Europe

Deutsche Bank’s Opaque Loans From Brazil to Italy Hide Risk

"Deutsche Bank AG (DBK), perennially among the top three in global credit markets, made billions of dollars of loans to banks worldwide since 2008 and accounted for them in a way that obscured their continuing risk to investors. Germany’s largest bank managed to lend to firms from Brazil to Italy while making the transactions disappear from its balance sheet, even though it still is owed the money, according to four people with knowledge of the practice and internal documents provided to Bloomberg News. In the no-balance-sheet transactions, Deutsche Bank received the collateral, sold it and used the cash to make the loan." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDeutsche Bank’s Opaque Loans From Brazil to Italy Hide Risk

The wheels are coming off the whole of southern Europe

"A leaked report from the European Commission confirms that Greece will miss its austerity targets yet again by a wide margin. Italy’s slow crisis is again flaring up. Its debt trajectory has punched through the danger line over the past two years. Spain’s crisis has a new twist. The ruling Partido Popular is caught in a slush-fund scandal of such gravity that it cannot plausibly brazen out the allegations any longer, let alone rally the nation behind another year of scorched-earth cuts. Portugal is slipping away. Professor João Ferreira do Amaral’s book -Why We Should Leave The Euro – has been a bestseller for months." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe wheels are coming off the whole of southern Europe

Italy’s Credit Rating Cut to BBB by S&P; Outlook Stays Negative

"The outlook on the rating, reduced from BBB+, remains negative, the New York-based ratings company said in a statement late yesterday. S&P analysts said that, even with unprecedented easing by the European Central Bank, real interest rates for non-financial companies in Italy exceed the level before the financial crisis. Austerity measures, while enabling Italy to reduce its deficit to within European Union limits, deepened the nation’s slump. With the economy headed for its eighth quarter of contraction and joblessness at its highest since at least 1977, Prime Minister Enrico Letta in the last two months postponed a sales-tax increase and suspended a property tax payment." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingItaly’s Credit Rating Cut to BBB by S&P; Outlook Stays Negative

Portugal Throws Open Europe’s Them-And-Us Austerity Divide

"Half way through his four-year term, Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho is trying to curb popular resentment over what opponents say is a widening gulf between private employees and about 600,000 public workers who have mostly stayed immune to mass job cuts. What’s bothering the Portuguese isn’t just that austerity helped prolong a recession and sent unemployment to a record 18 percent, it’s also that the government used taxation more than those in Greece and Ireland to try to narrow the budget deficit. Some workers on the state payrolls are perceived to have escaped the deterioration in living standards being felt by others." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPortugal Throws Open Europe’s Them-And-Us Austerity Divide

Euro Zone Grants Multibillion Euro Lifeline for Greece

"Greece secured a 6.8 billion euro ($8.7 billion) lifeline from the euro zone but was told it must keep its promises on cutting public sector jobs and other reforms in order to get all the cash, officials said Monday. The deal, which spares Greece defaulting on debt that falls due in August, will see Athens drip-fed support under close watch from its international creditors to drive through unpopular reforms. Central banks in the Eurosystem will contribute 1.5 billion euros in July and 500 million euros in October, the officials said. The International Monetary Fund will give 1.8 billion euros in August." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingEuro Zone Grants Multibillion Euro Lifeline for Greece

House votes to uphold increased spending on ‘unneeded and unwanted’ nuclear bombs

"The DOE requested about $537 million for the B61 Life Extension Programs, but the GOP-led House Appropriations Committee provided $23.7 million more than the department asked for. In a report, the committee explained the nuclear program had its funding boosted because it had a 'troubling history of insufficiently planning for its ongoing production requirements.' Polis noted that the Air Force had recently doubted the effectiveness of the B61 nuclear bomb. A former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the bomb was virtually useless, Polis explained. In addition, some European allies no longer wanted the bomb deployed in their country." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingHouse votes to uphold increased spending on ‘unneeded and unwanted’ nuclear bombs

UK ministers to seize back 100 powers from Brussels

"In the first part of efforts to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the European Union, ministers will announce plans to claw back the powers. Theresa May, the Home Secretary, will give MPs details of proposals to opt out of 133 EU measures covering justice, home affairs and the police by next spring. Some of the measures that are seen to be in the national interest will then be opted back into, in a complex process, but 'more than two thirds' will disappear permanently from British law. The move follows last week’s unanimous Commons vote in favour of moves to hold an 'in-out' referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU by 2017." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingUK ministers to seize back 100 powers from Brussels

British UKIP Convulsion Significant Threat to Tories

"One can make a case that both UKIP and the US Tea Party movement are the 'managed opposition,' at this point any way. But at the same time, their emergence obviously indicates that there is a larger social movement that has taken shape. If one feels the need to 'manage' something – as those at the top of society evidently and obviously do – it is because there is something that has emerged to begin with. And that something is obviously a deep dissatisfaction with many of the building blocks of modern society, from its military-industrial complex to its central banking economy and the regulatory democracy that flows out of vast government spending." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBritish UKIP Convulsion Significant Threat to Tories

Pepe Escobar: Towards a Snowden endgame

"The US Ambassador in Austria, William Eacho, was responsible for spreading the (false) information about Snowden being on board Bolivia President Evo Morales' Falcon - leading to the denial of overflying rights in France, Spain, Portugal an Italy. Eacho - a former CEO of a food distribution company with no diplomatic experience whatsoever - was appointed by Obama in June 2009. Why? Because he was a top Obama fundraiser. Eacho did little to disprove those who sustain that the NSA really needs to 'analyze' every phone call, email and tweet on the planet - otherwise they could never obtain such pearls of intelligence as pinpointing Snowden on Evo's plane." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPepe Escobar: Towards a Snowden endgame

Mad Latvia defies its own people to join the euro

"EU finance ministers have just given the go-ahead for Latvia to join the euro in January 2014. No matter that the latest SKDS poll shows that only 22pc of Latvians support this foolish step, and 53pc are opposed. This is a very odd situation. The elites are pushing ahead with a decision of profound implications, knowing that the nation is not behind them. No country has ever done this before. The concerns of the Latvian people are entirely understandable. Neighbouring Estonia found itself having to bail out Club Med states with a per capita income two and a half times as high after it joined EMU. Latvia may find itself embroiled in an even bigger debacle." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMad Latvia defies its own people to join the euro