το 4ο Ράιχ αντιμετωπίζει πρόβλημα

Not With A Bang, But A 28% Annualized Decline: Charting The End Of The German Manufacturing Miracle

Slowly, but surely, the global economic growth dynamo is growing ever dimmer and dimmer. Two days ago we reported that that relentless driver of global growth - exports - finally succumbed to reality, as slowly but surely the paradigm of everyone exporting to someone else with magically nobody importing, logically collapsed. This is now followed by German manufacturing, that traditional and only source of strength in Europe, which half an hour ago was reported to drop 4.3%, compared to an expectation of a 0.1% gain. In other words, as the chart below shows German factory orders have just suffered their worst three, post-Reunification months outside of the late crash itself, falling at a 28% annualized rate, to take the total back to where it first stood over five years ago. Reaction is swift: Italian and Spanish bonds immediately drop, with the yield returning to 6.23% and 5.52%, forcing the ECB's monetization actions to have to fight not only "speculators" but also reality.

ξυπνήσανε στην Ιταλία

δεν έχω ακόμα αποφασίσει

Αν ο στόχος του είναι να σώσει την Ελλάδα έχει αποτύχει παταγωδώς. Αντίθετα όλες οι αποφάσεις, όλες οι κινήσεις που έχει κάνει μέχρι στιγμής είχαν σαν αποτέλεσμα να βυθίσουν ακόμα περισσότερο στην κρίση την έρημη ετούτη χώρα.

Αν ο στόχος του είναι να διαλύσει την ΕΕ τα καταφέρνει περίφημα. Και ταυτόχρονα εξηγεί όλες τις μέχρι τώρα αποφάσεις του και κινήσεις του. Είναι ο άνθρωπος που έφερε το ΔΝΤ στην Ευρώπη και που διαπραγματευόταν μαζί του πριν καν πάρει την εξουσία, ενώ μας γέμιζε με φούμαρα για λεφτά που υπάρχουν. Είναι ο άνθρωπος που κάνει τα πάντα για να συντηρήσει και να επιτείνει την αβεβαιότητα βυθίζοντας τα χρηματιστήρια σε ολόκληρο τον κόσμο.

Δεν μπορώ να καταλήξω αν είναι επικίνδυνα βλάκας ή επικίνδυνα ικανός.

a good idea

November 01, 2011

An Ideal Target

Occupy the European Central Bank

by DEAN BAKER

In the last month, people from around the country and around the world have picked up on the Occupy Wall Street theme of retaking the country from the wealthy. Insofar as this sentiment gathers force in Europe, there is probably no place better for people to plant themselves than on the steps of the European Central Bank (ECB).

More than any other institution the ECB is responsible for the economic wreckage that has overtaken the European economy. In the years when housing bubbles were building across the much of the eurozone and the United States, the ECB looked the other way. Its position at the time was that these bubbles and the huge imbalances they created were not its concern. Its concern was keeping the inflation rate at 2.0 percent.

This single-minded obsession with the inflation rate at a time when the economies of the eurozone and the world were on the edge of disaster is akin to Kodak insisting that its business line was photographic film at a time when digital photography was exploding. Competent business people adjust their business plans when the world changes. In the same vein, competent central bankers reorder their priorities when the economic situation requires changes.

But the ECB ignored the housing bubbles and the economy came crashing down around them. This may have been due to incompetence or it may have something to do with the fact that many of their friends in the banking industry were making lots of money financing the bubbles. Either way the consequences for the European people are the same.

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that's the way

the abyss

October 31, 2011

Draghi at the Central Bank

Is Goldman Sachs Poised to Takeover Europe?

by MIKE WHITNEY

Goldman Sachs is about to take over Europe, but you wouldn’t know it by reading the papers.

On Tuesday, G-Sax alum, Mario Draghi, will take the helm at the European Central Bank replacing retiring ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet. The appointment has slipped by the media virtually unnoticed even though the ECB is the most powerful institution in the EU and is likely to play a critical role in solving the debt crisis.

Draghi was formally a Managing Director at Goldman. He also served as an advisor to the Bank of Italy in 1990, chairman of the Italian Committee for Privatisations, and was an Executive Director of The World Bank from 1984 to 1990. His bio. affirms his globalist pedigree which makes him the perfect candidate to replace the curmudgeonly Trichet who failed to comply with all of Big Finance’s demands. That’s not likely to be the case with Draghi.

The new ECB chief faces the difficult task of trying to pacify Germany while implementing policies that are opposed by the German political class as well as the German people. It won’t be easy, even for a skilled diplomat like Draghi. But Draghi will move forward with his bank-centric agenda, because it may be the last chance to keep the 17-member monetary union from disintegrating.

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the art of falling apart

Europe’s Economy is Falling Apart

Yves here. Note the comment at the end, that Sarkozy’s sales pitch to China on the levered up EFSF did not go so well. If the Chinese don’t relent, this greatly reduces of this scheme working, even in the short term. And further note that the flagging European growth is the result of the austerity hairshirt being imposed on highly indebted economies. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has a pointed article on the consequences of the beggar-thy-neighbor German stance.

By Delusional Economics, who is horrified at the state of economic commentary in Australia and is determined to cleanse the daily flow of vested interests propaganda to produce a balanced counterpoint. Cross posted from MacroBusiness

Angela Merkel has been warning for quite some time that Europe’s economic woes will take up to a decade to fix and that it is time for Europe to rethink its economic strategy after years of living “beyond its means”. It seems fairly obvious from those statements that the rest of the world is going to have to get use to Europe moving into a slow growth phase while it attempts to adjust away from what it considers to be unsustainable debt.

In an attempt support the transition while keeping Europe together the European leaders have put together 3 part package to save Greece, re-capitalise the banks and provide a stability mechanism for countries that run into trouble. The problem is that once you understand the technicalities behind what they have come up with you come to realise that real economic growth is the only thing that actually matters. The latest news out of Europe for many of the 17 member nations is not good at all in that regard.

Read the Rest...

brilliant

It's 'How' You Lose by Doc Tv on Mixcloud

fiasco 2.0

MIKE WHITNEY
The Never-Ending Eurofiasco

Imagine if the local fire chief, in the spirit of conservation, decided he’d use no more than 1,000 gallons of water to put out any given house fire. Do you think the citizens would support that policy if their town was burned to the ground? And, yet, this is the same approach that eurozone leaders are using to address the debt crisis. The central bank (ECB) has virtually limitless resources (Think: printing press) to defend the debt of the individual states and to act as lender of last resort, but the eurocrats won’t hear of it. They refuse to use the ECB as every other central bank in the world is used. They’d rather reinvent the wheel by creating a funky, improvised emergency fund (European Financial Stabilization Facility or EFSF) that’s massively leveraged and which only provides a 20 percent “first-loss” guarantee on sovereign bonds. So, for example, if Italy goes belly-up in the next year or so and can’t repay its debts, then Mr. bondholder gets a whopping 20 cents on the dollar. Such a deal!

Can you see how ridiculous this is?

see

PHOTO BOOTH

The Prague Spring, on view in Moscow.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/#ixzz1cG4pONtx

δες και άκου

χωρίς λόγια

Οι σκέψεις ενός Ιρλανδού

Every now and then a terrible thought enters my mind. It runs like this: what if the theatre of the Eurocrisis is really and truly a political power-game being cynically played by politicians from the core while the periphery burns?

Yes, of course, we can engage in polemic and say that such is the case. But in doing so we are trying to stoke emotion and generally allowing our rhetorical flourish to carry the argument. At least, that is what I thought. I had heard this rhetoric; I had engaged in it to some extent myself; but I had never really believed it. Only once or twice, in my nightmares, I had thought that, maybe, just maybe, it might have some truth.

And then the Financial Times published this ‘strictly confidential’ document leaked to them from within the Eurostructure. That is when my nightmare started becoming increasingly real.

[...]

Hence, my nightmare becomes ever more real. What this report suggests is that the Eurocrats know well what they are doing. They are imposing destructive austerity measures – and, let us be frank, pointless asset-stripping drives – on the periphery knowing full well what effect these are going to have.

So, why are they doing this? Well, in light of current evidence we should raise the unpleasant question: is there not the chance that this is really a cynical power-grab? The elites in the core countries have found their political status boosted immeasurably by the present crisis. They will moan that this crisis is awful, of course, but secretly they must know that it is upping their political profile immeasurably and putting them in important decision-making positions.

And so, what if we are moving into a situation where the Eurocrats establish an iron-grip on the periphery through financing arrangements that essentially allow them full control over the imposition of highly destructive economic policies?

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read

By Marshall Auerback, a portfolio strategist and hedge fund manager, and Rob Parenteau, CFA, sole proprietor of MacroStrategy Edge and a research associate of The Levy Economics Institute

Historically, Greeks have been very good at constructing myths. The rest of the world? Not so great, if the current burst of commentary on the country is anything to go by. Reading the press, one gets the impression of a bunch of lazy Mediterranean scroungers, enjoying one of the highest standards of living in Europe while making the frugal Germans pick up the tab. This is a nonsensical propaganda. As if Greece is the only country ever to cook its books in the European Union! Rather, the heart of the problem is in the antiquated revenue system that supports that state, which results in a budget shortfall consistently about 10% of GDP. The top 20% of the income distribution in Greece pay virtually no taxes at all, the product of a corrupt bargain reached during the days of the junta between the military and Greece’s wealthiest plutocrats. No wonder there is a fiscal crisis!

So it’s not a problem of Greek profligates, or an overly generous welfare state, both of which suggest that the standard IMF style remedies being proposed here are bound to fail, as they are doing right now. In fact, given the non-stop austerity being imposed on Athens (which simply has the effect of deflating the economy further and thereby reducing the ability of the Greeks to hit the fiscal targets imposed on them), the Greeks really are getting close to the point where they may well default and shift the problem back to those imposing the austerity.

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the bitter truth

October 23, 2011

The Hole in Europe’s Bucket

By PAUL KRUGMAN

If it weren’t so tragic, the current European crisis would be funny, in a gallows-humor sort of way. For as one rescue plan after another falls flat, Europe’s Very Serious People — who are, if such a thing is possible, even more pompous and self-regarding than their American counterparts — just keep looking more and more ridiculous.

[...]

What does this have to do with Europe? Well, at this point, Greece, where the crisis began, is no more than a grim sideshow. The clear and present danger comes instead from a sort of bank run on Italy, the euro area’s third-largest economy. Investors, fearing a possible default, are demanding high interest rates on Italian debt. And these high interest rates, by raising the burden of debt service, make default more likely.

It’s a vicious circle, with fears of default threatening to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. To save the euro, this threat must be contained. But how? The answer has to involve creating a fund that can, if necessary, lend Italy (and Spain, which is also under threat) enough money that it doesn’t need to borrow at those high rates. Such a fund probably wouldn’t have to be used, since its mere existence should put an end to the cycle of fear. But the potential for really large-scale lending, certainly more than a trillion euros’ worth, has to be there.

And here’s the problem: All the various proposals for creating such a fund ultimately require backing from major European governments, whose promises to investors must be credible for the plan to work. Yet Italy is one of those major governments; it can’t achieve a rescue by lending money to itself. And France, the euro area’s second-biggest economy, has been looking shaky lately, raising fears that creation of a large rescue fund, by in effect adding to French debt, could simply have the effect of adding France to the list of crisis countries. There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza.

[...]

The bitter truth is that it’s looking more and more as if the euro system is doomed. And the even more bitter truth is that given the way that system has been performing, Europe might be better off if it collapses sooner rather than later.

Δημήτρης Γαλάνης, Τοπία 6, Toy Cafe

Τοπία και μνήμες σε συγκρατημένες αποχρώσεις.

Για λίγο καιρό ακόμα στο πιο γλυκό cafe της πόλης.

Toy Cafe,

Καρύτση 10

Ανεπανάληπτη Τάνια Τσανακλίδου

Από Παρασκευή 14 Οκτωβρίου στον Ζυγό στην Πλάκα η μοναδική Τάνια Τσανακλίδου

Μαζί της η Ελένη Κοκκίδου & ο Κώστας Θωμαϊδης

Κείμενα / σκηνοθετική επιμέλεια Νίκος Σούλης

Κάθε Παρασκευή και Σάββατο στις 10.30 μμ

ΖΥΓΟΣ Κυδαθυναίων 22 – Πλάκα
210-3241610

divine

What I Played @ ESL by Dc Kostas on Mixcloud

εικόνες από μια κολασμένη ημέρα

δημιουργούν μια έρημο και την αποκαλούν σταθερότητα

SUSAN GEORGE
A Coup in the European Union?

By a close vote on 28 September 2011, the European Parliament passed the Commission’s plan—a far-reaching takeover of individual countries’ capacity to set their own budgets and to manage their own sovereign debts. From now on, the Parliament and the Council (with the Commission naturally overseeing the process) will be able to force governments to comply with the Maastricht Treaty recommendations—otherwise known as the “Stability and Growth Pact”–to which member States had recently paid precious little attention. After 2005 this Pact seemed almost a quaint relic. But now, thanks to the six-pack, no deficits greater than 3% and no national debts above 60% of GDP will be countenanced. What these people need is stern discipline, make no mistake.

Starting in 2012, Euro-parliamentarians and the Council will dissect national budgets before national parliaments have any say at all or even a chance to look at them. If countries do not reduce their debts fast enough or refuse the budgetary “suggestions” from Brussels, enforcement measures will kick in. In case of further recalcitrance on the part of member States, punishment can mean either depositing or forfeiting .01, .02 or even .05% of the country’s GDP to the EU, depending on how severe the country’s non-compliance is judged. In the case of, say, France, with a GDP of about €1.900 billion ($2.600 billion) the Commission could demand a deposit or a fine of some €20 to €40 billion or even €100 billion if the Commission were to escalate the sanctions to .05% of GDP.