the reasons the spending ranks so highly is due less to generosity of individual pensions than it is the extreme recession that has shrunk GDP to almost pre-euro levels. Greece’s radical Left government has vociferously defended pensions as one of the last remaining safety nets in a country where 45pc of the elderly live below the poverty line. The issue has become the immovable “red line” in Greece’s struggle to finally end what the ruling Syriza party have dubbed a “ritual humiliation.”

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One week in the life of a shattered society.

Greek Episodes Of Despair And Drama As Moment Of Truth Nears (Helena Smith)

Sunday: Five years is a long time to be in crisis. It’s freefall by a thousand cuts; loss in myriad ways, hard choices that never get easier. Last week, as Greece descended into drama, a young man appeared on the marble steps of the neoclassical building opposite my home. Head in hand, he sat there from Sunday to Wednesday, in the beating sun, a wheelie bag in front of him, a slice of cardboard perched on top that read: “I am homeless. Help please!”

When you live in Athens you do not flinch at the signs of decay: to do so would be to give in. But somehow the sight of this forlorn figure – a waif of a man, eyes fixed only at his feet, the embodiment of wounded pride, brought home as never before that Greeks are in crisis. Was he giving up or making a hard choice? If he was 22, and he barely seemed that, his entire adult life had been spent in crisis. This is the great tragedy of Greece. It has not only been needlessly impoverished – it now eats up its own. The elderly woman who occasionally rifles through the rubbish bins on the corner of the square my office overlooks – often carrying a Louis Vuitton bag – is so glad she was born at the end of the 1946-49 civil war. “At least then it could get better. Today it can only get worse.”

Monday: For five years we have all felt as if we are on a runaway train, hurtling into the unknown. Sometimes the train picks up speed, sometimes it slows down, but never enough to stop. This week, as the drumbeat of default, impending bankruptcy and disastrous euro exit thudded ever louder, the train felt as if it might derail altogether. Had a lunatic got hold of the controls? On Monday morning it began to feel like it. For me, the day started at 2am when I received a text from Euclid Tsakalotos, the point-man in negotiations between Athens and the troika.

“We made huge efforts to meet them halfway,” he wrote hours after talks reached an impasse over a reform-for-cash deal that could save Greece. “But they insisted on pension and wage cuts.” By mid-morning, global stock markets were tumbling. By midday, the world had learned that, without an agreement, Greece might not be able to honour an end-of-month debt repayment to the IMF worth €1.6bn. By midnight, newscasters, looking decidedly nervous, had broken their own taboo: many were talking openly of euro exit.

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“..unnecessary cowardice, confusion and hubris..”

Greece, The Euro and Gunboat Diplomacy (Karl Whelan)

Original decision to provide a bail out is the source of the current crisis. Time for Europe to share the blame and financial consequences.

With everyone talking about Greece being on the verge of exiting the euro after Monday’s summit meeting, it seems to be forgotten that the current crisis is not really about Greece’s currency arrangements at all. The Greek people are not demanding a return to the drachma and few within the country are arguing for the competitive benefits a currency devaluation would entail. And there are no formal rules that Greece is breaking that must lead to an exit from the euro because, legally, the euro is a fixed and irrevocable currency union. This crisis is about more basic things: Debt and power. Indeed, the current stand-off looks a lot more like the classic gunboat diplomacy conflicts of the 19th century than it does the currency crises of the 20th century.

Europe’s governments and the IMF made an enormous mistake in bailing out Greece’s private creditors in 2010 and then overseeing a botched debt restructuring in 2012. In turn, the Greek governments of this era made the mistake of accepting official loans to pay off private creditors, perhaps not realising they were jumping out the frying pan straight into the fire. Now the Greeks are learning that defaulting on private creditors is one thing (not so hard it turns out, once you’ve got Lee Buchheit in your corner) but defaulting on governments of rich European countries is quite something else. Blaming the euro for the current impasse is actually pretty strange because the euro’s founding fathers explicitly warned member states to not to get themselves into this situation.

The story of the demise of Europe’s “no bailout clause” is an interesting one. Rather than an inevitable crisis, one can credibly argue that the decisions that landed us in the current situation did not need to be taken and were taken as a result of unnecessary cowardice, confusion and hubris. I reviewed many papers on prospects for the euro written by economists in the 1990s. I was struck by the consensus that the fiscal limitations of the Stability and Growth Pact would generally be honoured, that euro members that got into fiscal troubles would not be bailed out by other countries and this would lead to sovereign defaults when countries did get into fiscal problems.

By and large, the policy heavyweights of the day, such as Rudi Dornbusch, believed there was a “categorical no-bailout injunction.” As such, it was expected that markets would understand that European governments were more likely to default once their devaluation option was taken away and that financial markets would price the sovereign debt of countries differently depending on the health of their public finances.

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Note the pattern: Spain ‘recovers’ through increasing inequality.

As Greece Stares Into The Abyss, Has Spain Escaped From Crisis? (Observer)

While the big picture is undoubtedly improving – big investors are returning to a country that barely three years ago was widely expected to need a Greece-style sovereign bailout – Spain is still mired in a period of transition. Even the IMF report that welcomed Spain’s impressive growth rate – one of the strongest in Europe – also stressed the shaky jobs outlook, noting that unemployment was “still painfully high” and that “vulnerabilities remain”. “Spain has returned to about 95% of where it was in 2008,” says Professor Javier Diaz-Giménez of the IESE business school in Madrid. “That means 2008 is still a benchmark people look back at with nostalgia. At current growth rates, the economy will get back to where it was in 2008 at the end of next year. It’s a very late recovery.”

One of the biggest worries for those yet to see any improvements in their lives is whether even a sustained recovery will be enough to repair the damage. Jobs are starting to return, currently at a rate of 400,000-500,000 a year, but more than three million were lost during the downturn, so the new jobs represent only a small improvement in an unemployment rate, which is still running at almost 24%. In Greece, which now finds itself on the edge of the economic precipice, the rate is 26%. Inequalities, meanwhile, are deepening, leaving some to wonder whether the crisis is even over at all. “The economy is certainly not improving for those without a job or a home,” says Lotta Tenhunen, a social activist in Madrid. The group she works with, PAH, campaigns on behalf of those evicted after falling into arrears on their mortgage payments, and became especially prominent at the height of the recession. In Vallecas, it still meets every week: “People and families are still being driven out of their homes – and the rate is still rising.”

Prospects for the young are particularly bleak. About half of under-25-year-olds in the labour force are without a job, and this threatens to leave the country with a listless lost generation for whom unemployment is the norm. The ranks of the long-term jobless are also swelling. “It is not just the headline unemployment figure that is worrying; it is also the type of unemployment,” says Antonio Barroso of consultancy Teneo Intelligence. “40% of unemployed people are over the age of 45, so difficult to retrain and bring back into the labour market. You also have to look at the types of jobs being created. Most new positions are temporary contracts, where people are left in a precarious position with very few rights – this does not breed confidence.”

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“Speculation is rife that Greece’s creditors at the EU, ECB and IMF would offer a six-month extension of the bailout programme..”

Greek PM Prepares Last-Ditch Offer To Avoid Default On Debts (Observer)

The race to save Greece from economic collapse intensified on Saturday night as its beleaguered leader conducted a flurry of behind-the-scenes negotiations before an EU summit on Monday that is expected to decide the country’s fate. Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister, met senior officials in an attempt to devise a package of reforms that would secure emergency funds and avoid the nation defaulting on its massive debts. It will be the third such proposal that Athens has made to its creditors in as many weeks. “We will try to supplement our proposal so that we get closer to a solution,” Greece’s minister of state, Alekos Flabouraris, told broadcaster Mega TV. “We are not going [to the summit] with the old proposal. Some work is being done to see where we can converge, so that we achieve a mutually beneficial solution.”

Flabouraris, widely seen as a mentor to the young prime minister, said Tsipras would hold crucial talks with the head of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker. The Greek cabinet will meet in an emergency session on Sunday with Tsipras also dispatching senior officials to Brussels. The frantic diplomacy came as Greece’s eurozone partners warned that, after five months of fruitless talks, the game was up for Tsipras’s radical leftwing government. The country, which has been thrown two lifelines since 2010, has until 30 June to secure €7.2bn (£5.1bn) in bailout funds. Failure to release the loans will result in default, as Greece owes €1.6bn to the IMF at the end of the month. Among the measures that the Syriza-led coalition was reportedly working on on Saturday were reductions in early retirement schemes.

Pension and VAT reforms, along with labour deregulation, remain sources of friction between the two sides. Speculation is rife that Greece’s creditors at the EU, ECB and IMF would offer a six-month extension of the bailout programme – disbursing more than €10bn in aid to tide the country over the summer – if agreement was reached. Discussions over a third bailout Athens will inevitably also require would be kicked down the road. Speaking to the Observer, Athens’s chief negotiator, Euclid Tsakalotos, described the prospect of a short-term deal as perhaps the worst possible outcome. Prolongation of the political uncertainty – and scenarios of Greece’s enforced exit from the euro – would, he said, do nothing for the country’s economic recovery.

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Coppola still leaves me with a host of questions. Yanis wrote yesterday that his proposals were never even read because that would mean they’d need to be sent to Bundestag. Whether that automatically implies a vote, I don’t know.

The Greek Crisis Reveals The EU’s Democratic Deficit (Coppola)

The Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, has stirred up something of a hornet’s nest. He has spilled the beans on the less-than-transparent negotiating tactics of the EU institutions – the European Commission and the ECB. The Irish finance minister, Michael Noonan, complained that he had not seen the proposals put forward by the EU institutions for consideration by the Greek government. This is a serious criticism. Failure to brief finance ministers adequately before a Eurogroup meeting is negligent, although perhaps understandable in a rapidly-changing situation. It means that the ministers are unable to make informed decisions, so they must either rubber-stamp proposals without considering then properly, or defer everything.

Kicking cans down the road is of course a Eurogroup specialty, but it really shouldn’t be forced on finance ministers through inadequate briefing. Exactly why Mr. Noonan was not briefed is unclear. Did he miss the briefing? Was it an oversight by hard-pressed bureaucrats? Were other ministers briefed? We don’t know. But it is worrying that a mistake like this can be made in such finely balanced negotiations. One false move could spell disaster. The EU negotiators must be more careful. But Mr. Varoufakis added another complaint to Mr. Noonan’s. He said that he had been prevented from briefing EU finance ministers on his own proposal ahead of the meeting. And he blamed the Germans:

In fact, as our German counterpart was later to confirm, any written submission to a finance minister by either Greece or the institutions was “unacceptable”, as he would then need to table it at the Bundestag, thus negating its utility as a negotiating bid.

I find this hard to believe. In effect, it means that anything presented to the Eurogroup in writing is deemed by the Germans to be a firm recommendation requiring a vote by the German Parliament. If this is true, then it makes negotiations far more difficult. Complex proposals have to be written down, even if they are not the final word, because otherwise there is a significant risk of misunderstanding. Even more importantly, it raises serious questions about the role of the Eurogroup. If all the Eurogroup can ever see is a finished product, they can never do more than rubber-stamp decisions made by unelected bureaucrats behind the scenes. This is not a good way of running a supposedly democratic polity. Mr. Varoufakis makes a very similar criticism:

The euro zone moves in a mysterious way. Momentous decisions are rubber- stamped by finance ministers who remain in the dark on the details, while unelected officials of mighty institutions are locked into one-sided negotiations with a solitary government-in-distress. It is as if Europe has determined that elected finance ministers are not up to the task of mastering the technical details; a task best left to “experts” representing not voters but the institutions. One can only wonder to what extent such an arrangement is efficient, let alone remotely democratic.

And in his final paragraphs, he accuses the Eurogroup of being not fit for purpose. Hmm. Whether or not this criticism is justified, I can’t for the life of me see how saying it publicly is helpful to the Greek cause. It’s only going to annoy people.

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Shame on you!

Rising Child Poverty Across Britain ‘Halts Progress Made Since 1990s’ (Observer)

Child poverty is on course for the biggest rise in a generation, reversing years of progress that began in the late 1990s, leading charities and independent experts claimed on Saturday. The stark prognosis comes before the release of government figures which experts believe will show a clear increase for the first time since the start of the decade. It also comes as the chancellor George Osborne and work and pensions minister Iain Duncan Smith announced they had agreed a plan to slash a further £12bn a year from benefits spending. In a joint letter they pledged to attack the “damaging culture of welfare dependency”, and said it would take “a decade” or more to return the welfare budget to what they called “sanity”.

The introduction of the bedroom tax and cuts in benefits between 2013 and last year are blamed for fuelling the rise in the number of families whose income is below 60% of the UK average – the definition of relative poverty. Calculations from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) have suggested that progress between the late 1990s and 2010 has been reversed and that the number of children living in relative poverty rose from 2.3 million in 2013 to 2.6 million in 2014. The Child Poverty Action Group says that with the government committed to implementing another £12bn of cuts in a new round of austerity, the problem will grow.

As tens of thousands of people joined an anti-austerity march through London on Saturday, Alison Garnham, the charity’s chief executive, said ministers were failing too many children. “The government can no longer claim that deficit reduction is about protecting children’s futures now that it’s being made to confront a child poverty crisis, with the biggest rise in a generation now expected of its own making,” she said. “With child poverty expected to rise by nearly a third in the decade to 2020 as a result of its policies, it’s clear the government’s approach is failing.”

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Pretty soon, we’ll all be Greeks.

‘It’s Time To Hold Physical Cash’: Senior UK Fund Manager (Telegraph)

The manager of one of Britain’s biggest bond funds has urged investors to keep cash under the mattress. Ian Spreadbury, who invests more than £4bn of investors’ money across a handful of bond funds for Fidelity, including the flagship Moneybuilder Income fund, is concerned that a “systemic event” could rock markets, possibly similar in magnitude to the financial crisis of 2008, which began in Britain with a run on Northern Rock. “Systemic risk is in the system and as an investor you have to be aware of that,” he told Telegraph Money. The best strategy to deal with this, he said, was for investors to spread their money widely into different assets, including gold and silver, as well as cash in savings accounts.

But he went further, suggesting it was wise to hold some “physical cash”, an unusual suggestion from a mainstream fund manager. His concern is that global debt – particularly mortgage debt – has been pumped up to record levels, made possible by exceptionally low interest rates that could soon end, and he is unsure how well banks could cope with the shocks that may await. He pointed out that a saver was covered only up to £85,000 per bank under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme – which is effectively unfunded – and that the Government has said it will not rescue banks in future, hence his suggestion that some money should be held in physical cash. He declined to predict the exact trigger but said it was more likely to happen in the next five years rather than 10.

The current woes of Greece, which may crash out of the euro, already has many market watchers concerned. Mr Spreadbury’s views are timely, aside from Greece. A growing number of professional investors (see comment, right) and commentators are expressing unease about what happens next. The prices of nearly all assets – property, shares, bonds – have been rising for years. House prices have risen by 26pc since the start of 2009, and by 68pc in London. The FTSE 100 is up by 75pc. Although it feels counter-intuitive, this trend of rising prices should continue if economies remain weak, because it gives central banks licence to keep rates low and to carry on with their “quantitative easing” programmes.

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The MO.

Steal from Taxpayers, Blame the Poor (Paul Buchheit)

It’s a vicious circle of hypocrisy: Americans dependent on the safety net are urged to “get a job” by the same free-market system that pays them too little to avoid being dependent on the safety net. According to the Economic Policy Institute, $45 billion per year in federal, state, and other safety net support is paid to workers in the bottom 20% of wage earners. Thus the average U.S. household is paying almost $400 to employees in low-wage industries such as food service, retail, and personal care. Paul Ryan said that social programs “turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency.” But 63% of eligible working-age poor Americans are employed, and 73% are members of working families.

Yet in a show of hypocrisy by some of the leading safety net critics, Congress has killed or blocked or ignored numerous attempts to create better jobs for underemployed Americans. A Demos study found that raising wages to $25,000 per year (about $12.50 per hour) for full-time retail workers would lift 734,075 people out of poverty. It would probably help a lot more. An analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data reveals that about 22 million workers are underpaid (about a sixth of the total), over half of them in food service, cashiering, personal care, and housekeeping. Paying everyone $12.50 (assuming full-time) would cost an extra $80 billion. That’s about 3% of total 2014 corporate profits. Three%, compared to the 95% spent by S&P 500 companies on investor-enriching stock buybacks and dividend payouts.

About two-thirds of low-wage workers are employed by large corporations with over 100 employees. The very worst offender is probably Walmart, which pays its estimated 1.4 million U.S. employees so little that the average Walmart worker depends on about $4,400 per year in taxpayer assistance, for food stamps and other safety net programs. As Walmart was depending on us, the taxpayers, to pay $4,400 a year to each of its employees, the company was spending the equivalent of $5,000 per U.S. employee for price-boosting stock buybacks.

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The EU will split on this soon enough.

Russia Slams Renewed EU Sanctions, Says Measure Is ‘Hopeless’ (RT)

The Russian Foreign Ministry has slammed the EU’s “pushy sanctions strategy” as “political blackmail,” and said it is “absolutely hopeless” as it won’t make Russia give up its “national interests and principled position.” Coming in response to the EU’s extension of sanctions over what Brussels called “the illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol,” the Russian statement said “it was time” to accept that those territories are an “integral part of the Russian Federation” and that the situation “can’t be changed by methods of economic and political blackmail.” Sanctions against Russia are “absolutely hopeless,” the ministry said, adding that “it is a mistake to expect that [the sanctions strategy] will make us sacrifice national interests and [our] principled position on key issues.”

As the prolonged restrictions target Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, the Foreign Ministry sees the sanctions as unacceptable “discrimination” against people in Crimea “on a political and territorial basis.” Recalling “historical examples,” the ministry condemned the move as “a collective punishment” of “the residents of the [Crimean] peninsula who made a free choice” for reunification with Russia. “It was hard to imagine that Europe would face this in the 21st century,” the Foreign Ministry’s statement said. On Friday, the EU extended economic sanctions against Crimea until June 23, 2016, and said it still doesn’t recognize Crimea’s reunification with Russia, calling it an “illegal annexation.”

The restrictions include a ban on imports from Crimea or Sevastopol into the EU, investment and tourism services, as well as the export of certain products and technology to Crimean companies. The EU sanctions against Russia were imposed over the Ukrainian crisis. They targeted access to foreign loans and the oil and gas industry. Moscow responded with countersanctions that hit European food producers. However, the toll the conflict is taking on the EU economy is higher than Brussels initially anticipated.

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German media should be way more vocal on this. And the rest of Europe too.

Ukraine is a ‘Black Hole’ for European Taxpayers’ Money: German Media (Sputnik)

In the coming weeks, Kiev will receive the €600 million tranche of the third EU loan package for Ukraine. It will be a new financial burden for ordinary EU taxpayers because there is no hope that the debt will be paid off, a German business newspaper reports. The €600 million euro tranche of financial aid for Ukraine is taking money from ordinary European taxpayers with no chance to return, the German newspaper Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten reports. Earlier, Johannes Hahn, European Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, said the EU completed all the procedures for the new tranche. “I’m very glad that the Verkhovna Rada [the Ukrainian Parliament] ratified the memorandum on the third package of financial aid of €1.8 billion.

I’m sure that within several weeks Kiev will receive the first tranche of €600 million,” Hahn said. “Thus, there is a new financial burden for our taxpayers. There is no hope that the money will return,” the newspaper claims. In May, Ukraine’s National Railroad Company declared bankruptcy. Part of its debt is due to be restructured. In total, its debt has reached $500 million. During the last year only, European taxpayers lost €200 million to save the company, the article reads. The Ukrainian protective wall along the border with Russia is also funded by EU taxpayers. The electrified barrier with mines and barbed wire is planned to be 2,000-kilometer-long and will cost nearly €100 million, DWN points out.

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“..there is a war party in every capital and even in the White House itself.”

Powerful People In The West And In Kiev Do Not Want Peace – Stephen Cohen (RT)

RT: A few weeks ago US Vice President Joe Biden said that “everybody wants an end to this conflict in Ukraine, but the question is on whose terms and how will it end.” Are the terms to end this conflict are still being negotiated and if so what options are on offer?

Stephen Cohen: My perspective is different from that of Vice President Biden. We are now after all in almost two years – a year and a half – of a new Cold War between the US and Russia – an exceedingly dangerous confrontation over Ukraine, which I think and I’ve said this for months could easily become as dangerous as the Cuban missile crisis was. The politics of this have now spread far and wide including in Europe. It seems to me, and this is my fundamental analysis, that in almost every capital – Washington, Brussels and certainly in Kiev, and even to some degree in Moscow – there is what I call a peace and a war party.

The Minsk agreements, which were agreed upon by the Chancellor of Germany, the President of France, the President of Ukraine and of course President Putin of Russia represented then a peace party. It set out in addition to a ceasefire in Ukraine very far reaching, fundamental terms of negotiation to end the civil war in Ukraine, to end the proxy war between the West and Russia. It’s clear to me that there are powerful people in the West and in Kiev who do not want a negotiated settlement.

RT: Vice President Biden, who recently said that he talks to either PM Yatsenyuk or President Poroshenko on almost a weekly basis – that’s what he said – do you think that Biden belongs to the peace or war camp when he is on the phone with them? Does he preach reconciliation?

SC: He says he talks to them three times per week not once a week. But we have evidence, something very dramatic just happened. As you know, in late May Secretary of State John Kerry went to Sochi. First he met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and then, remarkably, he met for four hours with President Putin. It was absolutely clear from what was said in Sochi at the press conferences afterwards that Kerry’s mission had been to say that the US, the Obama administration, now fully backed the Minsk agreement. That would put Kerry in the peace party.

It was kind of a surprise because he had been taking a very hard line. However, look what then happened. Kerry was attacked, literally criticized, for having gone to Sochi by members of the Obama administration. The most vivid example reported in the New York Times last Sunday I think was that a former very close policy aide to Vice President Biden told the reporter they didn’t know why Kerry had gone to Sochi, and that he had sent bad messages and that his trip had been counterproductive. So you conclude from this – and it confirms my thesis – that there is a war party in every capital and even in the White House itself.

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For those who still needed confirmation.

Nomi Prins: There Is No Saving This Global Financial System (KWN)

Eric King: “You mentioned that we are in unprecedented times. And the concern is that when the 2008 collapse unfolded there was all this money printing and the banks were bailed out. It really fell on the shoulders of the taxpayers, but the concern as you said is that this leverage is growing. There are over one quadrillion dollars of derivatives. With the leverage totally ramped up in (terms of) the central banks’ (balance sheets), who will save the financial system (this time around)? Who will save the banks? There are all these bail-ins that have been written into law in the West and it seems like the next move is just to steal money from the public. Who will save the system this time when it implodes?

Nomi Prins: “When it implodes it will implode more dangerously. The IMF and the Fed have different ideas about whether rates should stay low or go up. In this particular round the IMF won. They want rates to stay low because they don’t know what’s going to happen to the global financial system if the availability of cheap money goes away…. “Right now everyone knows, whether they admit it or not, that (cheap money) is the only thing that’s keeping this (global financial) system afloat. It isn’t production. It isn’t savings of individuals because nobody has any money to save. So there is no there, there.

The only policy that these central banks have is to continue to do more of the same. And the only thing that does is continue to push this next crisis, or the second leg of the current crisis as I look at it, down the road. There is no saving this (global financial) system. All they can do is continue to push the current policies to make it look as if things are operating functionally — as if these banks are solvent and as if these markets are somehow elevated on the basis of value and not on the basis of the cheap money that they are infusing into the system. That’s all they can do. They just hope that somewhere along the line this will work out.”

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That’s right, might as well elect the biggest dunce.

Liars, Cowards, Freaks & Fools: Trump for President? (Paul Craig Roberts)

Perhaps it has occurred to you as it has to me that the United States is no longer capable of producing political leadership. In the current issue of Trends Journal, Gerald Celente describes the eight candidates (at the time he went to press) for the US presidential nomination as “Liars, cowards, freaks & fools.” Celente put it well. If you look at the sorry collection that aspires to be the CEO of what continues to be described as the “exceptional, indispensable, most important country with the largest economy and military, the world’s only Superpower, the Uni-power,” you see a collection of nobodies. America is like the last days of Rome when contenting factions fought to put their puppet on the throne.

There is no known politician in America who measures up to Vladimir Putin’s ankle, or to the knee of China’s leaders, or to the waist of Ecuador’s, Bolivia’s, Venezuela’s, Argentina’s, Brazil’s, or to the chests of India’s and South Africa’s. In Europe, the UK, Australia, and Canada, the natural leaders are also frozen out of the corrupt system. In the US, “leadership” positions depend on financial support from the ruling economic interests. American presidents and politicians represent about six powerful private interest groups and no one else. After Celente went to press, Donald Trump announced to much mirth. A “con man” they say, but what else is the President of the United States? Do you think you weren’t conned by Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama? What universe do you live in?

In actual fact, Trump might be our best candidate to date. By all accounts, he is very rich. Thus, he doesn’t need the office in order to become rich by selling out America to interest groups. By all accounts, Trump has a healthy ego. Thus, he could be capable of standing up to the powerful interest groups that generally determine the governance of the American serfs. Trump’s ego might even be strong enough for him to stand up to the Israel Lobby, something my former colleague, Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said publicly that no American President was capable of doing. As Celente makes clear in the current Trends Journal, all politicians are con men or con women.

We are going to have them regardless, so why not try a rich one who might decide to break with tradition and serve the interests of the citizenry. This would be a unique accomplishment, affording Trump the elevation in history books that would satisfy his ego. When a person reaches Trump’s state, does he need another couple of billion dollars or is historical recognition as the savior, however temporary, more valuable? This is not my endorsement of Trump for President. It is merely my speculations on how we might think of how large egos might be brought into our service. When we put the Clintons in office, they decided to make money so that they could outdo Hollywood and show their arrival with the $3 million they spent on their daughter’s wedding. For Trump, $3 million is pocket change.

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Let’s first see where it goes.

Why the Pope’s Environment Encyclical Is a Big Deal (Newsweek)

The pope’s encyclical on climate change is a big deal. Sure, past popes have written on the importance of protecting the environment, on favoring the poorest and on rethinking our direction as a species. But this is a major piece of work, and an ardent call from one of our world’s major leaders for us to work together to address this existential problem. Most interesting and heartening to me is Francis’s linking of the fate of the poor and the future of climate change. This point is well documented in research on the injustice of climate change. For example, Bradley Parks and I found that the poorest nations of the world are far more likely to suffer the impacts of climate-related disasters, and are also far less responsible for the problem.

The timing of the pope’s remarks is also very important. This year countries are both negotiating to reach a global agreement in Paris in December and also individually putting forward their own pledges on what they will do, called INDCs (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions) in the cumbersome U.N. lingo. The pope’s statement puts it very plainly to those leaders of nations who might be laggards: It’s time to face climate change very thoughtfully, justly and aggressively. Finally, having this strong and very considered statement about the urgency and moral imperative of addressing climate change coming from a religious leader is very proper, and part of an important larger movement.

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Just to put you on the wrong paw (do skippys have paws?).

All Kangaroos Are Left-Handed (Discovery)

All kangaroos are left-handed, according to new research. Previously it was thought that “true”-handedness, meaning predictably using one hand over the other, was a feature unique to primates. The new research, published in the journal Current Biology, not only negates that but also goes one step further: kangaroos are even more true-handed than we are. “According to a special-assessment scale of handedness adopted for primates, kangaroos pulled down the highest grades,” said project leader Yegor Malashichev in a press release. “We observed a remarkable consistency in responses across bipedal species in that they all prefer to use the left, not the right, hand.”

Malashichev, a researcher from Saint Petersburg State University in Russia, and his team observed that wild kangaroos show a natural preference for their left hands when performing particular actions, such as grooming their noses, picking leaves, or bending tree branches. Left-handedness was particularly apparent in eastern grey and red kangaroos. The kangaroos that they studied were at various locations in the wild at Tasmania and Australia. The term “hand” really does apply here, because kangaroos have five-fingered hands that somewhat resemble human hands, save for the kangaroos’ long claws in place of fingernails. Not all marsupials were found to exhibit such handedness. The researchers determined that red-necked wallabies, for example, prefer their left hand for some tasks and their right for others.

Generally speaking, these wallabies use their left forelimb for tasks that involve fine manipulation and the right for tasks that require more physical strength. The researchers also found less evidence for handedness in species that spend their days in the trees. The discovery about kangaroos was unexpected because, unlike other mammals, kangaroos lack the same neural circuitry that bridges the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Now the researchers are very curious about marsupial brains, which differ from those of other mammals in additional respects too. Such studies could yield important insight into neuropsychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia and autism, the researchers said, noting links between those disorders and handedness.

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Doesn’t leave much space for ‘interpretation’.

The Latest Global Temperature Data Are Literally Off The Chart (Guardian)

Just today, NASA released its global temperature data for the month of May 2015. It was a scorching 0.71°C (1.3°F) above the long-term average. It is also the hottest first five months of any year ever recorded. As we look at climate patterns over the next year or so, it is likely that this year will set a new all-time record. In fact, as of now, 2015 is a whopping 0.1°C (0.17°F) hotter than last year, which itself was the hottest year on record. Below, NASA’s annual temperatures are shown. Each year’s results are shown as black dots. Some years are warmer, some are cooler and we never want to put too much emphasis on any single year’s temperature. I have added a star to show where 2015 is so far this year, simply off the chart. The last 12 months are at record levels as well. So far June has been very hot as well, likely to end up warmer than May.

So why talk about month temperatures or even annual temperatures? Isn’t climate about long-term trends? First, there has been a lot of discussion of the so-called ‘pause.’ As I have pointed out many times here and in my own research, there has been no pause at all. We know this first by looking at the rate of energy gain within the oceans. But other recent publications, like ones I’ve written about have taken account of instrument and measurement quality and they too find no pause. Second, there has been a lot of discussion of why models were running hotter than surface air temperatures. There was a real divergence for a while with most models suggesting more warming. Well with 2014 and 2015, we see that the models and actual surface temperatures are in very close agreement.

When we combine surface temperatures with ocean heat content, as seen below, a clear picture emerges. Warming is continuing at a rapid rate.

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What we do best.

The Sixth Mass Extinction Is Here (Stanford.edu)

Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich calls for fast action to conserve threatened species, populations and habitat before the window of opportunity closes. There is no longer any doubt: We are entering a mass extinction that threatens humanity’s existence. That is the bad news at the center of a new study by a group of scientists including Paul Ehrlich, the Bing Professor of Population Studies in biology and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Ehrlich and his co-authors call for fast action to conserve threatened species, populations and habitat, but warn that the window of opportunity is rapidly closing. “[The study] shows without any significant doubt that we are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event,” Ehrlich said.

Although most well known for his positions on human population, Ehrlich has done extensive work on extinctions going back to his 1981 book, Extinction: The Causes and Consequences of the Disappearance of Species. He has long tied his work on coevolution, on racial, gender and economic justice, and on nuclear winter with the issue of wildlife populations and species loss. There is general agreement among scientists that extinction rates have reached levels unparalleled since the dinosaurs died out 66 million years ago.

However, some have challenged the theory, believing earlier estimates rested on assumptions that overestimated the crisis. The new study, published in the journal Science Advances, shows that even with extremely conservative estimates, species are disappearing up to about 100 times faster than the normal rate between mass extinctions, known as the background rate. “If it is allowed to continue, life would take many millions of years to recover, and our species itself would likely disappear early on,” said lead author Gerardo Ceballos of the Universidad Autónoma de México.

Using fossil records and extinction counts from a range of records, the researchers compared a highly conservative estimate of current extinctions with a background rate estimate twice as high as those widely used in previous analyses. This way, they brought the two estimates – current extinction rate and average background or going-on-all-the-time extinction rate – as close to each other as possible. Focusing on vertebrates, the group for which the most reliable modern and fossil data exist, the researchers asked whether even the lowest estimates of the difference between background and contemporary extinction rates still justify the conclusion that people are precipitating “a global spasm of biodiversity loss.” The answer: a definitive yes.

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May 032015
 


Harris&Ewing Hancock’s, the Old Curiosity Shop, 1234 Pennsylvania Avenue 1914

Gundlach’s Bet-Against-German-Debt Plan Has One Very Big Problem (Bloomberg)
Canada has the Most Overvalued Housing Market in the World (VC)
No New Bailout Needed If Greek Debt Restructured, Says Varoufakis (AFP)
Markets Waver As Greece Teeters On Edge Of Financial Tragedy (AFR)
Use Your Credit Card To Fight Tax Evasion, Greece Urges Visitors (Observer)
Greek Exit ‘Would Leave Western Alliance In Chaos’ (Telegraph)
Greece Braced For Weekend Of Unrest As Cash Crunch Nears (Telegraph)
German President Says Berlin Should Be Open To Greek War Reparations (Reuters)
What Does Putin Want? (Rostislav Ishchenko)
Insanity Grips The Western World (Paul Craig Roberts)
China Teaches Top Cadres Western Ideas Despite Backlash (AP)
Italy Rescues More Than 3,400 Europe-Bound Migrants At Sea (AFP)
Greece To Ask EU For Extra Funding For Migrant Influx (Kathimerini)
Many Displaced African Migrants Had No Plan to Land in Italy (NY Times)
Italian Army Growing Cannabis To Slash End User Prices (RT)
From Ukraine To Australia, Tributes Pour Out For Odessa Massacre Victims (RT)
Wildlife Decline To Lead To ‘Empty Landscape’ (BBC)

Europe’s bond markets are so distorted everything carries out-of-whack risks.

Gundlach’s Bet-Against-German-Debt Plan Has One Very Big Problem (Bloomberg)

So it turns out that Jeffrey Gundlach was really thinking out loud when he said he was looking to short negative-yielding German debt. Yes, it’s true he’d really like to. But, as he would subsequently acknowledge, it’s a very difficult trade to execute in today’s European markets. “The mechanics are challenging,” Gundlach wrote in an e-mail on April 29. Earlier this week, the chief executive officer of DoubleLine Capital said in an interview on Bloomberg TV that he’s thinking of amplifying a wager against 2-year German notes using leverage. “It seems to me there’s almost no way to lose,” he said in that interview. “I wonder why people don’t leverage up negative bonds.” There are legitimate reasons why everyone isn’t. For one, there appear to be no negative-yielding derivatives contracts tied to this debt.

And Europe closely regulates short-selling of government bonds. Then, even if you could do it, you may have to park cash at some point in European bank accounts, which make you pay to hold your money because the region’s deposit rates are negative. “You can actually lose money being short negative yielding debt,” said Ashish Shah at AllianceBernstein. “People charge you even more in the short term to hold cash.” Of course, this is an opportunity that seems too good to pass up, and traders are almost certainly trying to figure out the best way to make it happen.

The trade should be – again, in theory – very lucrative. While bonds are normally cushioned from losses due to their regular interest payments, it’s the opposite in this bizarro world of negative-yielding debt. Traders betting against bonds wouldn’t lose money if prices stayed about where they were, because there’s essentially no coupon payment. Yes, prices on this upside-down-inside-out debt could keep rising and yields could get even more negative, leading to some losses. But the chances of that happening appear to be getting smaller as economic data shows inflation and growth starting to pick up in the euro zone.

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Auckland wants that title.

Canada has the Most Overvalued Housing Market in the World (VC)

In every inflating bubble, there’s usually two camps. The first group points out various metrics suggesting something is inherently unsustainable, while the second reiterates that this time, it is different. After all, if everyone always agreed on these things, then no one would do the buying to perpetuate the bubble’s expansion. The Canadian housing bubble has been no exception to this, and the war of words is starting to heat up. On one side of the ring, we have The Economist, that came out last week saying Canada has the most overvalued housing market in the world. After crunching the data in housing markets in 26 nations, The Economist has determined that Canada’s property market is the most overvalued in terms of rent prices (+89%), and the third most overvalued in terms of incomes (+35%).

They have mentioned in the past that the market has looked bubbly for some time, but finally Canada is officially at the top of their list. Of course, The Economist is not the only fighter on this side of the ring. Just over a month ago, the IMF sounded a fresh alarm on Canada’s housing market by saying that household debt is well above that of other countries. Meanwhile, seven in ten mortgage lenders in Canada have expressed “concerns” that the real estate sector is in a bubble that could burst at any time. Deutsch Bank estimates the market is 67% overvalued and readily offers seven reasons why Canada is in trouble. Even hedge funds are starting to find ways to short the market in anticipation of an upcoming collapse. Canada’s housing situation could give rise to the world’s next Steve Eisman, Eugene Xu, or Greg Lippmann.

On the opposing side of the ring, who will contend that the Canadian housing market is just different this time? Hint: look to the banks and government. Stephen Harper, Canada’s Prime Minister, has tried to dispel fears. He recently told a business audience in New York that he didn’t anticipate any housing crisis in Canada. Just this week, the Bank of Canada also tried its best to deflate housing bubble fears. “We don’t believe we’re in a bubble,” says Stephen Poloz, the Bank’s Governor. “Our housing construction has stayed very much in line with our estimates of demographic demand.” Poloz suggested that housing costs do not necessarily have to contract to match the incomes of Canadians. Instead, he expects growth in the economy to raise wages and make housing more affordable.

Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

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“..one thing to say we shouldn’t have joined the euro and it is another to say that we have to leave..”

No New Bailout Needed If Greek Debt Restructured, Says Varoufakis (AFP)

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis insisted Saturday that Greece would not require a new bailout from its international creditors if they would simply restructure its debt. Athens last week resumed talks with its creditors in a bid to unblock €7.2 billion from its EU-IMF bailout before state coffers run dry. But analysts believe that even if it manages to secure the last tranche of aid, Athens may have to obtain a new rescue package to stay afloat. Varoufakis said however that Greece could do without a new bailout. “One of the conditions for this to happen though, is an important restructuring of the debt,” he told the Efimerida ton Sindakton daily in an interview published Saturday.

The radical-left SYRIZA government came into power in January on a campaign promise that it would seek to get part of its debt written off. However, its creditors have reiterated that that is impossible. Varoufakis, whose negotiating style has grated his EU counterparts, also took a swipe at the eurozone in the interview, warning that if it “doesn’t change it will die.” He added that “no country, not only Greece, should have joined such a shaky common monetary system.” Nevertheless, Varoufakis said it was “one thing to say we shouldn’t have joined the euro and it is another to say that we have to leave” because backtracking now would lead to “an unforeseen negative situation.” Asked about reported insults from fellow Eurogroup finance ministers during a tense meeting in Riga on April 24, Varoufakis was also dismissive.

Media reports said he had been branded a “gambler,” an “amateur” and an “adventurist” by his peers. “Those would have surely been heavy offenses if they had been expressed. But they were not,” said Varoufakis. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had reshuffled the team handling negotiations with its creditors after relations between Varoufakis and the EU hit a new low during a stormy Eurogroup meeting in Riga last week. Athens is struggling to pay salaries and pensions without the promised loans. Almost a billion euros in debt and interest is also due for repayment to the IMF by May 12. Unless an agreement is reached to unlock the remaining EU-IMF bailout money, the debt-ridden country faces default and a possible exit from the euro. Technical experts from the Eurogroup and the Greek delegation are due to be in contact all weekend, trying to resolve differences concerning sweeping reforms required by Brussels and the IMF to secure the package.

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Who cares if markets waver?

Markets Waver As Greece Teeters On Edge Of Financial Tragedy (AFR)

In an attempt to address its liquidity crunch, Athens has directed 1500 state entities – including local authorities, hospitals and universities – to hand over surplus cash reserves to the central bank. But some entities are resisting this directed, fearing that their funds may not be returned. Meanwhile, the lack of progress in negotiations with Greece’s creditors is unnerving Greece’s households and businesses, who withdrew a further €2 billion from the country’s banks in March, according to the Bank of Greece. This follows withdrawals of more than €7.5 billion in February, just under €13 billion in January, and around €4 billion last December. As a result, household and business deposits fell to €138.55 billion in March, their lowest level in 10 years. Even more worrying, early figures for April suggest that deposit outflows are again accelerating.

To compensate for their dwindling deposit base, Greek banks have stepped up their use of emergency funding provided by the country’s central bank. Last week the ECB, which now reviews the amount which Greek banks can borrow on a weekly basis, raised the ceiling on emergency liquidity assistance by a further €1.4 billion, bringing it to €76.9 billion. This emergency liquidity is playing a crucial role in keeping the country’s banking system afloat. But financial markets – along with top officials in Paris, Berlin and Brussels – are all to well aware that Athens is moving ever closer to a position where it is no longer able to pay its debts, and is forced to “default”, potentially triggering an uncontrollable bank run and a collapse of the Greek banking system.

At that point, either European politicians resolutely adopt special emergency measures to rescue the country, or the situation spirals out of control, leaving Greece with no option but to introduce capital controls and quit the euro zone. Although some European politicians are in favour of allowing Greece to default, Paris and Berlin are fearful that “Grexit” risks destabilising the euro zone and encouraging speculators to target vulnerable countries such as Italy, Portugal or Belgium. For his part, Tsipras is betting that worries about the potential disruption from a “Grexit” will eventually cause the Europeans to back away from their demands for further reforms. Still, it’s a dangerous strategy, because in Greece’s precarious position, a financial accident could occur at any time.

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The benefits of plastic.

Use Your Credit Card To Fight Tax Evasion, Greece Urges Visitors (Observer)

Greece’s tourism chief has appealed to the millions of Britons planning to visit the crisis-hit country this year to use credit cards as much as possible. The move comes as the government in Athens has signalled that it plans to raise VAT rates on some holiday islands. Andreas Andreadis made the plea to what are expected to be record numbers of holidaymakers, saying plastic could play a key role in hindering tax evasion, a perennial drain on the Greek economy. “What we are saying is that on cash transactions above a certain level please use your credit cards,” he told the Observer. “That way it forces services and shops to declare it on the cash register and issue receipts.”

Greece is bracing itself for around 25 million foreign arrivals – more than twice its population – with the vast majority heading for resorts where tax collection is notoriously lax. An estimated 2.4 million Britons will be among them. “In a country where the tax collection system is so inefficient, credit cards are the easiest way of clamping down on evasion,” said Andreadis, who heads the Confederation of Greek Tourism (Sete). “We calculate that around 40% of receipts are not issued in tourist areas to avoid VAT.” The confederation, which represents more than 50,000 enterprises in the sector, was pressing for consumers to be given incentives to use cards. Greece is in a race against the clock to clinch a cash-for-reform deal with international creditors to keep bankruptcy at bay.

Fraught negotiations with the EU and International Monetary Fund have brought the nation close to insolvency with Athens’ radical left Syriza government, voted in on a pledge to end austerity, struggling last week to pay pensions. With Greece shut out of international markets and unable to issue short-term debt, a desperate lack of liquidity has exacerbated the problem. Over the next 10 days, the country must pay two loan instalments to the IMF – including €780m on 12 May – or face the spectre of potentially devastating default. The appeal came days after prime minister Alexis Tsipras suggested credit card use being made mandatory for transactions of more than €70. In his first wide-ranging interview since assuming power in January, he said payment cards made eminently more sense than the proposal of Yanis Varoufakis, his finance minister, to use tourists as undercover tax agents.

“It’s simpler than that other idea involving people with [hidden] cameras, etc,” he told Star TV on Monday. Greece loses up to €20bn in tax evasion every year, according to finance ministry officials. The new government has made cracking down on it a top priority. Taxpayers owe in excess of €70bn to the state – nearly a quarter of its debt. Under pressure to provide reforms to unlock an intermediate €7.2bn in bailout funds held up since August, the government has also signalled it will increase VAT on popular Aegean islands. Isles such as Mykonos and Santorini would see a surcharge on hotel rooms, services and goods. The measure would bring in an estimated €350m. But it has been strongly opposed by the tourist industry, which provides one in five jobs and is by far Greece’s biggest foreign earner.

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“..there’s a whole range of political ramifications in terms of market expectations if the euro proves to be reversible. The natural question is: who will be next?”

Greek Exit ‘Would Leave Western Alliance In Chaos’ (Telegraph)

A Greek exit from the eurozone would throw the bloc into chaos and put the “whole cohesion of the western alliance in doubt”, a key figure in the country’s private sector debt restructuring has warned. While banks had reduced their exposure to Greece, which represents less than 2pc of eurozone GDP, investors are being too complacent about the implications of a Greek exit, which could have far-reaching political ramifications and amplify the polarisation between the eurozone’s core and periphery, Hung Tran, executive managing director of the Institute of International Finance (IIF), said. Mr Tran, who helped represent private sector bondholders during Greece’s debt haircut in 2012, said he remained optimistic that there was “room for compromise” and that Greece would reach a “last minute deal” to remain in the 19 nation bloc.

However, he stressed that if the country was forced out of the euro, the consequences would be complex and were “not fully understood”. “In the short term, it probably is the case that financial contagion in terms of spreading to borrowing costs of peripheral countries like Spain and Portugal would be more limited this time compared with 2010 or 2012,” he said. “However, there’s a whole range of political ramifications in terms of market expectations if the euro proves to be reversible. The natural question is: who will be next? “If Greece exiting the euro area severely strains its relationship with the EU and the West, questions will arise about the alignment of Greece in terms of foreign policy, security policy and so on, and the whole cohesion of the western alliance would be put in doubt.”

Mr Tran said the European Central Bank’s €60bn a month quantitative easing programme had helped to create a false sense of security by “overwhelming” any sense of potential spillover from the Greek crisis and pushing down borrowing costs across Europe. However, he said a Greek exit would only serve to amplify the polarisation that we have already seen in Europe. “There has been a sharp polarisation both on the right and left of the mainstream arguing that the current austerity driven approach of economic policy hasn’t worked … so the failure of reaching an agreement in Greece leading to a exit from the eurozone would make this debate and this polarisation sharper and more problematic.”

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Telegraph wishful thinking?

Greece Braced For Weekend Of Unrest As Cash Crunch Nears (Telegraph)

Greece was braced for the biggest weekend of civil unrest since its radical Left government assumed power, as tensions over the country’s future in the eurozone are set to reach breaking point in May. Athens was gripped by a throng of anti-austerity protests on Friday, to mark the Labour Day holiday across the continent. Several members of the ruling Syriza party, including embattled finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, took part in rallies, repeating they would not forsake their people and cower to the demands of creditors. In a veiled barb aimed at his paymasters, a defiant Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras tweeted: “We will prevail in our struggles to bolster and protect our rights, our democracy and our dignity”.

Labour market reforms have emerged as one of the main stumbling blocks in Greece’s three-month bail-out impasse, as European powers have pushed the Leftist regime to reverse its promises to raise the minimum wage. But Greece’s Labour minister Panos Skourletis said the policy would go ahead, calling it a “deep and immovable red line” for the government. In a taste of the domestic turmoil that could ensue should the state withold funds from its citizens, hundreds of pensioners in Athens were forced to queue outside banks on Thursday, as pensions payments were temporarily delayed. The government is scrambling to find the funds it needs to avoid defaulting on the IMF on May 6, when it is due to repay a €200m loan. Panic over the pensions payment “suggests that this comparably small IMF payment will be a headache to scrape together and underlines that Greece might well struggle to stay financially afloat much beyond May,” said Robert Kuenzel of Daiwa Capital Markets.

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What do you say to that, Schäuble?

German President Says Berlin Should Be Open To Greek War Reparations (Reuters)

German President Joachim Gauck expressed support on Friday for Athens’ demands for reparations for the Nazi occupation of Greece in World War Two, even though the government in Berlin has repeatedly rejected the claims. Gauck, who has little real power in Germany but a penchant for defying convention, said in an interview to be published in Saturday’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper that Germany should consider its historical responsibility to Greece. “We are not only people who are living in this day and age but we’re also the descendants of those who left behind a trail of destruction in Europe during World War Two – in Greece, among other places, where we shamefully knew little about it for so long,” Gauck said.

“It’s the right thing to do for a history-conscious country like ours to consider what possibilities there might be for reparations.” Greece’s demand for €278.7 billion in reparations for the brutal Nazi occupation have mostly fallen on deaf ears, but some legal experts say it may have a case. Many in Greece blame Germany, their biggest creditor, for the tough austerity measures and record unemployment that have followed from two international bailouts totaling €240 billion. Last month, economy minister and vice-chancellor Sigmar Gabriel called the demand “stupid”.

Gabriel said Greece wanted to squeeze some leeway out of its euro zone partners as they set conditions for further financial aid to help Greece avoid bankruptcy. “And this leeway has absolutely nothing to do with World War Two or reparation payments,” he said. German officials have previously argued that Germany has already honored its obligations, not least with a 115 million deutsche mark payment to Greece in 1960. Gauck, a former East German pastor, recently caused a stir by condemning the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turkish forces a century ago as “genocide”, a term that the Berlin government had long rejected. Turkey denies the charge.

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Good analysis of US-EU-Russia relations.

What Does Putin Want? (Rostislav Ishchenko)

To understand how, when and on what conditions military activity can end, we need to know what the politicians want and how they see the conditions of the postwar compromise. Then it will become clear why military action turned into a low-intensity civil war with occasional truces, not only in the Ukraine but also in Syria. Obviously, the views of Kiev politicians are of no interest to us because they don’t decide anything. The fact that outsiders govern the Ukraine is no longer concealed. It doesn’t matter whether the cabinet ministers are Estonian or Georgian; they are Americans just the same. It would also be a big mistake to take an interest in how the leaders of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Lugansk People’s Republic (LNR) see the future.

The republics exist only with Russian support, and as long as Russia supports them, Russia’s interests have to be protected, even from independent decisions and initiatives. There is too much at stake to allow [Alexander] Zakharchenko or [Igor] Plotnitzky, or anyone else for that matter, to make independent decisions. Nor are we interested in the European Union’s position. Much depended on the EU until the summer of last year, when the war could have been prevented or stopped at the outset. A tough, principled antiwar stance by the EU was needed. It could have blocked U.S. initiatives to start the war and would have turned the EU into a significant independent geopolitical player. The EU passed on that opportunity and instead behaved like a faithful vassal of the United States. As a result, Europe stands on the brink of frightful internal upheaval.

In the coming years, it has every chance of suffering the same fate as the Ukraine, only with a great roar, great bloodshed and less chance that in the near future things will settle down – in other words, that someone will show up and put things in order. In fact, today the EU can choose whether to remain a tool of the United States or to move closer to Russia. Depending on its choice, Europe can get off with a slight scare, such as a breakup of parts of its periphery and possible fragmentation of some countries, or it could collapse completely. Judging by the European elites’ reluctance to break openly with the United States, collapse is almost inevitable. What should interest us is the opinions of the two main players that determine the configuration of the geopolitical front and in fact are fighting for victory in the new generation of war – the network-centric Third World War. These players are the United States and Russia.

The U.S. position is clear and transparent. In the second half of the 1990s, Washington missed its only opportunity to reform the Cold War economy without any obstacles and thereby avoid the looming crisis in a system whose development is limited by the finite nature of planet Earth and its resources, including human ones, which conflicts with the need to endlessly print dollars. After that, the United States could prolong the death throes of the system only by plundering the rest of the world. At first, it went after Third World countries. Then it went for potential competitors. Then for allies and even close friends. Such plundering could continue only as long as the United States remained the world’s undisputed hegemon. Thus when Russia asserted its right to make independent political decisions – decisions of not global but regional import –, a clash with the United States became inevitable. This clash cannot end in a compromise peace.

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“Clearly, the European Parliament is a great danger to life on the planet.”

Insanity Grips The Western World (Paul Craig Roberts)

The White Media claims, and has claimed since February 2014, that there are Russian tanks and troops in Ukraine. Putin has pointed out that if this indeed was the case, Kiev and Western Ukraine would have fallen to the Russian invasion early last year. Kiev has been unable to defeat the small breakaway republics in eastern and southern Ukraine and would stand no chance against the Russian military. Recently a brave news organization made fun of the White Media’s claim that Russian tanks have been pouring into Ukraine for 14 months. The parody pictured Ukraine at a standstill. All traffic on all roads and residential streets is blocked by Russian tanks. All parking places, including sidewalks and people’s front and rear gardens have tanks piled upon tanks. The entire country is immobilized in gridlock.

Although a few have fun making fun of the gullible people who believe the White Media, the situation is nevertheless serious as it concerns life on planet Earth. There is little sign that Washington and its vassals care about life on Earth. Recently, the largest political group in the European Parliament–the European People’s Party–expressed a cavalier opinion about life on Earth. We know this, because, if we can trust Euractiv, an online EU news source, the majority EU party believes that declaring the EU’s readiness for nuclear war is one of the best steps to deter Russia from further aggression. The aggression to be stopped by Europe’s declaration of its readiness for armageddon is the alleged Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the “further aggression” is Putin’s alleged intention of reestablishing the Soviet Empire.

It must be disappointing to the Russian government to see that leaders of the European Union prefer to endorse nuclear war than to challenge Washington’s propaganda. When I read that the governing party in the European Parliament thought non-existent aggression had to be stopped by a declaration of readiness for nuclear war, I realized that money could buy any and every thing, even the life of the planet. The European People’s Party was speaking in behalf of Washington’s propaganda, not in behalf of Europe. Europe’s nuclear war with Russia would end instantly with the destruction of every European capital. The crazed vice-president of the European People’s Party, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski revealed who the real aggressor is when he declared: “Time of talk and persuasion with Russia is over. Now it’s time for a tough policy.” Clearly, the European Parliament is a great danger to life on the planet.

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Breeding Chinese Goldmanites.

China Teaches Top Cadres Western Ideas Despite Backlash (AP)

In the still, early hours, cadres make their way down tree-lined paths. They walk through a polished lobby, down dim hallways and settle themselves in rows in plain, wood-paneled classrooms. Here, they sit at the vanguard of the Communist Party of China. These rising Communist Party members from across the country have come to the China Executive Leadership Academy Pudong (CELAP) in Shanghai as part of the party’s decade-long effort to introduce its own elite to foreign ideas. Outside these walls, President Xi Jinping’s government is campaigning to scrub Western influence from classrooms, but here some 10,000 party loyalists each year hear from top Western scholars and executives about management techniques, media relations, urban development and innovation.

“It does no harm for top leaders to get to know different ideas in the world,” said Zhang Xuezhong, who was barred from teaching at East China University of Political Science and Law in 2013, after publishing an article critical of the government. “The Communist Party expects the people it rules to be ignorant, but they would not expect themselves to be like this.” As China seeks to play a more decisive role on the global stage, such exposure is becoming more important — at least for those at the forefront of transforming China’s economy and international role. For everyone else, education has become an ideological battleground, where destabilizing Western values must be vanquished lest they weaken the party’s grip on power.

“Young teachers and students are key targets of infiltration by enemy forces,” Education Minister Yuan Guiren wrote in a January essay. Around the same time, he told university officials to bar “teaching materials that disseminate Western values,” state-run news agency Xinhua reported. His remarks came shortly after Beijing issued new guidelines ordering universities to promote loyalty to the party, core socialist values, and the teachings of Xi himself. Meanwhile, Westerners continue to march through CELAP, bringing with them an uncontrollable parade of ideas. [..] “It’s a very unusual institution in China,” said Oxford University’s Nicholas Morris, who has taught at CELAP for a decade. “This institution’s job is to help Chinese leaders understand Western practice.”

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In one day. Where was Europe?

Italy Rescues More Than 3,400 Europe-Bound Migrants At Sea (AFP)

More than 3,400 migrants were rescued at sea Saturday, mainly off Libya, as Europe seeks ways to deal with the flood of people trying to reach its shores following a series of deadly shipwrecks. A total of 3,427 people were picked up during the operation coordinated by the Italian coast guard. While they said it was a “very busy day”, it was not a record for the coast guard, which coordinated the rescue of 3,791 migrants on April 12 and another 2,850 the following day. French patrol boat Commandant Birot, which was sent to boost EU patrols to deal with the influx of migrant boats in the Mediterranean, picked up 217 people off the coast of Libya.

The migrants – all men – had been on board three boats, the authorities said, adding that two suspected people smugglers were also caught and would be handed over to Italian police. In Italy, the coast guard announced late at night that 16 vessels had rescued a total of 3,427 people on Saturday alone in an operation coordinated from their headquarters in Rome.

In addition to the French patrol boat, the rescue operation mobilised four Italian coast guard ships, two Italian navy vessels, two cargo ships, two Italian customs ships and two tugs. Most notably, the navy said on Twitter that the frigate Bersagliere had rescued 778 migrants while the patrol boat Vega had picked up another 675. Some of the rescued migrants were expected to arrive overnight on the Italian island of Lampedusa, the closest to the African coast, while most of the others are expected to arrive in Sicily or southern Italy on Sunday night. According to the Italian coast guard, the French patrol vessel should land its migrants at a port in Calabria.

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Should have been taken care of a long time ago.

Greece To Ask EU For Extra Funding For Migrant Influx (Kathimerini)

Greece is to ask the European Union for €30 million of emergency funds to deal with the growing number of undocumented migrants arriving in the country, sources have told Kathimerini. The EU is already due to give Greece €470 million by 2020 for immigration-related matters, such as covering the cost of an asylum service and reception centers. However, this money covers existing operations and cannot be used to tackle problems caused by the spike in migrants reaching Greece over the last few months.

One of the things the government wants to use the emergency funds for is to hire a ferry to transport migrants from islands to reception centers or other facilities on the mainland. The coalition submitted an amendment to Parliament last week allowing authorities to bypass until the end of the year the tender process for immigration-related projects. The government says this will speed up the implementation of schemes aimed at helping migrants.

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Oooh, in-depth reporting from the NYT…

Many Displaced African Migrants Had No Plan to Land in Italy (NY Times)

By now, the unceasing tides of migrants arriving at the ports of Sicily fall into loose national categories. The Syrians usually arrive with money, bearing broken lives in canvas bags, and are able to slip out of Italy, bound for affluent northern Europe. The Eritreans may be far less wealthy but they too are well organized, with networks that move them north as well. Then there are men like Agyemin Boateng and Prince Adawiah, who were scooped out of the Mediterranean this month by an Italian rescue ship. Both are from Ghana, and neither has a plan for a new life in Europe — nor, they say, did either of them ever plan to come to Italy. They were working as laborers in Libya, until life there became untenable and returning to Ghana became unfeasible.

“There are guns and bombs,” said Mr. Adawiah, 25, who worked in Tripoli for nearly three years. “Every day, there is shooting. I’m afraid. That is why I traveled to Italy.” Europe’s migration crisis escalated sharply in April, with the coming of warmer weather to the Mediterranean. Many more smugglers’ boats took to the sea, and a record number of migrants died attempting the crossing — more than 1,700 people so far in 2015, by some estimates. Conflicts in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia have shaped and reshaped Europe’s migrant flows in recent years, with none more transformative to the Mediterranean smuggling trade than the civil war in Syria. And the tumult in Libya is changing the migration equation once again.

Libyan lawlessness has allowed a haven for smugglers to operate along the country’s coastline, but it has also unmoored many African laborers who were working there as migrants. Many of these men now languish in Italian detention centers without contacts or plans for the future, and their growing numbers are frustrating some Italian mayors and other officials. “We don’t know anything,” said one migrant, Shamsudeen Sawud, 18, who arrived in Italy more than a week ago. “No one is telling us anything.”

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Yes, this is funny.

Italian Army Growing Cannabis To Slash End User Prices (RT)

Italy’s first medical marijuana crop – grown by the country’s military – is “coming along nicely,” according to officials at a government-funded greenhouse outside Florence. “The aim of the operation is to provide users with a product that is not always easily available on the market, at a more competitive price,” Colonel Antonio Medica, the director of the facility, told Italian daily Corriere della Sera. Medical marijuana has been legal in the country since 2013 as pain relief for conditions such as multiple sclerosis and cancer, and as treatment for others, such as glaucoma. However, as there have been no licensed producers, and the state would not pay for the treatment, those with prescriptions have had to purchase it abroad, from the Netherlands and Germany, at prices that reach up to €40 per gram.

This means many patients have simply been buying their drugs off the street, financing drug dealers, who do not pay taxes, and may be engaged in other illegal activities. By producing 100 kg of its own weed, the government hopes to undercut the street dealers. “We’re aiming to lower the price to under €15 euros ($17), maybe even around €5 euros per gram,’ said Medica, who noted that this would be similar to the black market price of the drug. The government chose a military lab, due to existing security and surveillance arrangements. While the innovations will help medicinal users, they are unlikely to undermine the illegal marijuana market in a country where one in five admitted to being smokers of the drug in a survey conducted in 2012.

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And not a word on an investigation.

From Ukraine To Australia, Tributes Pour Out For Odessa Massacre Victims (RT)

Thousands of people in Ukraine, Russia and around the world took to the streets to mark the first anniversary of the Odessa massacre. Last year, 48 activists were killed and over 200 injured as radicals set the local trade unions house on fire. The commemoration ceremonies for those who died in the fire on May 2, 2014 proceeded without serious incident in the Ukrainian port city of Odessa. A huge crowd, including the relatives of the victims, gathered in front of the Trade Unions building and released black balloons and doves in air. According to local media, the rally in Odessa was attended by around 5,000 people. The people held banners reading “fascism won’t pass” and “no to political repressions,” with some carrying photos of journalist Oles Buzina and politician Oleg Kalashnikov, who were assassinated in Kiev last month.

In the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, some 2,000 people marched to honor the victims of the tragedy in an action entitled ‘Kiev Remembers Odessa.’ The people were carrying photos of those who died in the fire, as well as pictures of Buzina and Kalashnikov. Several arrests were made during the demonstration, with the Kiev police saying that they “invited the men to a local police station”. They were later released. March to honor the victims of the Odessa massacre in Ukrainian capital Kiev on May 2, 2015.March to honor the victims of the Odessa massacre in Ukrainian capital Kiev on May 2, 2015. Earlier, reports emerged on social media that it was the organizers of the rally, who had been detained by the security officials. “The organizers of a peaceful rally have been arrested in Kiev! What for? Show me a single slogan, for which you can be arrested in a democratic ‘European’ country?” Yuri Kot, Ukrainian public figure and journalist, wrote on Facebook.

In Moscow, around 1,000 people gathered in front of the Ukrainian Embassy to Russia to commemorate the Odessa massacre victims. An outdoor photo exhibition, showcasing pictures of the burning Odessa Trade Union House, was organized together with the rally. “It was very hard to not to cry. I didn’t expect so many people to care and feel for the sorrow,” an eastern Ukrainian resident, who attended the event, told RIA-Novosti. At the end, the bell tolled 48 times to commemorate each victim of the last year’s tragedy. Remembrance events were also held in Australia, Poland, the Republic of Ireland, Switzerland, Morocco and other countries. In Italy, a monument to the Odessa tragedy was opened in the northern town of Ceriano Laghetto.

Ukraine authorities deployed over 3,000 law enforcers in Odessa ahead of the anniversary of mass killings on May 2. Odessa’s Kulikovo Field, the square where the bloodiest scenes in the last year’s confrontation unfolded, was cordoned off on Friday. People wishing to lay flowers in front of the Trade Unions building, where dozens of activists met their deaths, have had to pass through metal detectors. The streets are being patrolled by some 2,600 police officers, while 600 special service fighters are on alert, the Interior Ministry reported. Unarmed volunteer activists were also called to Odessa. “There cannot be too much police presence. It’s a demonstration of our presence and strength to those who want to shake the situation in Odessa. There will be a policeman in every square meter,” Ivan Katerhinchuk, the chief of Odessa region’s police force, told the media.

Earlier on Friday, police troops brought in from other regions and their local colleagues gathered in front of the building. CCTV footage showed dozens of trucks and patrol cars parked in rows and columns of security forces marching in the streets.

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“It’s no use having habitat if there’s nothing left to eat in it.”

Wildlife Decline May Lead To ‘Empty Landscape’ (BBC)

Populations of some of the world’s largest wild animals are dwindling, raising the threat of an “empty landscape”, say scientists. About 60% of giant herbivores – plant-eaters – including rhinos, elephants and gorillas, are at risk of extinction, according to research. Analysis of 74 herbivore species, published in Science Advances, blamed poaching and habitat loss. A previous study of large carnivores showed similar declines. Prof William Ripple, of Oregon State University, led the research looking at herbivores weighing over 100kg, from the reindeer up to the African elephant. “This is the first time anyone has analysed all of these species as a whole,” he said. “The process of declining animals is causing an empty landscape in the forest, savannah, grasslands and desert.”

Prof David Macdonald, of Oxford University’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, was among the team of 15 international scientists. “The big carnivores, like the charismatic big cats or wolves, face horrendous problems from direct persecution, over-hunting and habitat loss, but our new study adds another nail to their coffin – the empty larder,” he said. “It’s no use having habitat if there’s nothing left to eat in it.” According to the research, the decline is being driven by a number of factors including habitat loss, hunting for meat or body parts, and competition for food and resources with livestock. With rhinoceros horn worth more than gold, diamonds or cocaine on illegal markets, rhinos could be extinct in the wild within 20 years in Africa, said the researchers.

The consequences of large wild herbivore decline include: • Loss of habitat: for example, elephants maintain forest clearings by trampling vegetation. • Effects on the food chain: large predators such as lions, leopards, and hyena rely on large herbivores for food. • Seed dispersal: large herbivores eat seeds which are carried over long distances. • Impact on humans: an estimated one billion people rely on wild meat for subsistence while the loss of iconic herbivores will have a negative impact on tourism. The biggest losses are in South East Asia, India and Africa. Europe and North America have already lost most of their large herbivores in a previous wave of extinctions.

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May 012015
 
 May 1, 2015  Posted by at 10:54 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  4 Responses »


Lewis Hine A heavy load for an old woman. Lafayette Street below Astor Place, NYC 1912

Japan Is Bust: “More QE – Everywhere!” (Albert Edwards)
Marc Faber: Stocks Are About To Fall 40%—At Least! (CNBC)
Britain’s Scandal-Battered Banks Paralyzed as Election Looms (Bloomberg)
Chinese Banks Are Clobbering The US (CNBC)
Greece’s Decade-Long Relationship With Merkel (Kathimerini)
Greece Signals Concessions In Crunch Talks With Lenders (Reuters)
Greece Struggles To Make Payments To More Than 2 Million Pensioners (FT)
Why’s Europe QE Might End Sooner Than Thought (CNBC)
Why Did The US Pay A Former Swiss Banker $104 Million? (CNBC)
The Public Sector is a Milk Cow For Private Enterprise (Paul Craig Roberts)
Hookers, Kidneys & Nose Jobs: Most Searched Cost Obsessions By Country (RT)
The Day After Damascus Falls (Robert Parry)
The U.S. Oil Production Decline Has Begun (Art Berman)
The Traumatic Restructuring Of Austria’s Cooperative Banking System (Coppola)
Public Accounts Should Be Approved By The Citizens (Beppe Grillo’s blog)
Could You Live In A 320-Square-Foot Home? (Yahoo!)
Monsanto Approaches Syngenta Again About a Takeover (Bloomberg)
Church of England Dumps Fossil-Fuel Investments (Bloomberg)
Study Finds Climate Change Threatens 1 in 6 Species With Extinction (NY Times)

“it’s only after you’ve lost everything that you are free to do endless, unlimited QE. After all, what’s the downside?”

Japan Is Bust: “More QE – Everywhere!” (Albert Edwards)

“one area though where Abenomics has undoubtedly failed is that the Bank of Japan has not achieved its 2% core inflation target. When the BoJ started QE in April 2013 they stated that they wanted to hit their 2% inflation target for core CPI at the earliest possible time, with a time horizon of about two years?. Well that is now! Yet most key measures of CPI inflation are set to crash to, or even below, zero in the months ahead as the estimated 2% effect of last year’s VAT hike is set to drop out of the yoy calculations. Core CPI inflation that the BoJ targets, which excludes just fresh food, has been running at 2% yoy in February (March data out this Friday).

But I prefer to focus of the readily available CPI ex food and energy (known in Japan as core core CPI), which for some peculiar reason does not get followed that closely by the market. At the same time as the March national CPI is published, April’s CPI data for the Tokyo area also will be released. The headline and core (ex fresh food) CPI will be just above zero yoy. But the core core Tokyo CPI (ex food and energy) is likely to have dipped below zero as VAT drops out as the rate in March was already only running at 1.7%.[..] Regular readers will know that I am pretty horrified by the global Quantitative floodgates that have been opened since the 2008 Great Recession.

Once an emergency measure of dubious effect, it is now a never ending stream of confetti money being thrown around the world to inflate asset prices. QE has now become the policy variable of first resort. Personally I think this will all end very badly. But why, I often asked, am I so much more positive about the Japanese outcome than I am the US, UK or eurozone? To be sure I would agree with the Japan sceptics. But I am bullish because I believe that the Japanese fiscal situation is so bad that the authorities had no option but to begin their QQE in April 2013 and there is indeed, as Peter Tasker says, no turning back. Russell Jones is also correct that the BoJ will become more and more aggressive and inventive for the simple reason that Japan is bust.

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“The market is in a position where it’s not just going to be a 10% correction.”

Marc Faber: Stocks Are About To Fall 40%—At Least! (CNBC)

After years of forecasting gloom and doom for stocks only to watch them surge, Marc Faber is sounding the alarm as loud as ever. Faber, editor of The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, believes that stocks in the U.S. and in many places around the globe are in a central bank-fueled bubble. And while he can’t put a time on when that perceived bubble will pop, he prognosticates that once it does, the outcome will be horrifying. “For the last two years, I’ve been thinking that U.S. stocks are due for a correction,” Faber said Wednesday on CNBC’s “Trading Nation.” “But I always say a bubble is a bubble, and if there’s no correction, the market will go up, and one day it will go down, big time.”

“The market is in a position where it’s not just going to be a 10% correction. Maybe it first goes up a bit further, but when it comes, it will be 30% or 40% minimum!” Faber asserted. A 40% decline from Wednesday’s close would take the S&P 500 to 1,264, a level that hasn’t been seen since the early days of 2012. Faber says low yields and stimulative central bank policies around the world have led to a condition in which “all assets are grossly overvalued … and eventually this will unwind and cause some problems.” Despite his massively bearish call, Faber said he’s “not short the market yet,” since he doesn’t know how high stocks could go in the interim. Still, he makes clear that “I’m not interested to buy momentum, I’m interested to buy value.”

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“U.K. taxpayers sunk about $1.5 trillion into banks in 2008 and 2009 to prop up the nation’s failing system..” Of banks that collected many billions in fines since.

Britain’s Scandal-Battered Banks Paralyzed as Election Looms (Bloomberg)

Whatever the outcome of Britain’s election next week, the outlook for the country’s banks is worsening. Almost seven years since the industry received the biggest taxpayer bailout in history, public confidence in banks is near an all-time low and lenders’ efforts to boost profit are being frustrated by investigations into alleged currency and interest rate-rigging. Since the coalition government took power in 2010, U.K. bank stocks have lost 7%. Their U.S. counterparts have returned 46%. “You can hardly believe we are now seven years into this crisis, and we’ve still got billions in fines to come and virtually none of the major banks predicting decent returns for at least another three to four years,” said Ed Firth at Macquarie. “If you told us that in 2007, we just wouldn’t have believed it.”

The industry’s prospects look to be getting worse as both major political parties distance themselves from the City, London’s financial district, before the May 7 election. The Bank of England is preparing harsher stress tests this year that may force firms to bolster capital buffers and new rules require expensive firewalls to be created around consumer operations. A levy on banks’ balance sheets has been increased eight times since 2010. U.K. taxpayers sunk about $1.5 trillion into banks in 2008 and 2009 to prop up the nation’s failing system, and still own 79% of money-losing RBS and a fifth of Lloyds. Before the election, the tarnished reputation of the industry has taken another battering with HSBC embroiled in allegations it aided tax evasion. The Asian-focused lender said last week it may leave London because of rising tax and regulatory costs and Standard Chartered may join them.

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“In 2004, the U.S. side had assets double those of China and net income equal to 339%; now those respective numbers are 71.6% and 50.8%..”

Chinese Banks Are Clobbering The US (CNBC)

China’s banks are taking over the world, or at least pushing their U.S. counterparts out of the leadership role. Bank earnings this week in the world’s second largest economy paint a dour picture for American financial institutions, according to analyst Dick Bove at Rafferty Capital Markets. “The Chinese government is now following a policy to allow its banks to expand faster. It has reduced their required reserve ratios,” Rafferty’s vice president of equity research said in a note to clients. “The United States continues to follow a policy to shrink the biggest banks in this country.”

The picture gets especially ugly when comparing the “Big Four” U.S. banks—JPMorgan, Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo—to their Chinese counterparts, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of China. In 2004, the U.S. side had assets double those of China and net income equal to 339%; now those respective numbers are 71.6% and 50.8%, according to Bove. That precipitous slide comes as direct result of regulators trying to hamstring banks through excessive regulation, even though the four institutions in question have managed to gain a historically high share of the U.S. industry. In fact, the top five now control 45% of the entire industry’s assets, according to SNL Financial (the list also includes U.S. Bancorp).

Even so, Bove said U.S. bank operations are being confined through tighter regulations, such as those from the Dodd-Frank provisions. “The fact that U.S. banks are unable to lend as much as they did historically as a% of capital is not good for the U.S. economy,” he said. “Moreover, there are growing signs that the liquidity that characterized U.S. financial markets is being harmed by current policy.” Despite the strongest earnings of any sector in the S&P 500—a 16.1% annualized gain in the first quarter for financials—banks stocks are struggling, collectively down about 1.8%. Bove said that’s no coincidence. He also worries that the implementation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank—essentially a development fund that will provide capital to developing Asian economies to which the U.S. does not belong—is another shot against U.S. international finance standing.

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Angela Palin: “Her southbound trips usually ended in the Pirin Mountains in Bulgaria, from where she could see Greece..”

Greece’s Decade-Long Relationship With Merkel (Kathimerini)

Last week, hopes of an honest compromise between Athens and its international creditors rested on a meeting between Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the sidelines of an emergency European Union summit on immigration. In her 10th year at the helm of Germany, the low-key East German physicist – with patience and persistence, skill in tactical maneuvering, and in-depth knowledge of the key European issues and the role of her country – has emerged as the uncontested protagonist of the European stage. It is ironic that, to a great extent, Merkel owes her prominence to Greece. As she said in a speech in 2012 (mentioned in Alan Crawford and Tony Czuczka’s biography “Angela Merkel: A Chancellorship Forged in Crisis”), as a young woman she would spend her summers traveling all over that part of the Eastern bloc where she was allowed access.

Her southbound trips usually ended in the Pirin Mountains in Bulgaria, from where she could see Greece, just a few kilometers away, and wished that one day she would be able to visit. If she sensed that one day she would come to the country as an honored guest, it is less likely she believed that she would be treated more or less like a conqueror. Before the Greek crisis, the German chancellor had no strategic vision for Europe. After its outbreak, she had to cook up a basic recipe: austerity and structural reform as a means of adapting Europe to a globalized world, mechanisms for supporting indebted countries with strict conditionality and no option for debt mutualization, and the involvement of the IMF.

For many, this is an ineffective and unjust policy which places the lion’s share of the adjustment burden on the countries of Europe’s south, yet it has prevailed, becoming the action that determines every reaction. Speaking with high-ranking officials in Greece and Germany, Kathimerini attempts to trace the evolution of bilateral relations in the Merkel era and how the chancellor emerged from the shadow of Helmut Kohl to step into the limelight of European developments.

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Hollow talk: “(Is) the euro zone prepared for eventualities, the answer to that is: ‘yes’.”

Greece Signals Concessions In Crunch Talks With Lenders (Reuters)

Greece’s government signaled the biggest concessions so far as talks with lenders on a cash-for-reforms package started in earnest on Thursday, but tried to assure leftist supporters it had not abandoned its anti-austerity principles. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s three-month-old government is under heavy pressure at home and abroad to reach an agreement with European and IMF lenders to avert a national bankruptcy. A new poll showed over three-quarters of Greeks feel Athens must strike a deal at any cost to stay in the euro. An enlarged team of Greek negotiators began talks with the so-called Brussels Group representing the euro zone, the IMF and the ECB to discuss which reforms Greece will turn into legislation rapidly in exchange for aid.

The talks are expected to continue through the May Day holiday weekend until Sunday, with Tsipras willing to step in to speed things up if necessary, a Greek official said. In a sign of seriousness, both sides agreed on a news blackout at the meeting, a euro zone official said. Greece wants an interim deal by next week, hoping this will allow the ECB to ease liquidity restrictions before a €750 million payment to the IMF falls due on May 12. Athens has suggested it will struggle to pay the installment. Before that, it also has to repay €200 million to the IMF by May 6, although this is expected to be less of a problem. The head of the Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, said at a meeting with members of the Dutch parliament that the bloc was prepared for any outcome. Asked whether there was a “plan B” should Greece default or be forced out of the euro zone, he said: “(Is) the euro zone prepared for eventualities, the answer to that is: ‘yes’.”

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Curiously leading from the FT.

Greece Struggles To Make Payments To More Than 2 Million Pensioners (FT)

The Greek government was struggling on Thursday to complete payments to more than 2 million pensioners after claiming that a “technical hitch” had delayed an earlier disbursement. Elderly Athenians waited at branches of the National Bank of Greece, the state-controlled lender handling the bulk of pension payments, which are staggered over several days. “Normally I only withdraw half the money at the end of the month, but today I’m taking it all,” said Sotiria Zlatini, 75, a former civil servant. “There are so many rumors going round because of the government’s problems and what happened two days ago.”

The left-wing Syriza-led government scrambled to pay pensions and public sector salaries in February and March after failing to reach agreement with international lenders on unlocking €7.2 billion of bailout aid. On Tuesday, the main state social security fund, IKA, delayed pension payments by almost eight hours. The heavily loss-making fund relies on a monthly subsidy from the budget to be able to cover its obligations. “I went to the ATM in the morning before going to the supermarket but the money wasn’t there… I went back at eight in the evening feeling quite anxious, but it had arrived,” said Socrates Kambitoglou, a retired civil engineer.

Dimitris Stratoulis, deputy minister for social security, said a technical problem with the interbank payment system had caused the delay. Payments were made normally on Wednesday, said a senior Greek banker. But an official with knowledge of the government’s cash position denied there had been a technical hitch. He said the payments were held up because the state pension funds “were still missing several hundred million euros on Tuesday morning”. Another official said inflows of €500 million on Wednesday had eased the situation and €300 million was due to be paid on Thursday. “We’re probably going to make it this month,” he said.

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Draghi blows the bubble so hard he may have to stop?!

Why’s Europe QE Might End Sooner Than Thought (CNBC)

A constant supply of strong economic data has come out of the euro zone this month, just weeks after the European Central Bank President Mario Draghi launched of a much-anticipated bond-buying plan. So strong, in fact, that analysts are expecting that the ECB’s quantitative easing program might be over sooner than originally thought. Draghi’s original plan was to maintain the asset purchase program until the end of September 2016, or until there is a “sustained adjustment in path of inflation”. The central banker even expressed his surprise at last month’s Governing Council meeting when questioned on the potential of an early exit from QE, but investors are also suggesting he may not be faced with much of a choice.

Since the March launch of the €60 billion-a-month program, loans to the private sector in the euro area, a gauge of economic health, have started growing again, ECB data released this week showed. Retail sales in the region have seen a revival, as a dip in February was preceded by four successive monthly increases. Meanwhile German unemployment plummeted to a 24-year low and the euro zone ended four months of deflation in April, official data revealed on Thursday. With unemployment falling and wages starting to pick up in some parts of the currency area, consumer spending will also likely rise during 2015.

This record jobless data from Europe’s largest economy could put the September 2016 QE deadline into question, but not until later in the year, analysts suggest. “Compared to a year ago, the number of persons registered as unemployed has declined by 2.9 million people, indicating that the trend in labor market improvement remains firm,” said chief euro zone economist at Pantheon Economics, Claus Vistesen. “The German unemployment rate is currently at its lowest level since 1991 raising the risk of wage pressures, which could also make life difficult for the ECB in terms of continuing QE, but this is unlikely to become a story for the market until the end of Q3 at the earliest.

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Good story on a guy who isn’t done with either Washington or New York.

Why Did The US Pay A Former Swiss Banker $104 Million? (CNBC)

Bradley Birkenfeld was released from federal prison in August 2012 after serving 2Ω years for his role as a Swiss banker hiding millions of dollars for wealthy American clients. Five weeks later, he found himself in the kitchen of a small rental house in Raymond, New Hampshire. At that moment, Birkenfeld was an ex-con. He was out of work, infamous in a famously discreet profession, and probably unemployable as a private banker anywhere. But then his lawyer walked into the room, carrying a check from the U.S. Treasury to Birkenfeld for $104 million minus taxes. On the face was a picture of the Statue of Liberty. It was Birkenfeld’s cut as a whistleblower of the massive settlement his former employer the Swiss bank UBS had paid to the United States government in a settlement for helping Americans dodge taxes.

As Birkenfeld signed the check, he was transformed from convicted felon to government-made multimillionaire. “It was vindication,” Birkenfeld said. “I am glowing. I love it.” Today, Birkenfeld has a new rental house by the ocean in New Hampshire, two Porsches, and a collection of pricy vintage hockey gear to display in his own Boston Bruins luxury box. He’s made charitable contributions in his community. And he’s planning to open a sports museum. You’d think he’d be happy. But Birkenfeld, 50, a big man with a brash style and a temper, isn’t done with the U.S. Department of Justice. He’s on a quest, he said, to force the government to explain why it was so aggressive in prosecuting him, but let nearly everyone else involved in the scam get off with light penalties or none at all.

Now Birkenfeld is telling his story exclusively to CNBC. Wealthy, out of prison and soon to be removed from federal probation, he says he’s now free to explain how he came to be the man who ended the tradition of bank secrecy and got rich in the process. The reverberations from Birkenfeld’s disclosures have been titanic, playing out on a global stage. The United States in 2009 forced UBS to pay a $780 million penalty and admit it conspired to defraud the United States by impeding the IRS from obtaining information on American taxpayers hiding money in Switzerland. In 2014, banking giant Credit Suisse pleaded guilty and said it would pay $2.6 billion in penalties. American investigators soon followed the trail of hidden money to banks in Israel, India and around the world.

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“The real Social Security crisis is that the government does not have the money to redeem its IOUs.”

The Public Sector is a Milk Cow For Private Enterprise (Paul Craig Roberts)

Social Security and Medicare are under attack from Wall Street, conservatives, and free market economists. The claims are that these programs are unaffordable and that the programs can be run more efficiently and at less cost if privatized. The programs are disparaged as “entitlements.” The word has come to imply that entitled people are getting something at great cost to everyone else. Indeed, entitlements have become conflated with welfare. In fact, Social Security and Medicare are financed by an earmarked payroll tax paid by employees. (Economists regard the part of the payroll tax that is paid by employers as part of the employee’s wage.)

According to the Social Security and Medicare trustees, Social Security as presently configured can pay full promised benefits for the next two decades and with current payroll tax and demographic trends can pay 75% of benefits thereafter. Medicare can pay full benefits for 12 more years and 90% of promised benefits thereafter. It makes sense to look ahead–something that democracies seldom do–but there is no current crisis. The Carter administration did look ahead and put in place a series of future increases in the payroll tax sufficient to keep the programs in the black for several decades into the future. Shortly thereafter in 1981 there was a claim that there was a short-term financing problem.

The National Commission on Social Security Reform was created. Alan Greenspan was appointed chairman, and the commission is known as the Greenspan Commission. What the commission did was to accelerate in time the payroll tax increases that were already in place. In my opinion, this was done in order to reduce projected federal budget deficits that concerned Wall Street and Republicans. The consequence of the accelerated payroll tax increases is that over the next decades the programs accrued large surpluses in the trillions of dollars that the federal government spent on other programs, substituting for the surplus payroll revenues non-marketable Treasury IOUs to Social Security and Medicare.

Far from entitlements worsening the federal deficit, entitlement surpluses have reduced it. The real Social Security crisis is that the government does not have the money to redeem its IOUs. The government, of course, will print money to bail out the banks’ uncovered casino bets, but not to bail out the elderly from the theft of their funds. The government has wasted trillions of dollars on wars that have enriched the military/security complex by killing, maiming, and displacing millions of peoples in seven countries, but Washington “cannot afford” Social Security and Medicare. Representing the people is not something “our” representatives do. They are too busy representing a handful of private interest groups such as the financial sector, the military/security complex, and agribusiness.

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Entertaining and then some.

Hookers, Kidneys & Nose Jobs: Most Searched Cost Obsessions By Country (RT)

The cost of flying a MiG fighter in Russia, buying kidneys in Iran, prostitutes in Ukraine and rhinoplasty in S. Korea are just a few of the most popular Google requests worldwide, a new map shows. It does give some weird insights into the countries. Fixr.com, a cost-estimating website has put together a map of the world with the most-Googled things in each country, using the autocomplete formula of “How much does * cost in [x country].” The search results turned out to be hilarious and informative, and gave a peek into humanity’s cost obsessions per country. “Looking at some of the most popular Google searches throughout the World reveals some cultural differences, but also many key similarities. It also provides insights into the sometimes strange things people think about when they are alone,” says fixr.com website.

Russians are most interested in “How much does it cost to fly a MiG [military aircraft] in Russia?” Iranians are eager to sell or to buy kidneys, while the South Koreans are obsessed with their appearance and fixated on rhinoplasty (nose plastic surgery) costs. The Chinese, Apple’s biggest iPhone market, desire iPhones, of course. On Tuesday, Apple said it sold more iPhones in China than in the US. The cost of a prostitute is the most Googled demand in a range of countries, such as in Brazil, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Hong Kong, Colombia and Latvia. Slaves crop up in Mauritania, diamonds shine in Sierra Leone and cocaine fires up Honduras, Chile and Taiwan – these are some of the most Googled and weird demands in each of these countries. Why Japanese people want watermelons or Armenians are obsessed with carpets is as yet a mystery.

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When choaos backfires on the empire…

The Day After Damascus Falls (Robert Parry)

If Syrian President Bashar al-Assad meets the same fate as Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi or Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, much of Official Washington would rush out to some chic watering hole to celebrate – one more “bad guy” down, one more “regime change” notch on the belt. But the day after Damascus falls could mark the beginning of the end for the American Republic. As Syria would descend into even bloodier chaos – with an Al-Qaeda affiliate or its more violent spin-off, the Islamic State, the only real powers left – the first instinct of American politicians and pundits would be to cast blame, most likely at President Barack Obama for not having intervened more aggressively earlier.

A favorite myth of Official Washington is that Syrian “moderates” would have prevailed if only Obama had bombed the Syrian military and provided sophisticated weapons to the rebels. Though no such “moderate” rebel movement ever existed – at least not in any significant numbers – that reality is ignored by all the “smart people” of Washington. It is simply too good a talking point to surrender. The truth is that Obama was right when he told New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman in August 2014 that the notion of a “moderate” rebel force that could achieve much was “always … a fantasy.”

As much fun as the “who lost Syria” finger-pointing would be, it would soon give way to the horror of what would likely unfold in Syria with either Al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front or the spin-off Islamic State in charge – or possibly a coalition of the two with Al-Qaeda using its new base to plot terror attacks on the West while the Islamic State engaged in its favorite pastime, those YouTube decapitations of infidels – Alawites, Shiites, Christians, even some descendants of the survivors from Turkey’s Armenian genocide a century ago who fled to Syria for safety.

Such a spectacle would be hard for the world to watch and there would be demands on President Obama or his successor to “do something.” But realistic options would be few, with a shattered and scattered Syrian army no longer a viable force capable of driving the terrorists from power. The remaining option would be to send in the American military, perhaps with some European allies, to try to dislodge Al-Qaeda and/or the Islamic State. But the prospects for success would be slim. The goal of conquering Syria – and possibly re-conquering much of Iraq as well – would be costly, bloody and almost certainly futile.

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“Unless oil prices rebound above $75 or $85 per barrel, the rig count won’t matter because there will not be enough money to complete more wells..”

The U.S. Oil Production Decline Has Begun (Art Berman)

The U.S. oil production decline has begun. It is not because of decreased rig count. It is because cash flow at current oil prices is too low to complete most wells being drilled. The implications are profound. Production will decline by several hundred thousand of barrels per day before the effect of reduced rig count is fully seen. Unless oil prices rebound above $75 or $85 per barrel, the rig count won’t matter because there will not be enough money to complete more wells than are being completed today. Tight oil production in the Eagle Ford, Bakken and Permian basin plays declined approximately 111,000 barrels of oil per day in January. These declines are part of a systematic decrease in the number of new producing wells added since oil prices fell below $90 per barrel in October 2014.

Deferred completions (drilled uncompleted wells) are not discretionary for most companies. Producers entered into long-term rig contracts assuming at least $90 oil prices. Lower prices result in substantially reduced cash flows. Capital is only available to fulfill contractual drilling commitments, basic costs of doing business, and to complete the best wells that come closest to breaking even at present oil prices. Much of the new capital from junk bonds and share offerings is being used to pay overhead and interest expense, and to pay down debt to avoid triggering loan covenant thresholds. Hedges help soften the blow of low oil prices for some companies but not enough to carry on business as usual when it comes to well completions.

The decrease in well completions provides additional evidence that the true break-even price for tight oil plays is between $75 and $85 per barrel. The Eagle Ford Shale is the most attractive play with a break-even price of about $75 per barrel. Well completions averaged 312 per month from January through September 2014 when WTI averaged $100 per barrel. When oil prices dropped below $90 per barrel in October, November well completions fell to 214. As prices fell further, 169 new producing wells were added in December and only 118 in January.

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Very little scrutiny in the press of Austria’s banking troubles. Which is strange considering the tight links to Germany and Eastern Europe.

The Traumatic Restructuring Of Austria’s Cooperative Banking System (Coppola)

Austria’s banking system is undergoing traumatic restructuring. This has been forced upon it by the legacy of the financial crisis and by the progressive removal of sovereign and sub-sovereign guarantees to comply with EU legislation. So far, we have seen the failures of Hypo Alpe Adria and its “bad bank” Heta, the forced rescue of Pfandbriefbank by its regional bank owners, some of which in turn will probably need rescuing by their provincial governments, and the forcible sale of Eastern European assets by Raffeisenbank and Erste Bank. The first of these is still suffering terrible losses: the second says it is slowly returning to profit. We shall see. The latest domino to fall is Austria’s system of cooperative banks, the Volksbanken. There are about 40 Volksbanken, which collectively own an “umbrella bank”, Volksbank AG, known as VBAG.

VBAG was originally created as a central clearing “hub” for its Volksbanken member-owners. It became a private limited company in 1974 and a commercial bank in 1991, after which it developed a life of its own, lending on its own account and acquiring interests not only within Austria but in Central and Eastern Europe. It rapidly built up a substantial portfolio of risky assets backed by insufficient equity. In the 2007-8 financial crisis in Europe, VBAG was initially damaged by the failure of Austria’s infrastructure bank Kommunalkredit AG, in which VBAG had a 50.78% stake: the other principal shareholder was the Belgian/French bank Dexia which was nationalized in 2008 after heavy losses following the fall of Lehman Brothers. VBAG’s stake in Kommunalkredit AG was bought by the Austrian Federal Government in November 2008 for a symbolic €1.

VBAG reported a full-year loss in 2008 of €420m, largely as a result of Kommunalkredit’s nationalization. But worse was to come. Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) was badly affected by the 2008 financial crisis. As investors spooked by the turmoil in the markets moved money to safe havens, several CEE countries slid into deep recession: the worst affected were Romania, Hungary and Latvia, all of which required EU/IMF assistance. Banks exposed to CEE suffered collapsing asset values and destruction of shareholder value. VBAG was one of the worst hit. It lost €1.1bn in 2009 due to losses on CEE loans and real estate. It was bailed out by the Austrian federal government, which provided it with €1bn of subordinated debt.

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Governments and derivatives.

Public Accounts Should Be Approved By The Citizens (Beppe Grillo’s blog)

It works like this. The public authorities are gambling with our taxes. The casino is managed by the commercial banks that provide money up front in return for hypothetical future gains using derivatives. Thus, the public authority gets money in advance on the basis of presumed gains and it uses this money to get by – until the end of the derivative contract. If things go wrong with the derivatives (something that regularly happens), the public accounts end up drastically in the red. Here we’re talking about billions and not just chicken feed. Obviously the citizens are unaware of all this and they find themselves deeper and deeper in debt. For example, the city of Milan has debts of about four billion. Who has authorised AlbertiniMorattiPisapia to get the people of Milan into debt?

The ones that do well out of this are the commercial banks together with the current politician who starts off useless public works (and/or brown envelopes stuffed with money) or, in the best case scenario, they do some temporary patching up of the accounts. The accounts should be approved by the tax-paying citizens who are the only true bank of the State. They shouldn’t be approved by the functionaries that play with our taxes. We want administrators, not croupiers. “For years, the government and the public authorities have been betting billions of euro at the expense of the citizens. They’ve been using derivatives, betting on the future, and regularly losing. The tax payer is always playing the part of the unfortunate citizen “Pantalone”.

For the commercial banks that set up these bets – and who often welcome into the ranks of their senior management, former ministers and high level functionaries thrown out of the government, the money is always to be found. Always! On 31 December 2014, the potential loss – the “mark-to-market” value was €42 billion, and that’s getting continuously worse. For months, the 5 Star MoVement has been asking for access to the public contracts containing derivatives, but they continue to be kept under lock and key. Hidden away. We want to see all the contracts made with the commercial banks. We want to really get to understand if it’s possible to defuse these atomic bombs that have been slipped in underneath us. It’s a citizen’s right.”

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The future of housing?

Could You Live In A 320-Square-Foot Home? (Yahoo!)

What if you said goodbye to the McMansion, man cave and fourth bathroom – and moved into a home that could fit in your garage? Would a minimalist lifestyle ease your anxiety and bolster your bank account? Or would the claustrophobia have you crawling out of your skin? In a new documentary premiering online today, Australian filmmaker Jeremy Beasley explores the tiny house movement. The film “Small is Beautiful” follows four people in Portland, Ore., at different stages of building and living in their own tiny homes. Tiny houses must be fewer than 320 square feet, the minimum size for manufactured housing, determined by HUD. They’re hand-built, using primarily wooden beams and constructed on a utility trailer. These structures are mobile but not intended to be driven from place to place.

Tiny homes come in all shapes and sizes and Beasley says you can find them all over the world. The average cost of one of these diminutive homes is around $23,000 and the average size is 186 square feet, according to The Tiny Life, a website focused on the tiny home way of life. Compare that to the median price of a new home in the U.S. at more than $277,000 as of March, with an average size of almost 2,600 square feet. This infographic has more statistics on tiny homes, but Beasley says for tiny house owners it’s often less about facts and figures and more about all-encompassing lifestyle. The tiny house movement began in the U.S. about 15 years ago. Beasley estimates there are between 500 and 1,000 people living in tiny homes.

He says it’s difficult to get an exact number of tiny home owners in the U.S. and abroad because many live “under the radar.” But he says they share some characteristics: “Freedom is definitely something a lot of people have in common,” he says, “as well as living sustainability and trying to lessen their footprint on earth.” Beasley says the tiny house movement is significant in a few states, including North Carolina, Texas and Vermont. Their presence is so well-known in Portland that it was parodied by the hit IFC comedy “Portlandia.” While it might be easy to make a good-natured joke about living in small spaces – New Yorkers certainly get their fair share of ribbing for living in “shoeboxes” – the film takes on some weighty topics.

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The empire of evil.

Monsanto Approaches Syngenta Again About a Takeover (Bloomberg)

Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, has approached Syngenta about a takeover, almost a year after a previous attempt fell apart, according to people familiar with the matter. Monsanto has discussed its interest with Syngenta in recent weeks, said two of the people, asking not to be identified discussing private information. Syngenta, which has a market value of about 29 billion Swiss Francs ($31 billion), has concerns about a combination, which would face antitrust hurdles, the people said, and the companies may fail to reach an agreement, they said. Combined with Syngenta, Monsanto would become the largest player in the world for both seeds and crop chemicals and a formidable competitor to Bayer, BASF and Dow Chemical.

Basel-based Syngenta is the world’s largest maker of crop chemicals whereas St. Louis-based Monsanto is the largest maker of seeds and dominates the global market for genetically modified crops like corn and soybeans. Monsanto jumped as much as 3.6% in afterhours trading, after closing at $113.96 in New York, giving the company a market value of $54 billion. The companies held preliminary talks last year with advisers about a combination, before Syngenta’s management decided against negotiations, people familiar with the matter said at the time. No agreement was made after concerns were raised about the strategic fit, antitrust issues and relocating the company.

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How about the Vatican?

Church of England Dumps Fossil-Fuel Investments (Bloomberg)

It appears coal mining isn’t God’s work. The Church of England will dump its holdings in coal and oil-sand producers and has ruled out backing companies with exposure to the most polluting fossil fuels, joining the movement that wants investors to help fight climate change. The church’s investment arm said on Thursday that it will sell its £12 million ($18.4 million) coal and tar sands investments. The church also vowed not to invest in any business that get more than 10% of its revenues from the fuels, ruling out companies from Glencore to Suncor. The move by the church, created by Henry VIII’s split from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century and still headed by the Queen, is a victory for environmental activists seeking to stigmatize oil and coal companies in the way South Africa and tobacco companies have previously been targeted.

“Climate change is already a reality,” said the Reverend Richard Burridge, who is deputy chair of the church’s ethical investment advisory group. “The church has a moral responsibility to speak and act on both environmental stewardship and justice for the world’s poor who are most vulnerable to climate change.” About 200 institutions worldwide have pledged to scale back investments in polluting industries, including Glasgow University in Scotland and Stanford University in California. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, built with profits from Standard Oil, said last year it will sell its coal and tar-sand investments.

Prince Charles, who will become head of the Church of England when his mother dies and has long campaigned on environmental issues, has ensured his private investments and charitable foundations do not have any fossil fuel holdings, the Financial Times reported on April 26. Still, many big institutions are continuing to support such industries. Last month Oxford University refused to join the movement, joining Harvard and Yale universities, which control the biggest endowments in the U.S., in sidestepping requests to remove oil and coal companies from their investment funds.

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Only roaches will be left.

Study Finds Climate Change Threatens 1 in 6 Species With Extinction (NY Times)

Climate change could drive to extinction as many as one in six animal and plant species, according to a new analysis. In a study published Thursday in the journal Science, Mark Urban, an ecologist at the University of Connecticut, also found that as the planet warms in the future, species will disappear at an accelerating rate. “We have the choice,” he said in an interview. “The world can decide where on that curve they want the future Earth to be.” As dire as Dr. Urban’s conclusions are, other experts said the real toll may turn out to be even worse. The number of extinctions “may well be two to three times higher,” said John J. Wiens, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona.

Global warming has raised the planet’s average surface temperature about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the Industrial Revolution. Species are responding by shifting their ranges. In 2003, Camille Parmesan of the University of Texas and Gary Yohe of Wesleyan University analyzed studies of more than 1,700 plant and animal species. They found that, on average, their ranges shifted 3.8 miles per decade toward the planet’s poles. If emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases continue to grow, climate researchers project the world could warm by as much as 8 degrees Fahrenheit. As the climate continues to change, scientists fear, some species won’t be able to find suitable habitats.

For example, the American pika, a hamsterlike mammal that lives on mountains in the West, has been retreating to higher elevations in recent decades. Since the 1990s, some pika populations along the species’ southernmost ranges have vanished. Hundreds of studies published over the past two decades have yielded a wide range of predictions regarding the number of extinctions that will be caused by global warming. Some have predicted few extinctions, while others have predicted that 50% of species face oblivion. There are many reasons for the wide variation. Some scientists looked only at plants in the Amazon, while others focused on butterflies in Canada. In some cases, researchers assumed just a couple of degrees of warming, while in others they looked at much hotter scenarios.

Because scientists rarely were able to say just how quickly a given species might shift ranges, they sometimes produced a range of estimates. To get a clearer picture, Dr. Urban decided to revisit every climate extinction model ever published. He threw out all the studies that examined just a single species, such as the American pika, on the grounds that these might artificially inflate the result of his meta-analysis. (Scientists often pick out individual species to study because they already suspect they are vulnerable to climate change.) Dr. Urban ended up with 131 studies examining plants, amphibians, fish, mammals, reptiles and invertebrates spread out across the planet. He reanalyzed all the data in those reports.

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Feb 122015
 
 February 12, 2015  Posted by at 11:38 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  1 Response »


Byron In Chinatown, Pell Street, New York 1900

Eurogroup Fails to Agree to Next Greek Bailout Steps (Bloomberg)
Rejected Eurogroup Draft Spoke Of “Extending” Greek Bailout (Reuters)
Greece And Eurozone In Stalemate Over Debt Burden (Guardian)
Greece Said to Offer Euro Area Four Principles for Talks (Bloomberg)
Germany Faces Impossible Choice As Greek Austerity Revolt Spreads (AEP)
Eurozone Leaders Believe Syriza Must Fail And Be Seen To Fail (Telegraph)
If The Greek Olive Branch Is Rejected, Europe May Fall (Pablo Iglesias)
86 Names Missing from Greek ‘Lagarde List’ (Greek Reporter)
Ukraine Gets IMF-Led $40 Billion Aid Accord to Avert Default (Bloomberg)
Ukrainian Cease-Fire Sealed After All-Night Minsk Peace Summit (Bloomberg)
Putin Top Advisor: US Eyes Ukraine for Regime Change in Russia (Zero Hedge)
Oil Firms ‘Need Fresh Strategies’ To Operate in Future of $50 Oil (BBC)
Global Oil Layoffs Exceed 100,000 (Bloomberg)
Goldman: Why Oil Crashed—and Why Lower Prices Are Here to Stay (Bloomberg)
Have Banks Overplayed Their Hand Fighting Wall Street Regulation? (Bloomberg)
Audit The Fed – And Shackle It, Too (David Stockman)
‘No Solution To Brazil’s Crisis’ (CNBC)
Sweden’s Riksbank Cuts Key Rate to Negative (Bloomberg)
Mediterranean Sinking ‘Kills 300 Migrants Bound For Europe (BBC)
New Ebola Cases Rise For Second Week In A Row (BBC)
Australia On Brink Of ‘Extinction Calamity’ (BBC)

The idea was always to stretch the meeting till Monday.

Eurogroup Fails to Agree to Next Greek Bailout Steps (Bloomberg)

Euro-area governments left tough decisions on the future of Greece’s bailout for next week, after talks failed to bridge differences over the aid program that the Greek government blames for economic hardship. With Greece’s current bailout expiring at the end of February, finance ministers met for six hours in Brussels without signing off on any conclusions on the way forward for the region’s most-indebted nation. That leaves open how Greece can avoid running out of cash and avert a possible exit from the 19-nation currency union. Attention now shifts to a summit of European Union leaders on Thursday in Brussels, a day after German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande traveled to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate a cease-fire in Ukraine.

Merkel had left bargaining with Greece to the finance ministers. “We understand each other much, much better now than we did this morning,” Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis told reporters after the finance chiefs broke up without a deal early Thursday in Brussels. “Europe manages to find agreements even if it’s at the last moment.” The euro fell as much as 0.3% to $1.1303 after Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister who chairs the euro group’s talks, said ministers couldn’t agree on a common approach. The euro briefly spiked to as high as 1.1352 earlier, when officials suggested an accord on steps forward was within reach.

“We covered a lot of ground but didn’t actually reach a joint conclusion on how to take the next steps,” Dijsselbloem said at a press conference. “There has to be a political agreement on the way forward.” Finance chiefs will return to Brussels on Feb. 16 to try to break the deadlock after Greek negotiators were said to have wavered on a commitment to extending the country’s existing bailout from the Troika. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s campaign pledge to end the bailout — and its austerity mandates — hung over the talks. Agreed language on a bailout extension was within reach, only to be rejected later by Greek negotiators who said they had to consult with superiors in Athens, German Finance Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said.

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There will be no extension. Syriza has said that 1000 times.

Rejected Eurogroup Draft Spoke Of “Extending” Greek Bailout (Reuters)

A draft statement by euro zone finance ministers on how to handle Greece’s finances spoke of “extending” its current bailout deal as a “bridge” to a new package, according to a copy of the draft that was rejected by Athens. The new Greek government, elected on a mandate to end deeply unpopular international bailout terms, has insisted there can be no “extension” once that deal expires at the end of the month. But EU partners fear financial chaos without such an accord. A draft of the planned Eurogroup statement, seen by Reuters, read: “Today the Eurogroup took stock of the current situation in Greece and the state of the current adjustment programme. In this context, the Eurogroup has engaged in an intensive dialogue with the new Greek authorities.

“The Greek authorities have expressed their commitment to a broader and stronger reform process aimed at durably improving growth prospects”. At the same time, the Greek authorities reiterated their unequivocal commitment to the financial obligations to all their creditors. “On this basis, we will now start technical work on the further assessment of Greece’s reform plans. The Greek authorities have agreed to work closely and constructively with the institutions to explore the possibilities for extending and successfully concluding the present programme taking into account the new government’s plans. If this is successful this will bridge the time for the Greek authorities and the Eurogroup to work on possible new contractual arrangements. We will continue our discussions at our next meeting on Monday 16 February.”

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Mexican standoff.

Greece And Eurozone In Stalemate Over Debt Burden (Guardian)

The Greek government’s confrontation with its eurozone creditors over its campaign to relieve its staggering debt burden while relaxing the terms of five years of austerity resulted in stalemate late on Wednesday. The first proper negotiations between Greece and eurozone finance ministers failed to make any progress or result in a joint statement. While no immediate agreement had been expected, the emergency meeting had been tipped to produce a framework for talks to be finessed over the next few days before another meeting next Monday. Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister who chaired the Brussels meeting, announced that this aim was not met. It appeared that the new leftwing government in Athens was isolated in seeking to extract better terms from Europe.

Alexis Tsipras, the new Greek prime minister, seems to have ordered his finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, to stand firm against the pressure to make any concessions. Tsipras is due in Brussels on Thursday for his debut on the European stage at an EU summit. Following 10 days of touring Europe in a failed attempt to woo Berlin, Frankfurt and other key capitals to alter the terms of trade between Athens and the eurozone, Varoufakis went into negotiations with the other finance ministers at a specially convened session in Brussels. Entering and leaving the meeting, he was uncharacteristically taciturn.

The stalemate could see Greece running out of cash next month, unilaterally defaulting on the bailout programme with the ECB, the European Commission and the IMF, and being forced to leave the single currency. That prospect is viewed as a disaster fraught with risks in Brussels, Paris and Rome. But Berlin, whose voice matters more than most in the negotiations, is reliably said to be “extremely relaxed” about the Greek crisis and opposed to tearing up the agreements that Greece is formally bound to under the bailout terms.

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“..popular protests “across Greece and Europe” are “the source of our strength.”

Greece Said to Offer Euro Area Four Principles for Talks (Bloomberg)

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis presented his European counterparts with four principles for a new financing deal, according to two euro-area officials, as Greece battles to stave off a cash crunch and stay in the currency bloc. Greece wants a deal that provides for financial stability, financial sustainability and debt restructuring, while addressing Greece’s humanitarian crisis, Varoufakis said during talks Wednesday in Brussels without offering details, according to the officials, who asked not to be named because the talks are private. Finance ministers of the 19 euro nations met on Wednesday after Germany and Greece took clashing positions heading into negotiations that will continue Feb. 16 in the Belgian capital.

Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who heads the meetings, said the ministers wanted to hear Greece’s proposals. “I don’t expect an outcome today,” Dijsselbloem told reporters in Brussels before the talks. Extra money “is not on the table right now” and Greece needs to stick to its reform path, he said. Greece’s bailout package will expire this month if the euro area’s most-indebted nation can’t reach a deal with its creditors. Asked by a reporter before the meeting whether Greece’s exit from the euro area is on the table, Varoufakis said: “Of course not.” In Athens, thousands rallied in front of the Greek parliament in support of the government’s anti-austerity stance. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras posted a photo of the rally on his Twitter account, saying popular protests “across Greece and Europe” are “the source of our strength.”

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“You can defend EMU policies, or you can defend your political base, but you cannot do both.”

Germany Faces Impossible Choice As Greek Austerity Revolt Spreads (AEP)

The political centre across southern Europe is disintegrating. Establishment parties of centre-left and centre-right – La Casta, as they say in Spain – have successively immolated themselves enforcing EMU debt-deflation. Spain’s neo-Bolivarian Podemos party refuses to fade. It has endured crippling internal rifts. It has shrugged off hostile press coverage over financial ties to Venezuela. Nothing sticks. The insurrectionists who came from nowhere last year – with Trotskyist roots and more radical views than those of Syriza in Greece – are pulling further ahead in the polls. The latest Metroscopia survey gave Podemos 28pc. The ruling conservatives have dropped to 21pc. The once-great PSOE – Spanish Workers Socialist Party – has fallen to 18pc and risks fading away like the Dutch Labour Party, or the French Socialists, or Greece’s Pasok.

You can defend EMU policies, or you can defend your political base, but you cannot do both. As matters stand, Podemos is on track to win the Spanish elections in November on a platform calling for the cancellation of “unjust debt”, a reversal of labour reforms, public control over energy, the banks, and the commanding heights of the economy, and withdrawal from Nato. Europe’s policy elites can rail angrily at the folly of these plans if they wish, but they must answer why ex-Trotskyists threatening to dismantle market capitalism are taking a major EMU state by storm. It is what happens when 5.46m people lack jobs, when 2m households still have no earned income, and when youth unemployment is still running at 51.4pc, and home prices are down 42pc, six years into a depression.

It is pointless protesting that Spain’s economy is turning the corner, a contested claim in any case. There comes a point when a society breaks and stops believing anything its leaders say. The EU elites themselves have run their currency experiment into the ground by imposing synchronized monetary, fiscal, and banking contraction on the southern half of EMU, in defiance of known economic science and the lessons of the 1930s. It is they who pushed the eurozone into deflation, and thereby pushed the debtor states into accelerating compound-interest traps. It is they who deployed the EMU policy machinery to uphold the interest of creditors, refusing to acknowledge that the root cause of Europe’s crisis was a flood excess capital flows into vulnerable economies.

It is they who prevented a US-style recovery from the financial crisis, and they should not be surprised that such historic errors are coming back to haunt. The revolt in Italy has different contours but is just as dangerous for Brussels. Italians may not wish to leave the euro but political consent for the project but broken down. All three opposition parties are now anti-euro in one way or another. Beppe Grillo’s Five Star movement – with 108 seats in parliament – is openly calling for a return to the lira. Mr Grillo proclaims that Syriza is carrying the torch for all the long-suffering peoples of southern Europe, as it is in a sense. “What’s happening to Greece today, will be happening to Italy tomorrow. Sooner or later, default is coming,” he said.

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How the right wing sees things.

Eurozone Leaders Believe Syriza Must Fail And Be Seen To Fail (Telegraph)

In current discussions of what Greece might or might not get in the way of concessions from the Eurozone, there has so far been relatively little appreciation of one basic political reality: as far as the governments of Spain, Portugal, Ireland, probably Italy and perhaps even France are concerned, Syriza must fail and must be seen to fail. Why? The reasons differ slightly between countries. The easiest case to see is perhaps Spain. In Spain, the governing party is the centre-right Partido Popular led by Mariano Rajoy. It is currently facing pressure from a far-left party, Podemos, allied to Syriza. Indeed the Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias even campaigned in partnership with Syriza and, following Syriza’s victory, at his own party’s rally he proclaimed: “Syriza, Podemos – we will win [venceremos]!”

Podemos is currently leading in the polls, ahead of an election later this year. The very last thing Rajoy can afford is for Syriza’s approach to be seen to succeed, emboldening and vindicating Podemos. As for Portugal and Ireland, where the governments stuck to bailout conditions despite the domestic pain, how would they sell concessions to Syriza to their own voters? Suppose they go back and say: “We were suckers. We shouldn’t have made all those cuts. Instead, what we really should have done was to raise the minimum wage, hire back the public sector staff that had been fired, say we weren’t going to pay our debts to our eurozone partners, cosy up to the Russians and tell the Germans they didn’t feel nearly guilty enough about World War II. Then everyone would have said we were ‘rock stars’ and and forgiven our debts.” Do you reckon that would go down well?

As for the Italians, the Syriza leaders are terribly keen to claim that Greece and Italy are in much the same position and that there should therefore be a general debt amnesty across the eurozone. The Italians, on the other hand, are less keen on this comparison. Over the weekend, the Greek finance minister stated: “Let’s face it, Italy’s debt situation is unsustainable”. The Italian Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan replied on Twitter that his Greek counterpart’s remarks were “out of place” and that Italy’s debt is “solid and sustainable”. If the Italians, at any point, seek any relaxation of the fiscal strictures their eurozone partners have placed upon them, you can rest assured they will not be claiming that they are just like Greece or that anything that happens in Greece sets a precedent for them.

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Letter from Spain’s oppostion leader: “..the diktats of those who still appear to be running things in Europe have failed, and the victims of this inefficiency and irresponsibility are Europe’s citizens.”

If The Greek Olive Branch Is Rejected, Europe May Fall (Pablo Iglesias)

During his swearing-in speech as Greece’s prime minister, Alexis Tsipras was clear: “Our aim is to achieve a solution that is mutually beneficial for both Greece and our partners. Greece wants to pay its debt.” The European Central Bank’s (ECB) response to the Greek government’s desire to be conciliatory and responsible, was also very clear: negative. Either the Greek government abandons the programme on which it was elected, and continues to do the very thing that has been disastrous for Greece, or the ECB will stop supporting Greek debt. The ECB’s calculation is not only arrogant, it is incoherent. The same central bank that recognised its mistakes a few weeks ago and began to buy government debt is now denying financing to the very states that have been arguing for years that the role of a central bank should be to back up governments in protecting their citizens rather than to rescue the financial bodies that caused the crisis.

Now, instead of acknowledging that Greece deserves at least the same treatment as any other EU member state, the ECB has decided to shoot the messenger. Excesses of arrogance and political short-sightedness cost dear. The new despots who are trying to persuade us that Europe’s problem is Greece are putting the European project itself at risk. Europe’s problem is not that the Greeks voted for a different option from the one that led them to disaster; that is simply democratic normality. Europe’s threefold problem is inequality, unemployment and debt – and this is neither new nor exclusively Greek. Nobody can deny that austerity has not solved this problem, but rather has exacerbated the crisis.

Let’s spell it out: the diktats of those who still appear to be running things in Europe have failed, and the victims of this inefficiency and irresponsibility are Europe’s citizens. It is for this precise reason that trust in the old political elites has collapsed; it is why Syriza won in Greece and why Podemos – the party I lead – can win in Spain. But not all the alternatives to these failed policies are as committed as Syriza and Podemos are to Europe and to European democracy and values. The Greeks have been pushed to the point of disaster, yet the Greek government has reached out and shown great willingness to cooperate. It has requested a bridge agreement that would give both sides until June to deal with what is little short of a national emergency for the majority of the Greek population.

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Interesting to see how hard Syriza will go after these guys.

86 Names Missing from Greek ‘Lagarde List’ (Greek Reporter)

The notorious “Lagarde List” should include a total of 2,148 names and not the 2,062 that are listed so far, according to a report in Ta Nea newspaper. The Lagarde List is a spreadsheet containing over 2,000 names of possible Greek tax evaders with undeclared deposits at Swiss HSBC bank’s Geneva branch. It is named after former French finance minister Christine Lagarde who passed it to the Greek government in October 2010 to help them tackle tax evasion. Lagarde is now Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. The list was hidden by Greek officials and it became known two years later when it was exposed by investigative journalist Costas Vaxevanis.

The newspaper report says that after research by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, there are 86 new names of Greeks who have undeclared deposits in the Swiss bank. They are all natives of Greece, but have declared residency in other countries, thereby not listed on the original list. Also, the investigation shows that there are another 41 names who are linked to the accounts of potential tax evaders already on the list. So far, very few names on the list have been audited. Former finance minister Giorgos Papaconstantinou is accused of distorting the spreadsheet and erasing names of his relatives on the list and will be referred to the Special Court.

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Even deeper into debt slavery.

Ukraine Gets IMF-Led $40 Billion Aid Accord to Avert Default (Bloomberg)

Ukraine reached a preliminary accord to expand an International Monetary Fund-led bailout to $40 billion to avert a default as the 10-month conflict in the nation’s east damages the economy and drains resources. An IMF team, which has been in the Ukrainian capital since Jan. 8, will recommend the Washington-based lender’s board sign off on the package, Managing Director Christine Lagarde said Thursday in Brussels. The package includes contributions from other sources, including the EU, Lagarde told reporters. Ukraine, rocked by a pro-Russia insurgency in its industrial heartland, is struggling with the deepest recession since 2009, foreign reserves at an 11-year low and the world’s worst-performing currency.

The country’s fiscal and economic condition will help determine whether it remains oriented toward the U.S. and EU or is drawn into Russia’s orbit amid the worst standoff since the end of the Cold War. “It’s an ambitious program, it’s a tough program and it’s not without risk,” Lagarde told reporters. “But it’s also realistic.” Ukraine’s April 2023 Eurobond was little changed at 53.19 cents on the dollar at 10:23 a.m. in Kiev, lowering the yield two basis points to 19%. The government of Ukraine faces debt repayments of $11 billion this year and has said it will approach foreign bondholders over easier terms once IMF financing is in place. The accord still needs IMF board approval. Ukraine’s allies stepped in with funding pledges in the run-up to the IMF talks being completed.

The U.S. promised as much as $2 billion in loan guarantees, while the European Union said it would disburse €1.8 billion euros. Leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany are meeting in Minsk, Belarus on Thursday to reach a peace deal in the conflict that has killed at least 5,400 people, the United Nation estimates. The U.S., EU and Ukraine blame Russia for aiding the rebels. President Vladimir Putin denies the charges. “The hope will be to send a signal to Putin and to Ukrainians that the West stands behind Ukraine and will not let it fail financially,” Timothy Ash at Standard Bank said.

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Meaningless?!

Ukrainian Cease-Fire Sealed After All-Night Minsk Peace Summit (Bloomberg)

The leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France agreed on a cease-fire to stem the conflict that’s devastated eastern Ukraine and triggered the worst crisis in more than 20 years between Russia and its former Cold War foes. The deal envisages a truce starting Feb. 15 and reaffirms some commitments from a failed September bid to end the conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. The accord was struck early Thursday after all-night talks between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande.

The collapse of previous cease-fires has stoked skepticism as to whether this one will hold. Ten months of fighting have killed more than 5,000 people, ravaged Ukraine’s economy and propelled Russia toward recession through U.S. and European sanctions. Raising pressure to deliver a settlement, the run-up to the summit was accompanied by escalating violence and calls for the U.S. to supply weapons to Ukraine’s struggling army. “The conflict will continue, even with this agreement,” Joerg Forbrig, a senior program director at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin, said by phone. “Eastern Ukraine is now basically lost to central government control.”

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“The situation in Ukraine is being used as a pretext for the active ‘repression’ of our country..”

Putin Top Advisor: US Uses Ukraine To Get Regime Change in Russia (Zero Hedge)

Following the humiliation of tonight’s much anticipated Eurogroup meeting in which for the first time ever the ensuing disarray was so profound the panicked European finance ministers couldn’t even find a quorum consensus to produce even the tersest of official statements, there was some hope that the second round of negotiations currently taking place in Minsk to find a solution to the Ukraine civil war would at least partially redeem Europe’s faltering negotiating reputation. Alas, as of this moment, that does not appear to be the case, and as Reuters reports citing a Kiev presidential aide, that Minsk talks on Ukraine crisis could last six more hours. “We’ve got another 5-6 hours of work. At least. But we should not leave here without an agreement on an unconditional ceasefire. There’s a battle of nerves underway,” aide Valeriy Chaly said in a Facebook post.

Well, if it is indeed a “battle of nerves”, something tells who the victor will be, considering all his peers are just a little more preoccupied with the potential collapse of their artificial monetary and political union. Yet, just like the previous Minsk “agreement”, even if by some miracle there is a solution this time around, the probability peace will be maintained is slim to none. The reason is not simply because the Ukraine civil war will go on until there is a terminal partition between the pro-western West part of the country, and the pro-Russian eastern regions. The real reason may be what one of Vladimir Putin’s top security advisors, the secretary of the Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev said earlier today, when he told a Russian state newspaper that the U.S. was orchestrating events in Ukraine in a bid to overthrow Mr. Putin’s government.

He also expressed certainty that the West’s financial aid for Kiev would only bring the Ukrainian economy to a “dead end.” “The situation in Ukraine is being used as a pretext for the active ‘repression’ of our country,” Mr. Patrushev, who ran Russia’s Federal Security Service during Mr. Putin’s first eight years as president, said in an interview with the Rossiyskaya Gazeta, published Wednesday. And, if accurate, Patrushev’s assessment is that the US will not stop short of what effectively will be world war: “The Americans are trying to involve the Russian Federation in an interstate military conflict, cause regime change [in Russia] and ultimately dismember our country via events in Ukraine,” he said.

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Most won’t be able to.

Oil Firms ‘Need Fresh Strategies’ To Operate in Future of $50 Oil (BBC)

Many oil and gas firms will need to transform the way they operate in order to grasp future opportunities in the sector, according to a report. PwC said companies should be looking to deploy fresh strategies, following a sustained fall in the price of oil. It suggested they should look to reduce costs “in a sustainable manner” and find efficiencies by keeping tax costs in control. Other suggestions included divesting non-core parts of their business. PwC argued that firms might also want to identify and invest in strategic acquisitions to secure market position in key areas. The report’s authors said the UK oil and gas sector would have been in a much better place “to weather the oil price maelstrom”, had it heeded 30%-40% cost reduction warnings which surfaced 12-18 months ago.

The report said there was still time for firms to “learn the harsh lessons of past languor” by adopting fresh strategies. But it also warned that to achieve that, they needed to get away from “short term knee-jerk reactions” seen in previous downturns – or risk damaging the long term future of the industry. PwC cited significant downsizing undertaken during the downturn of 1999-2000, arguing that the industry had struggled since then with talent retention. It said “aggressive price negotiation” and contract revisions with the oil services sector would also do little to create a collaborative environment. The report argued that companies must answer “hard questions” about whether they can continue to invest in the sector, or if they should instead “move on”.

But it stressed the need for the industry to take a long-term view, adding that “intelligent and strategic cost-cutting” could “position players well through this turmoil”. Brian Campbell, oil and gas capital projects director at PwC and co-author of the report, said: “With economists predicting low oil prices throughout 2015, UK oil and gas firms are not out of the woods by any means. “They are still at risk of an economic triple-whammy: as the falling oil price reduces income, incremental investment may no longer be economic with a risk that field life diminishes and decommissioning is accelerated. “The stark reality is that firms need to be able to operate in an environment where oil averages at $50 per barrel – only then can it be truly fit for the future.”

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Just starting.

Global Oil Layoffs Exceed 100,000 (Bloomberg)

The promise of plentiful jobs and salaries as high as a quarter-million dollars a year lured Colombia native Clara Correa Zappa and her British husband to Perth, Australia, at the height of the continent’s oil and gas frenzy. Engineers were in high demand in 2012, when oil prices exceeded $100 a barrel, making the move across the world a no-brainer. Within two years, though, oil plunged to less than half the 2012 price and Zappa lost her job as a safety analyst. Now she’s worried her husband, who also works in the commodities industry, could also lose his job. Such anxieties are rising at a time when the number of energy jobs cut globally have climbed well above 100,000 as once-bustling oil hubs in Scotland, Australia and Brazil, among other countries, empty out, according to Swift Worldwide Resources, a staffing firm with offices across the world.

“It’s shocking,” Zappa, 29, said in a telephone interview. There is “so much pressure for him to keep his job and even work extra.” Her concerns mirror those of tens of thousands of workers who migrated to oil and gas boomtowns worldwide in the years of $100-a-barrel crude, according to Tobias Read, Swift’s chief executive officer. While much of the focus on layoffs has centered on the U.S., where the shale fields that created the glut have seen the steepest cutbacks, workers in oil-related businesses across the globe are suffering, he said. “The issue is one of uncertainty, of whether there’s a job out there,” Read said in a phone interview. “For seven years, there was a shortage of staff. Now for the first time, there’s a surplus. Currently almost no one is hiring.”

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“The idea is that the stock market is a pretty good indicator of economic demand.” Really? Nothing to do with QE?

Goldman: Why Oil Crashed—and Why Lower Prices Are Here to Stay (Bloomberg)

Oil prices have gotten crushed for the last six months. The extent to which that was caused by an excess of supply or by a slowdown in demand has big implications for where prices will head next. People wishing for a big rebound may not want to read farther. Goldman Sachs released an intriguing analysis on Wednesday that shows what many already suspected: The big culprit in the oil crash has been an abundance of oil flooding the market. A massive supply shock in the second half of last year accounted for most of the decline. In December and January, slowing demand contributed to the continued sell-off. Goldman was able to quantify these effects.

Goldman’s model is simple on its face, looking at just two variables over time: the price of oil and the value of U.S. stocks (as measured by the S&P 500). The idea is that the stock market is a pretty good indicator of economic demand. So when stocks move in tandem with oil prices, demand is in the driver’s seat. When the price of oil moves in the opposite direction of stocks, the shock is coming from supply.

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“The message is clear that Warren’s attacks on the industry have made even moderate Democrats skittish to stand up for banks..”

Have Banks Overplayed Their Hand Fighting Wall Street Regulation? (Bloomberg)

The financial industry is finding that winning in Washington comes at a cost. Wall Street lobbied aggressively and succeeded late last year in persuading lawmakers to roll back rules for the $700 trillion derivatives market. Instead of generating momentum for further changes to the Dodd-Frank Act, the victory sparked a populist uprising among Democrats that’s had wide-ranging consequences, including stymieing less controversial requests from regional banks like Capital One Financial Corp. “A short while ago there was bipartisan agreement on a number of common sense improvements,” said Rob Nichols, president of the Financial Services Forum that represents the chief executives of Wall Street’s biggest banks. “Unfortunately, that bipartisan agreement is gone.”

Financial companies and their employees spent $169 million on the November elections and had expectations that their bid to loosen regulations would get easier with Republicans in control of both the House and Senate. Now, there is second-guessing that banks overplayed their hand, according to lobbyists. The December win on swaps rules has become a rallying cry for Senator Elizabeth Warren, a frequent critic of Wall Street, and spurred repeated White House vows to defend Dodd-Frank. The fallout has frustrated banks, which hope it’s temporary. Democrats who previously said they wanted to revise the law now won’t even discuss it. Republicans are altering their strategy for attacking Dodd-Frank. And lobbyists have been hindered in their efforts to persuade Senate Democrats to champion changes to financial rules.

A sign of the political headwinds has been regional banks’ difficulty winning bipartisan support for a bill that would free them from stringent oversight imposed on lenders with at least $50 billion of assets. Capital One considers getting the threshold increased a top legislative goal this year, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The company’s inability to persuade Democrats to lead the charge in the Senate, particularly home state Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, has reverberated through the ranks of financial lobbyists, according to two people involved in the talks. The message is clear that Warren’s attacks on the industry have made even moderate Democrats skittish to stand up for banks, the people said. Capital One’s discussions with Warner aren’t unique, said company spokeswoman Tatiana Stead. “We have had identical and multiple discussions with his Senate colleagues and other elected officials,” she said.

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“..this whole chorus of Fed governors – yesterday’s lineup included Richard Fisher and Charles Plossner – defending the sacred “independence” of the Federal Reserve is downright Kafkaesque.”

Audit The Fed – And Shackle It, Too (David Stockman)

The reason to be fearful about the economic and financial future is that we are in the thrall of a mainstream consensus that is downright meretricious. In attacking Rand Paul’s audit legislation, for instance, one of the time-servers on the Fed Board of Governors, Jerome H. Powell, let loose the following gem: “As recent U.S. history has shown, elected officials have often pushed for easier policies that serve short-term political interests…..” Perhaps Mr. Powell is a descendent of Rip Van Winkle – and missed the last 20 years of history while doing LBOs at the Carlyle Group and helping Congress improve upon its enviable record of fiscal management while at the Bipartisan Policy Center. But whatever he was doing—snoozing or otherwise distracted – it most assuredly was not gathering evidence that “elected officials” were putting undue pressure on the Fed for “easier policies”.

For crying out loud there is exactly zero evidence that “politicians” had anything to do with zero interest rates. And ZIRP defines the ultimate level of “ease” according to Bernanke himself, who famously described his policies as positioned at the “zero bound”. Indeed, given the very earliest expected date for “lift-off” in June, the Fed will have pinned the money market rate at zero for 80 months running. This unprecedented tsunami of “easy money”, of course, happened with nary a Congressman or Senator darkening the door at the Eccles Building. Folks, this whole chorus of Fed governors – yesterday’s lineup included Richard Fisher and Charles Plossner – defending the sacred “independence” of the Federal Reserve is downright Kafkaesque.

Rather than protecting the Fed from meddling politicians, it is the American public that desperately needs protection from the depredations of an unelected monetary politburo that runs the entire financial system. Let’s say you have saved a quarter million bucks over a lifetime of working and scrimping, but wish to keep it safe and liquid in your retirement years. Well thank you “independent” governors of the Fed for the privilege of owning a bank CD that generates 40 bps or the grand sum $2.75 per day. That’s one visit to Starbucks each morning, but forget the cappuccino. It’s just black coffee for you!

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When will this bomb burst?

‘No Solution To Brazil’s Crisis’ (CNBC)

Brazil’s central bank won’t be able to save the country with monetary policy, economists warned, after downgrading their 2015 growth outlook to zero as stagflation drags the once vibrant economy. “There is no near-term solution to deepening stagflation,” said Dev Ashish, Latin America economist at Societe Generale in a note on Wednesday. “Fiscal and monetary orthodoxy is not expected to yield any fruit in the near to medium term.” Annual inflation shot up to a twelve-year high of 7.1% in January, according to official data on Friday, well above the central bank’s 4.5% target range. With inflation widely expected to remain elevated, analysts in Brazil revised their 2015 gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast to zero, according to a central bank survey this week.

South America’s largest nation is estimated to have grown less than 1% last year. Brazil’s central bank – the Banco Central do Brasil (BCP) – engaged in an aggressive tightening cycle last year to combat inflation. It pushed the benchmark short-term interest rate, the Selic, to its current multi-year high of 12.25%. Markets widely expect more rate hikes in the coming months. Analysts don’t have faith in the central bank’s toolbox. Rate hikes dampen economic growth, so the success of additional monetary tightening depends on how effectively the government manages its finances, but that depends on economic growth, SocGen said. The bank expects public debt to rise nearly 70% over the next two years on the back of weak GDP.

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Panic.

Sweden’s Riksbank Cuts Key Rate to Negative (Bloomberg)

Sweden’s central bank cut its main interest rate below zero and unexpectedly unveiled plans to start buying government bonds to jolt the largest Nordic economy out of a deflationary spiral. The Riksbank lowered its repo rate to minus 0.10% from zero. A cut had been predicted by six of the 18 economists surveyed by Bloomberg, while the remainder forecast no change. Policy will “soon” be made “more expansionary” by buying 10 billion kronor ($1.2 billion) in government bonds with maturities of one to five years, the Stockholm-based bank said. It pledged to keep the repo rate negative until underlying inflation is close to 2%, which the bank predicts will happen in the second half of 2016. Policy makers will take further steps if necessary, the bank said.

“To ensure that inflation rises toward the target, the Riksbank is prepared to quickly make monetary policy more expansionary, even between the ordinary monetary policy meetings, should the need arise,” it said. Policy makers are delving deeper into their toolbox, joining the European Central Bank in unleashing unconventional measures as deflation risks becoming entrenched. The bank, led by Governor Stefan Ingves, last year reversed course and scrapped a policy of keeping rates up to guard against a build-up in household debt. The reluctance to ease in the face of slowing inflation and high unemployment was characterized as “sadomonetarist” by Nobel laureate Paul Krugman.

The krona slumped as much as 2.1%, and was down 1.4% at 9.62 per euro as of 10:33 a.m. in Stockholm. The yield on Sweden’s benchmark five-year note fell 10 basis points to 0.8%. Two-year yields slid to minus 0.24%. “We didn’t expect the Riksbank to buy government bonds as early as now, but rather that they would wait and see if this would be needed,” said Olle Holmgren, an analyst at SEB. “They are also maybe even clearer in signaling willingness to do even more if needed. This is softer than we thought.”

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Europe’s biggest disgrace is still not being tackled.

Mediterranean Sinking ‘Kills 300 Migrants Bound For Europe (BBC)

At least 300 migrants are feared dead after the boats carrying them from the North African coast sank in the Mediterranean Sea, the UN says. UNHCR regional director Vincent Cochetel called the incident a “tragedy on an enormous scale”. Nine survivors who were brought to Lampedusa by the Italian coast guard are believed to be from West Africa. Initial reports on Monday suggested that at least 29 migrants had died after their dinghy overturned. The UNHCR said the migrants had departed from Libya on Saturday in four dinghies. Mr Cochetel said, “Europe cannot afford to do too little too late”, and called the tragedy, “a stark reminder that more lives could be lost if those seeking safety are left at the mercy of the sea.” In November, Italy ended a year-long operation aimed at rescuing seaborne migrants.

Known as Mare Nostrum, it was launched in October 2013 in response to a tragedy off Lampedusa in which 366 people died. The aim of the mission was to look for ships carrying migrants that may have run into trouble off the Libyan coast. There is no way of knowing for sure whether these men, women, and children would have been saved if the former Italian search-and-rescue operation known as Mare Nostrum was still running. But having spent a week on board an Italian navy frigate, I can be sure they would have done their utmost to save as many lives as possible. The EU’s Triton border patrol is not designed to do that. It cannot pre-empt trouble in international waters – it can only act when lives are immediately at risk. The Italian operation was set up differently. The naval crews knew they had one single purpose – to prevent death.

Some time back, EU leaders pledged that not a single life would again be lost as a result of these large scale tragedies at sea. The EU now runs a border control operation, called Triton, with fewer ships and a much smaller area of operations. The UNHCR says almost 3,500 people died attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe in 2014, making it the world’s most dangerous sea crossing for migrants. More than 200,000 people were rescued in the Mediterranean during the same period, many under the Mare Nostrum mission prior to its abolition, and the UNHCR expects the figure to remain high in 2015. In a speech before the European Parliament in November, Pope Francis called for a “united response to the question of migration”, warning that the Mediterranean could not be allowed to become a “vast cemetery”.

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“In another development, US President Barack Obama has said he will withdraw nearly all US troops helping to combat the disease in Liberia.”

New Ebola Cases Rise For Second Week In A Row (BBC)

The number of new cases of Ebola has risen in all of West Africa’s worst-hit countries for the second week in a row, the World Health Organization (WHO) says. This is the second weekly increase in confirmed cases in 2015, ending a series of encouraging declines. The WHO said on Wednesday that Sierra Leone had registered 76 of the 144 new cases, Guinea 65 and Liberia three. More than 9,000 people have died from Ebola since December 2013. The WHO said that the increase highlights the “considerable challenges” that must still be overcome to end the outbreak. “Despite improvements in case finding and management, burial practices, and community engagement, the decline in case incidence has stalled,” the UN health agency said in a statement. In another development, US President Barack Obama has said he will withdraw nearly all US troops helping to combat the disease in Liberia.

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“No other country has had such a high rate and number of mammal extinctions over this period, and the number we report for Australia is substantially higher than previous estimates..”

Australia On Brink Of ‘Extinction Calamity’ (BBC)

Australia has lost one in ten of its native mammals species over the last 200 years in what conservationists describe as an “extinction calamity”. No other nation has had such a high rate of loss of land mammals over this time period, according to scientists at Charles Darwin University, Australia. The decline is mainly due to predation by the feral cat and the red fox, which were introduced from Europe, they say. Large scale fires to manage land are also having an impact. As an affluent nation with a small population, Australia’s wildlife should be relatively secure from threats such as habitat loss. But a new survey of Australia’s native mammals, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests the scale of the problem is more serious than anticipated.

Since 1788, 11% of 273 native mammals living on land have died out, 21% are threatened and 15% are near threatened, the study found. Marine mammals are faring better. “No other country has had such a high rate and number of mammal extinctions over this period, and the number we report for Australia is substantially higher than previous estimates,” said conservation biologist John Woinarski, who led the research. “A further 56 Australian land mammals are now threatened, indicating that this extremely high rate of biodiversity loss is likely to continue unless substantial changes are made. “The extent of the problem has been largely unappreciated until recently because much of the loss involves small, nocturnal, shy species with [little] public profile – few Australians know of these species, let alone have seen them, so their loss has been largely unappreciated by the community.”

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