Showing posts with label politica. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politica. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Euro Zone QE will be the last nail in the coffin for the Euro, the single currency will fail. The moment the ECB pulls the QE trigger they will find themselves in a difficult position. The ECB will struggle to unleash the amount of QE required to drag the Euro Zone out of the economic mire and at the same time QE will silently destroy huge amounts of productive capacity.
The net outcome will have a huge impact on the UK economy. We will import deflation, we will be infected by the Euro Zone disaster. Ramping up the valuations of old houses and importing huge numbers of immigrants is not going to save us.  The time has come for the UK to negotiate a gradual exit from the EU. We do not need to be full members, we only need a customs union and harmonisation of laws. As long as we maintain our place at the Council of Europe we will maintain our legal basis to trade with our European neighbors.  The immediate danger for the UK is an economic stall as a result of Euro Zone QE and the rampant super-USD. Take care , don't take on more debt than is absolutely necessary, look at what has happened to the Japanese economy.... Swapping government bonds for reserves actually *removes* money from the economy because the interest normally paid to bondholders would instead go to the ECB and be returned to the states via the ECB bank dividend.
That's why other asset prices go up. There is less income around in general from assets in the currency.  At best QE relieves pressure to cut spending or raise taxes on the governments, and it is actually simple fiscal policy that increases the level of spending and therefore real activity in the economy.  I think ongoing indicative trends in energy sector , particularly oil and gas seem to be corresponding to predictions made by this writer on 2 June 2014 in article - " Stressful times ahead for world economy in 2015 and 2016" - published online at www.astrologyweekly.com. Briefly speaking, the following were mentioned :
(1). The trends are likely to commence from November 2014 and onwards ;comment(2). The commodities likely to be impacted by the trends include " minerals and metals" and " oil and gas".
(3). Regions or countries which could be possibly be impacted by the likely trends have also been mentioned though this is only artistic interpretation and may not be construed as conclusive.
(4). Readers may like to know that such likely trends are suggestive or indicative and not deterministic. There is always a room for reform and improvement through a still better strategic planning and prudence.
(5) I think a further period of one and a half month covering January to mid February next year 2015 could perhaps be a bit disturbing for, among other things, minerals and metals and oil and gas.

Monday, November 17, 2014

Cold war, this is the new mantra, it is on every lips. It is trendy. Gents you must be scared, they (the West) have run out of idea on how to demonize Russia as it is not working so well anymore, so let's go back to Cold war fears and wake up some old demons.  And with the Republicans back in power in the US, it might as well end up in a hot war....Western countries are at the gates of a new cold war with Russia, sparked by the Ukraine crisis and a continuing failure to grasp the depth and seriousness of Vladimir Putin’s grievances with the US and EU, the Finnish president, Sauli Niinistö, has warned.  Speaking to the Guardian at his official residence before Thursday’s conference in Helsinki attended by the UK prime minister, David Cameron, and Nordic and Baltic state leaders, Niinistö said Finland had a long tradition of trying to maintain friendly relations with Russia. But it would not be pushed around. ... “The Finnish way of dealing with Russia, whatever the situation, is that we will be very decisive to show what we don’t like, where the red line is. And that is what we are prepared to do,” Niinistö said, referring to recent violations of Finnish airspace by Russian military aircraft.  “We put the Hornets [US-made Finnish air force F-18 fighter aircraft] up there and the Hornets were flying alongside the Russian planes … The Russians turned back. If they had not, what would we have done? I would not speculate.”... "Finland, formerly a grand duchy of the Russian empire, declared its independence in 1917 after the Russian revolution. It survived two separate conflicts with the Soviet Union during the second world war. During the cold war Finland followed a policy of “active neutrality” to keep Moscow at bay. The two countries share an 830-mile (1,300km) land border."  No mention of effectively being allied with Nazi Germany.  Although we all know that the Nazis are being rehabilitated as they become re-useful to Europe and its latest Drang nach Osten....Putin is what he is, and Russia is what it is. Unfortunately the EU is what it is as well, and the EU largely caused this by meddling in the Ukraine, forcing it to make a choice when it is a country divided by a national and ethnic faultline. The part in contention was actually part of Russia until about 60 years ago and the population there naturally feel an affinity with Russia because they speak and are ethnically, Russian.  Whether the EU wants a Cold War is a moot point given the economic ties and the danger of further conflict, but lest we forget, this is an organisation comprised of countries that regard defence spending as an overhead and their armed forces as a ceremonial guard for foriegn dignitaries, and flag wavers for third world disaster relief. If there was a new Cold War we would be relying on the hated Americans for military muscle, and where was the EU when Bush wanted to put early warning radar in Poland

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Clearly, the IMF and the World Bank have begun to realize that the system is broken. Unfortunately, no-one seems to have a clue what to do - apart from yet more QE and praying that the Banks will start lending. Have they not realized that the real problem lies in the way money is created in the system? As Positive Money have been arguing very coherently for some years, 97% of the money in the economy is currently created out of thin air when Commercial Banks make loans in the form of interest bearing debts. Even the Bank of England has now come clean on this mind boggling fact. Yes, Mr Cameron, there is a magic money tree. There's one in every Bank in the world. That's how our current money system works.
The interest payments generated by this insane debt-based money system are absolutely crippling the entire world economy. 3% of all GDP is currently being used to pay the interest payments on government debt, and in the 28 EU countries, those unjustifiable interest payments have cost taxpayers a total of over €6.2 trillion since 1996 - 54.8% of all government debt. And that is despite the fact that the banks who lend their "money" to governments don't even have the money they lend. What's even more stupid is that since the Basel regulations say that lending to AAA to AA- rating sovereigns has a risk weighting of zero - they don't even need any capital to make the loans. The result is that commercial banks can have thousands of times more assets than capital.
And 3% of GDP is just what tax payers end up paying to the banking system to cover government debt. Add in the interest payments on all the household and business debt and you can see that the entire system is currently set up to transfer the maximum amount of wealth from the people and businesses that do the work, to the people who control the money creation process - namely, commercial banks.
The overall consquence of this insanity is that there is currently about twice as much debt in the world economy as there is money. In other words, there is simply no way to pay of the debt. Osborne's austerity and more bank generated debt can only make things even worse. The system has to change. One simple option is for Central Banks to impose a modest financial transaction tax on all electronic transactions denominated in their currency - wherever they occur in the world. The revenue generated should be reinjected into the real economy as debt free money, either by simply giving the money to governments debt free, or by making direct payments to citizens in the form of an unconditional basic income.
Within a few years, this mechanism would allow the current mountain of debt to be converted progressively into debt free money that can circulate freely within the economy. Taxing financial transactions would also be a very intelligent alternative to the current totally obsolete tax system. With global financial transactions in 2013 running at at least $10 quadrillion a year, even a tax rate of less than 0.1% would easily allow taxes like VAT, Income Tax, or Corporation tax to be scrapped, providing a massive boost to the real economy. There is really no excuse for the IMF and the World Bank to do nothing.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

A sharp rise in lending to the world’s poorest countries will leave them with crippling debt payments over the next decade, a few years after many had loans written off, a report has warned.
The Jubilee Debt Campaign said as many as two-thirds of the 43 developing countries it analysed could suffer large increases in the share of government income spent on debt payments over the next decade. Coinciding with the World Bank’s annual meeting in Washington, the anti-poverty campaigners accuse the international lender and other public bodies of “leading the lending boom” to poor countries without checking how repaying debts will divert resources from cutting poverty. The report highlights that for 43 poor countries, half of lending is from multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and African Development Bank. Total lending to the group of poor countries has increased by 60% from $11.4bn (£7.1bn) a year in 2009 to $18.5bn in 2013.
“There is a real risk that today’s lending boom is sowing the seeds of a new debt crisis in the developing world, threatening to reverse recent gains in the fight against poverty and inequality,” said Sarah-Jayne Clifton, director of the Jubilee Debt Campaign.
“The shocking thing is that public bodies like the World Bank are leading the lending boom, not just reckless private lenders hunting for returns.”  The campaigners are calling for measures to make lending more responsible and for aid-giving to be shifted away from bodies like the World Bank that give loans towards sources that give it in the form of grants. The analysis uses IMF and World Bank data on developing country debts and projects the cost of payments under the following three scenarios: predictions of continuous high economic growth are realised; estimates of one economic shock over the next decade prove correct; and economic growth is lower than the standard prediction.

Monday, December 2, 2013

Germany's conservatives and left-leaning Social Democrats reached an agreement this week to create the next federal government after weeks of negotiations following the Sept. 22 election. With Chancellor Angela Merkel of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at its helm, the coalition government has agreed to a number of joint policy initiatives that will see the establishment of Germany's first-ever legally mandated minimum wage and generous changes to the country's pension system, including the option of retirement at 63. At the same time, the CDU, its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) are pledging to deliver these gifts without raising taxes.  Christoph Schmidt, the head of the German Council of Economic Experts, which advises the German government, said he doesn't believe the government has the funding for all the gifts being given to voters. "It may be possible to finance the planned extra spending until 2017 without raising taxes or fresh borrowing, but it won't be possible after that," he told the newspaper Die Welt. Schmidt said the plans for allowing retirement at 63 instead of the current 67, along with additional benefits for women who left work to raise children and other pension perks would create lasting additional expenditures. Ultimately, he warned, the money would have to come from either higher individual pension contributions, higher taxes or through a general reduction of pension benefits.
Meanwhile, Clemens Fuest, director of the European Center for Economic Research (ZEW), warned of both the pension changes and the new minimum wage. "The biggest problem is the combination of stricter labor market regulations, the sinking of the retirement age and the introduction of new retirement benefits," he said. "That's going to drive up social security contributions and reduce employment at a time when we actually need more jobs."
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble of Merkel's CDU has defended the proposals, saying everything has been calculated solidly. He told a German public broadcaster there would be €23.06 billion in additional spending between 2014 and 2017 and there is plenty of room for maneuver in the current budget. He said his ministry is already anticipating budget surpluses of €15 billion a year during that period.
The coalition agreement dominates the coverage of German newspapers, where editorialists at many papers criticize the planned new spending, which they believe sends a bad message in times of European austerity. Others praise the new worker protections planned by the future government.
The conservative Die Welt writes: "The coalition contract reflects the spirit of regulation-loving statism. The very policies set in motion by former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder through his reforms of social and labor laws that created the breathing room needed for the economy to flourish and for unemployment to fall are now being systematically dismantled. In the case of the SPD, this is the result of shame over the success of Schröder's Agenda 2010 (which cut worker protection and benefits for the long-term unemployed and also cost the party votes). In the case of the conservatives, it's attributable to 'Merkelism' -- e.g. a chancellor who has transformed her CDU into the first postmodern political party in Europe, one in which the idea that 'anything goes' is now an actual party value."
"The message this sends to the rest of Europe is disastrous. We preach austerity to the debt crisis countries and yet we continue to fatten Germany's already plump social system instead of putting it on a diet. Germany can no longer be considered a role model for Europe." The conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes: "Grand coalitions are by their nature generous. That's one of the reasons they are more popular with people than smaller coalitions. And it doesn't appear that the third grand coalition government in postwar German history will disappoint, either. Because each of the three parties in the new government is showing a big heart for the little man, and each wants to make sure that its handwriting is recognizable on the coalition contract. The result is a cornucopia of good deeds courtesy of the social system that are now to be distributed across the country. Be it a national minimum wage (the first in Germany), pension increases for women who have raised children or dual citizenship for children of immigrants born in the country, there is something in here for everyone. And the parties want the wealthy to be grateful that the government won't be resorting to tax increases to pay for it -- at least not in the beginning. Still, many Germans will eventually learn the hidden costs of this blessing -- namely the next generation. But none of the three party leaders is going to allow that to overshadow this very generous alliance."
The leftist Die Tageszeitung writes: "Some are saying that this grand coalition has no vision, but that's not true. The coalition contract isn't just the sum of individual interests that somehow had to be brought in sync. There is a threat that runs through it. The spirit of the contract is the cautious re-establishment of corporatism at the federal level. It is no coincidence that the unions are backing this coalition in a way that they didn't the last time there was a grand coalition in 2005."
"Among the positive aspects are improved conditions for the working poor. Starting in 2017, the country will have a minimum wage of €8.50. Precarious jobs will also be better regulated. Some things are still murky, but the direction is clear: Those with jobs will no longer be able to be exploited the same way they were. It also an open question whether a left-leaning government could have achieved more in terms of labor policy against strong resistance from industry. That's why it is both probable and logical that the SPD party members will vote yes on this coalition agreement."
The left-leaning Berliner Zeitung writes:
"When two wish lists are added together to become a coalition agreement, it comes with a high price. What weighs more heavily than the money, however, is that this coalition will not push through forward-looking structural reforms. Nor is it clear how it will effectively address the problem of demographic change. We have the oldest population in Europe. The problems that creates aren't just restricted to areas like long-term care, health care provisions and family policies. It also has consequences for the ability to innovate, training and families. What are we going to do?"
"Merkel has said that this grand coalition will be one to address big challenges, but it is really just a government that unites two large political parties. Neither the SPD nor the conservatives will have to pay the price - instead it will be the country that does so in the long run. We shouldn't expect much from it. … It is the coalition of a country that lives in prosperity. The rich will stay rich, the poor will be a bit better off. But there will be no real redistribution of wealth or structural reforms." The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes: "The coalition package contains enough packing material so that the sensitivities of this and that for the coalition partners can be protected. But that's also the case with most coalition agreements. Still, if you remove the packing material, some remarkable things are left over: Minimum wage, dual citizenship, pension increases, road tolls. There's a lot for the SPD and for the CDU. The surprise factor in all this is low, given that these points have been at the core of talks for weeks now. One still cannot disregard the fact that a minimum wage, dual citizenship and pension promises are systematically important things -- projects with social pacification force."

Saturday, November 23, 2013

The UK and US must do more to protect internet users' privacy, the inventor of the world wide web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has warned as a new survey of online freedoms is released.
Berners-Lee warned that "a growing tide of surveillance and censorship" posed a threat to the future of democracy, even as more and more people were using the internet to expose wrongdoing.
His remarks came before the second annual release of a global league table that classifies countries according to a set of freedoms. Since last year, the US has dropped from second place to fourth, while the UK has remained in third place. Sweden still tops the list, though Norway now takes second place. All of the Scandinavian countries – Sweden, Denmark and Norway – feature in the top 10.
The UK was poorly placed on privacy rights but was lifted by its high scores for availability of relevant content and the internet's political impact.
The table is compiled by comparing 81 countries, combining measures such as the extent of access to the internet, how much censorship is employed, and how "empowered" people are by its availability. The list has been expanded from the 61 countries surveyed last year.
Last year Berners-Lee introduced the inaugural index by pointing out that there was no off switch for the internet – a fact that was proving uncomfortable for a number of governments that had tried to shut down radical dissent in the previous 12 months through the Arab spring.
But this year his remarks focused more on the threat of surveillance, which has been highlighted by the Guardian's revelations about the extent of online spying and subversion of internet protocols by the US's National Security Agency and the UK's GCHQ.
The survey found that 76 of the 81 countries examined did not meet "best practice" standards for checks and balances on government interception of electronic communications.
Speaking before an event to launch the updated version of the index, the 58-year-old British computer scientist said: "One of the most encouraging findings of this year's Web Index is how the web and social media are increasingly spurring people to organise, take action and try to expose wrongdoing in every region of the world.
"But some governments are threatened by this, and a growing tide of surveillance and censorship now threatens the future of democracy.
"Bold steps are needed now to protect our fundamental rights to privacy and freedom of opinion and association online."
The survey also found that almost a third of countries surveyed block politically sensitive content.
Web innovators, experts and policymakers, including Berners-Lee and the Wikipedia chief Jimmy Wales, were gathering in London on Friday to assess the World Wide Web Foundation's independent annual measure of the web's impact.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

If you listen to German politicians or economic leaders these days, Germany is being unjustly savaged in Europe for its export surplus. These German leaders largely argue the same thing: Germany is being punished for its success! Germany's performance must be rewarded!
But now -- in a move that was foreseen for some time-- the European Commission announced on Wednesday that it will put Germany's export surplus under the microscope. While the politicians have griped, Germany's export surplus has skyrocketed to around 6 percent of gross domestic product. In September alone, German exports exceeded imports by more than €20 billion. If the commission's investigation should decide the surplus is "excessive," then, in theory at least, Germany could be facing a fine of up to 0.1 percent of its economic output, more than €2.5 billion. According to experts in Brussels, it's unlikely things will come to that. In their anger, the German whiners are forgetting one small thing: They themselves were responsible for the rules designed to keep high export surpluses under control. This provision -- along with targets for deficits, national debts or inflation -- are part of the colorful bouquet of criteria which are supposed to finally make the euro zone macro-economically stable. Of course, German officials only agreed to this condition to prevent even more stringent regulations on export control. And yet in doing so, Berlin clearly recognized the principle that high budget surpluses, just like massive deficits, can lead to economic distortions. This principle has gained new relevance in the euro crisis, because many economists consider higher domestic demand and less exports in Germany an urgent necessity for the stimulation of growth in crisis states.
The real issue here is about rules and their application. The German government has emphasized at every opportunity that the euro zone must be a community of laws. It has admonished crisis states that have complained about overly rigid limits for budget deficits because, after all, they had agreed to the rules. But when it comes to Germany, apparently different standards apply. It's similar to how the Schröder government saw the country become one of the first EU member states to violate the Maastricht criteria -- the fiscal criteria which establish whether a country is allowed to enter the euro -- in 2003, when it implemented its Agenda 2010 social reforms.
If Germany once again displays a double standard, it will lose the credibility which is a nation's most important currency in these times of crisis. It should also not be surprised that the ambassador of a southern EU state angrily declared on Tuesday that German supremacy within the EU can only exist if "the same rules apply for all." Europe can afford such discord among partners even less than overly high deficits or surpluses. All which means: It's time the Germans quit their moaning.

Monday, November 18, 2013

All EU budgets have to be approved by The Bundestag - did anyone know ???


Hopefully, in their blind obedience to Merkel and co, the amazingly stupid and corrupt EU Commission will have gone yet another step too far. If You are Italian or Spanish and you read the headline in your local paper that the EU wants to make you poorer and take more power to themselves from your Government.
I think ropes and lampposts are in order for the EU Commissioners if they go much further.

Spain and Italy have been warned that their budgets for 2014 are in breach of European Union rules as Brussels uses new powers to force governments to revise spending plans before national parliaments vote on them.  France was also cautioned that plans for painful economic reforms represent only "limited progress" as the European Commission exercised new eurozone powers in a historic shift of sovereignty away from elected governments. 
 
"Because in an economic and monetary union, national budgetary decisions can have an impact well beyond national borders, member states have given the commission the responsibility," said Olli Rehn, the commission vice-president in charge of the euro. 
"I trust that they will thus be taken on board by national decision makers."  Germany, Europe's largest and most successful economy, was also criticized for making "no progress" in following EU recommendations to help its eurozone neighbors by spurring domestic demand and imports. Fabrizio Saccomanni, the Italian finance minister and a technocrat imposed on the Italian government at the behest of EU officials, could be fatally weakened by the Brussels intervention, especially after Mr Rehn ruled out an exempting €3bn in investment spending that the Italian government has included in its 2014 budget.  Mr Saccomanni warned that Italy could not take the investment spending from the national budget to meet EU rules because the cut would threaten the country's already weak economic recovery and inflame opposition to austerity. 
"We could have taken even more restrictive measures to reduce our public spending, but I imagine there would be even more cries of pain. I believe our approach is balanced," he said. "It is not necessary to change the budget."  Spain was told that its "draft budgetary plan is at risk of non-compliance with the rules, as the headline deficit target may be missed and the recommended improvement in the structural balance is currently not expected to be delivered".  France was given the green light on its budget but the commission warned that next year's budget leaves "no margin" for deviation and reforms "constitute limited progress" in addressing structural targets.  "A significant set of measures on top of those already specified will be needed to ensure that the target for 2015 is reached," said the commission.  The commission also cautioned Finland, Malta and Luxembourg, asking the three countries to review their 2014 budgets to ensure that they meet eurozone targets.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Czech's want out of the European Union - the desperation vote...

An election held to resolve months of uncertainty in the Czech Republic has failed to produce a clear winner.  With all the ballots counted, the Social Democrats have the most votes - just over 20% - but they do not have enough to form a government alone.  Analysts say the result could pave the way for another unstable coalition, with the second-placed ANO party in a powerful bargaining position.  The election has come after months of political turmoil.  The centre-right government of Petr Necas was brought down by a corruption scandal in June. If ever there was a textbook Pyrrhic victory, this was it. After seven years in opposition, after seven months of vertigo-inducing opinion poll results, the Social Democrats finished on just 20.45%. No wonder the mood at Social Democrat headquarters was subdued - you'd think they'd lost these elections, not won them, and in a sense, they have. Some believe party leader Bohuslav Sobotka will resign within days.   The real victor was the Slovak-born billionaire Andrej Babis, whose centrist ANO party campaigned against corruption and for change. His second place showing is simply astonishing, and can be read as the voters' resounding verdict on the established political parties. He is being coy about a possible coalition with the Social Democrats - as kingmaker, he can dictate the terms.   So what lies ahead for this Central European nation of 10 million? Almost certainly not a minority Social Democrat government propped up by the political pariahs, the Communists. That ship has sailed. Instead weeks - maybe months - of arduous coalition talks.   The country has been without a proper administration ever since - and is currently being governed by a caretaker cabinet of technocrats.
Tough talks ahead - Correspondents say that this election is likely be followed by weeks of difficult negotiations. The BBC's Rob Cameron, in Prague, says the Social Democrats had hoped to win enough to run the country if they were supported or at least tolerated by the Communists. But even together, they do not have enough votes to form a government, he says.  That opens the way for arduous talks on forming a coalition with some of the other parties in parliament.   Social Democrat leader Bohuslav Sobotka admitted the results of the election were "not what we expected,'' but he told reporters he was ready to start negotiations with all parties.  Our correspondent says the real winner in this election is second-placed ANO, a new centrist party which campaigns against corruption and is run by a food and agriculture billionaire.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Negociators Thursday plunged into difficult budget talks to avoid a repeat crisis within months, and quickly agreed to lower their sights from the sort of grand bargain that has eluded the two parties for three years.
After approval late Wednesday of the agreement ending the standoff, the deal-making mantle shifted overnight from the leaders of the Senate to the Budget Committee leaders, Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, and Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, two less senior lawmakers who nonetheless could make very effective salespeople since they command loyal followings in their parties. The political pressure lifted as well, for now. But the need for a bipartisan breakthrough, even a modest one, was amplified by the economic costs wrought by the 16-day shutdown and near-default on government obligations.       
“The key now is a budget that cuts out the things that we don’t need, closes corporate tax loopholes that don’t help create jobs, and frees up resources for the things that do help us grow — like education and infrastructure and research,” President Obama said Thursday from the White House, setting ambitious goals for Congress even as his own role in the bargaining was unclear.
The question of what a new House-Senate budget conference can deliver by its Dec. 13 deadline — in time for Congress to act by Jan. 15 on funding to keep the government open — remained the subject of deep skepticism, well earned by past failures at reaching so-called grand bargains for deficit reduction and spending investments in the past three years.
With the scope of the talks narrowed for now, on the table are ideas left over from past, failed bargaining: possible reductions in other programs — like farm subsidies, federal pensions, the Postal Service and unemployment insurance — and relatively minimal tax loophole closings, possibly as little as $55 billion.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

I am going to ruffle a few feathers, but let me still say it – We had a dream run from 2003-2008 and now it is over. The days of 20% salary hikes and 30% stock returns are gone (at least for now) for the masses.
If you are really good at your job or in investing, you may get above average raises or returns, but that is not going to be the norm for everyone
If you entered the workforce in 80s or 90s, you may have seen tough times yourself (or maybe your family did). The reason why the current slowdown feels horrible is because our expectations are high now. Don’t get me wrong – I am equally angry with the government for running the economy to the ground.
I  faced a similar market from 2000-2003, when the market dropped by around 50% over a three year period. At the market bottom in April 2003, capital goods companies like BHEL, Blue star were selling at 5 times earnings. The current market darlings like Asian paints (15 times PE), Marico (around 5-7 times PE) and other consumption stocks were selling a very low PEs too.  At the risk of getting philosophical, I can think of the following things to do this time around.

- Assess your risk tolerance:  If you have trouble sleeping in the night after seeing your portfolio drop by 10-15% ,  you should reduce your level of equity holdings.  My thumb rule – will I be able to sleep well if my portfolio dropped by 40%+ ? 

- Clean out the trash: Now is a good time to clear up junk from the portfolio. A bear market and 40% loss on weaker ideas concentrates your mind. One should evaluate each position closely, sell the weaker ones and redeploy the cash in the better ideas.

- Have faith:  There is no data or logical argument which can make you hold on to your stocks or add money to it. You need to trust that the markets will recover in time and so will your portfolio.

It is easy for people to say that they want to think independently and stand apart from the crowd. Now that that we have a blood on the streets and no end in sight, you will know whether you can truly do that.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Ever since Fukushima, the supporters of nuclear have been at pains to insist that the disaster had been contained, without any evidence, just accepting the government statements. Pro-nuclear environmentalists were insistent that there was nothing to worry about. What will they say now?
What is "highly toxic water". When I read this at least a week ago, it was radioactive waste. Just where are we supposed to get some accurate information about this? This should be front page news, as it will affect us all. Unfortunately, the west coast of the US and the north coast of Australia will get the effects well before we do. But there's no escaping the effects. What a tragedy. Is this an acceptable result of nuclear energy for those who support it?...This just goes to show that even a highly-industrialized country like Japan cannot handle the aftermath of a nuclear meltdown. When will people realize that nuclear is not the future but the death of this planet.  There are a number of solutions out there that need to be combined to give us the electricity we need but big industry and short-memory  politicians make sure that we keep on consuming and consuming. The first step is to make the price of electricity reflect the real cost of maintenance and decommissioning of the power stations. The people will realize just how much they can reduce their energy consumption (like insulating houses)....
Yes, the switch from intensely radioactive to "toxic" is clearly an attempt on someone's part, probably an industry PR man, to make it sound like a more manageable chemical hazard, conveniently overlooking those tedious details like radioactive half-life, and the increasing difficulty of getting men and even machinery into close enough proximity to effect repairs.
As for those defenders of nuclear energy who pop up on web forums, one in particular was almost certainly a top man in the UK nuclear industry, perhaps recently retired and kept busy. Back in March 2011 we had such a person on a different MSM site, not dissimilar to this one, telling us hourly that TEPCO had the technology to deal with what was an entirely manageable and containable spill, that normal background radiation was routinely blasting our DNA every minute of the day so what were we worried about, that suggesting parents try getting hold of some iodine pills to protect their children's thyroid glands was the height of criminal irresponsibility bla bla. I'm half expecting him to turn up here shortly. Let's hope the Report button works better here than it did there, back in March 2011.

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Gas-land and the EU goons

Guvernul României a concesionat suprafețe mari din unele dintre cele mai frumoase zone ale țării, pentru începerea fracturării hidraulice în vara lui 2013. Locuitorii acestor zone au protestat vehement, dar toate aceste proteste au fost până acum ignorate de presă și de autorități.
  • Fracturarea hidraulică e o metodă extrem de periculoasă de extragere a gazelor naturale, care ne poate otrăvi apa, aerul și solul.
  • Chimicalele (peste 500 de substante chimice ce pot provoca diverse tipuri de moarte) folosite pentru forare sunt toxice și pot contamina apa în urma unor scurgeri sau accidente; pentru foraj sunt necesare milioane de litri de apă, ceea ce poate epuiza rezervele locale.
  • Apa reziduală rezultată în urma fracturării conține substanțe radioactive și chimicale toxice și este extrem de periculoasă, ceea ce face depozitarea ei extrem de dificilă și riscantă.
  • În urma fracturării hidraulice, gazul natural poate “migra” în rezervele de apă potabilă, punând locuințele și fântânile din vecinătate în pericol de explozie. În SUA au fost documentate peste 1.000 de cazuri de contaminare a apei în apropierea zonelor de extracție.
Mai multe state – printre care Franța, Bulgaria și câteva landuri germane și cantoane elvețiene – au interzis fracturarea hidraulică sau au instituit moratorii împotriva acestei metode.

Friday, December 21, 2012

The police are becoming frequent guests at Deutsche Bank headquarters in Frankfurt. For the second time in a week, authorities raided the bank in connection with an ongoing investigation, this time looking for evidence of witness collusion relating to court testimony in a high-profile case pitting Deutsche Bank against the family of the deceased German media magnate Leo Kirch.
The raid took place on Wednesday, but only became public early on Thursday afternoon, partially because it was not nearly as disruptive as a raid conducted a week ago Wednesday, when authorities showed up with 500 armed police and secured the bank's lobby. Nevertheless, the new search and seizure operation underlines yet again the dark cloud of suspicion that hangs over Deutsche Bank despite its stated desire to turn over a new leaf.
Police confiscated documentation and data on Wednesday, but did not make any arrests, according to a spokesperson for the public prosecutor's office in Frankfurt. The visit marks the second such raid in connection to the Kirch proceedings, the first having taken place in November of 2011.
At its heart, the Kirch case is a civil suit. The family accuses former Deutsche Bank supervisory board head Rolf Breuer of hastening the demise of Leo Kirch's media conglomerate by voicing doubts in an interview about the company's creditworthiness. Last Friday, a court in Munich decided in favor of the Kirch family and indicated damages Deutsche Bank would be forced to pay would be somewhere between €120 million and €1.5 billion.
Latest Low Point
But prosecutors also believe that several senior bank executives and board members, including Breuer, former CEO Josef Ackermann and two others, may have illegally coordinated their testimony prior to initial hearings in that case. They deny the charge. Officials on Wednesday were looking for information that could provide clues as to whether the quartet had indeed acted illegally.
Wednesday's raid marks just the latest low point in a 2012 full of them. The investigation relating to the emissions certificates directly implicates current co-CEO Jürgen Fitschens and it led to five arrests last week, though all suspects have since been released from pre-trial detention. Still, it could prove a difficult corner for the bank to wriggle out of. Fitschens is said to have signed a questionable tax declaration for the year 2009 which included refund claims on fraudulently traded emissions certificates. The investigation has been ongoing since 2010, but authorities seem to believe that Deutsche Bank's criminal intent was greater than the financial institution is willing to admit.

The bank, Germany's largest, also stands accused of having played a role in the LIBOR scandal, which saw prominent international banks collude to manipulate the key international lending rate. On Wednesday, the Swiss bank UBS was fined $1.5 billion for its role in the ploy by US, British and Swiss regulators. Furthermore, a former bank employee has also accused Deutsche Bank of having cooked its books during the peak of the financial crisis in order to avoid being forced to accept a government bailout. There are several additional legal proceedings pending as well.
According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, in a story which will appear in the paper's Friday edition, this week's raid is linked to last week's. In a pre-publication press release, the Munich daily reported that investigators confiscated information last week that was also linked to the Kirch case and decided to come back for more. It is unclear for how long the investigation will last.(source...der spiegel)

Thursday, September 13, 2012

The EU is the nightmare that just keeps growing

I don't know what's more puke-inducing: (1) hearing Barroso stating that the EU must be turned into a "federation of nation states" in which member countries will surrender more sovereignty to Brussels whilst moving towards full integration; or (2) seeing Barroso's fat, ugly face plastered in numerous DT threads. OMG what a horrible day for the EU!!!.....So how much more crap can the EU citizenry take? ... How many more rights and privileges will be transferred over to Barroso and the other Brussels Eurocrats before the citizens finally revolt? ... How many more hundreds of billions of tax dollars will the Eurocrats waste in their delusional, warped quest towards an ideal Euro-federation? ... How many new bailout funds will be developed? ... How many more ESMs will emerge? ... How many more Draghi speeches promising UNLIMITED FUNDING for the PIIGS will transpire? ... How many more summits between Merkel and the Latin Desperadoes will be required to keep this disaster afloat? ..... The EU is the nightmare that just keeps growing.
 Mircea Halaciuga, Esq.
004.0724.58.1078
PROXEMIS - Managementul Riscurilor


Saturday, July 28, 2012

The eurozone is bust.

"Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, will meet the head of Germany's Bundesbank in an effort to gain support for his controversial bond purchase plan"
Well....he never said he had a bond buying programme. That notion is the result of idiotic media and markets reading between the lines. He never 'pledged', swore an oath or promised anything. He merely said the ECB would do everything within its very limited price stability mandate to save the euro. That's it.... My understanding is not that he is going to see the Bundesbank but that he has been summoned. Germany is still awaiting an important court ruling. .... Draghi will be told, that Germany is now ready to pull out, and that, "that", will give the ECB all the freedom it has prayed for. Draghi will also be told that Germany can no longer continue with stealth measures to monetize southern debt and that he either re finds the party hymn-sheet or finds himself with the power to write a whole new one, the one of his own....Expect no extraordinary interventions next week. Expect a new hard line Draghi.... hahahahaha ~!!!!....The eurozone is bust. Why should it be enabled to go on borrowing with no strategy that would lead anyone to believe it could even sustain these rising debts let alone ever repay any of them. Anyone who thinks the industrious north will beaver away for years to keep the drones in the south in the life to which they have grown quite accustomed, needs to go away to quiet room.........If they continue down this path we will have unions in Germany demanding parity with the Greek and Spanish entitlements.....and wage hikes to reflect their 'war effort'. and that would be for starters......There is one thing worse than the people rebelling and putting an end to it. It is the people putting up their hands and saying perverse incentives! Sign me up!

Sunday, June 24, 2012

La Signora No in Italy

HAVE NO DOUBT : EUROPE IS BEEING RULED BY THE FOURTH. REICH - - -THERE IS NO ESCAPE !!!!
Mrs Merkel -- or La Signora No in Italy -- doused hopes of a break-through on proposals by the "Latin Bloc" leaders of Italy, France, and Spain to deploy the funds (EFSF and ESM) to cap the bond yields of "virtuous" countries vulnerable to contagion, or to re capitalize banks directly to take the strain off sovereign states. "If I give moneystriaght to Spanish banks, I can't control what they do. That is how the treaties are written," she said, before racing off to Danzig to tonight for Euro 2012 quarter final between Greece and German.. Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF, warned before the summit that the eurozone is under "acute stress" and at risk of a downward spiral. "The viability of the European monetary system is questioned. There must be a overcapitalization of the weak banks, with preferably a direct link between the EFSF/ESM and the banks, in order to break the negative feedback loop that we have between banks and sovereigns."
"Angela Merkel defies Latin Europe and the IMF on bond rescue". The headline says it all - AEP seeds hate between European nations to obfuscate the fact that people the as well in Latin Europe as in Germany are enslaved by a financial system that plays dirty against the people. And the people can't win the game because mathematics always wins, no chance against compound interest on hot-air-money. But wait - the lenders are only a few, and the people are millions, and the lenders reside in big buildings in the center of towns. Just like Alexander solved the Gordian knot without dealing with the mathematical intricacies, the people of Europe might solve their problem with extremely leveraged private banks that enslave whole populations to pay compound interests on money that was simply created by a keystroke with no productive effort whatsoever - with the sword.

Monday, May 28, 2012

The European Union has abrogated the Rule of Law

Poor Angela - Her early years as an organizer in the East German socialist party must have left her deeply disappointed with the end of the Soviet Union and reunification. Now, her dream of creating an EUSSR seems doomed to end in failure too !!!!..... "The new EU bank plan states clearly and without remorse that the decisions for any bank insolvency will be made by Regulators. This would be people appointed by European politicians, this would be bureaucrats, this would be employees of the State as Europe returns to the governance of the old Soviet Union where the Rule of Law was subordinated to the designs of the nation.....The only question is "do we have to go down with RMS Titanic, or are there enough lifeboats available?" To mangle the metaphor, just as the last thing the Titanic needed was more ice, the last thing the economies need is more debt.
"The European Union has abrogated the Rule of Law for the good of the State. This is the second such abrogation with the first being the exemption of certain European institutions and the IMF from the Private Sector Involvement of Greece. Greece may be a one-off exemption as they claim but we now have a second instance where jurisprudence has been overturned for the good of the nations of Europe. This is not Socialism or Capitalism but rather some sort of Fascist governance which I publicly decry as the echo of the jackboots sounds across the Continent once again."...As this eurozone meltdown deepens, a chronic lack of "periphery" bank capital raises the risk of acute liquidity crises. Spain's fourth largest bank has just asked for a €19bn bail-out. Catalonia, the country's wealthiest region, says it is bust and central government must pay its bills. According to some people in Spain this is Anglo Saxon propaganda, here is a piece from El Pais, the DT is top billing. On its website, Britain’s Daily Telegraph interpreted Mas’ comments as a call for a bailout, prompting the Catalan government, known as the Generalitat, to issue a statement complaining that the some media has misinterpreted the premier’s remarks and had taken them out of context....Shocking stuff - is this for real? I suspect it is.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Blogroll Center  finance

duri, mita, gaze, uniunea europeana,ministru,creditlitia,dosare,coruptie,interne,calificat, infractori,guvern,prezidenriale,dreapta,legea salarizarii unice,salarii,geoana,basescu,finante,tariceanu, socialism,liberalism,marea neagra,lege,europarlamentare,parlament,constitutie,curs,leu,dolar,euro, masuri anticriza,politica,fmi

UniCredit Ţiriac Bank ended the third quarter with 67 million RON (almost 16 million euro) net profit, down 6% compared with the same time last year. Nine months into the year, net profit amounted to 215 million RON (52 million euros), a 15% decline compared with 18% in the first half.Operating revenues exceeded one billion RON (245 million euros) nine months into the year, up 15%, while the credit portfolio rose by 13%, to 13.3 billion RON (3.1 billion euros). Midyear, the lending increase stood at 11%, with the Italian group continuing to apply the strategy designed to boost the loan market share.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

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


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