Showing posts with label Contagion. Show all posts

Monday, 13 July 2015

" NO DEAL YET" - Euro Disaster Still Possible, & More

Platinum Wealth Partners Insights

When is a deal a deal?

Well it our minds despite all the high rhetoric in the press clippings this is not even close to be being a deal. Firstly, various political approvals are required by the participating countries, and namely Greece whose parliament is unlikely to approve a worse deal than was thrown out by a vote just a week ago. Let's all fall on our sword, together!

Moreover, other events need to occur over the deal’s three year duration. defaults in any of these events scuttles the agreement. Three years? Somehow that time frame just gives this charade more doubt.

Does any sane person think that Greece can magically solve and fugue out their problems in 36 months when they already had about three thousand years, plus the Philosopher Kings? Sure, somewhere over the rainbow!

All theses so-called deals fail on one critical point - dealing with the real problem. That is Greece is no longer a viable economic entity because it has overshot the per capita carrying or productive capacity of the physical space it owns and occupies. Drastic measures are needed to re balance the resource population equilibrium, such as population reduction through migration and natural attrition. All the financial and economic policies are otherwise doomed because they fail to address the real physical issues.

In other words, we guarantee that none of theses political –economic deals will ever work. We all must know this by now. So how can you ever have a deal when everyone knows they are doomed to fail?. I guess its politics as usual and we all kick the can down the road....

Good luck; Be careful out there

The Wall Street Journal begins this article with the Greek crisis in a nutshell.

A week ago, Greeks partied in the streets after voting to resoundingly reject terms of a new European bailout. On Sunday, those same streets were filled with a dazed and confused populace struggling to understand how they were now faced with swallowing a deal even tougher than the one they had just snubbed.

In the summer heat in central Athens, groups of people gathered around televisions at cafes showing Sunday’s live coverage of talks in Brussels, where top Greek officials were scrambling to negotiate a last-ditch rescue. Like Anna Christoforidi, many viewers struggled to understand the strange turnabout that could result in the screws being turned even tighter as a condition for Greece remaining in the eurozone.

Angela Merkel, Alexis Tsipras and François Hollande talk at the eurozone leaders summit in Brussels.

The Guardian view on the Greek negotiations: out in the cold or in chains

Editorial

The Greek crisis began like the proverbial cloud that was no bigger than a man’s hand and has grown into a perfect storm which has shaken Europe to its foundations. Regardless of the final outcome of the negotiations, what unfortunately can be said with certainty is that the union’s fault lines have all but burst under the pressure.

Between France and Germany, between north and south and east and west in the union, and even within nations, there are now profound differences, only potential before, which it will take a long time to resolve. The past few days have seen Paris commit itself to keeping Greece in the euro and the union in a way which puts President François Hollande on a collision course with hawks in the German government, headed by the finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble. France’s mentoring of Greece as that country made its own final proposals did not seek an easy or soft arrangement, but nor did it envisage Greece’s reduction to the status of a debt colony, not too different from the conditions once imposed on Egypt and China in the imperial era, with foreigners in controlling positions in its economy.

Greek crisis: surrender fiscal sovereignty in return for bailout, Merkel tells Tsipras

The terms are much stiffer than those imposed by the creditors over the past five years. This, said the senior official, was payback for the emphatic no to the creditors’ terms delivered by the snap referendum that Tsipras staged a week ago.

“He was warned a yes vote would get better terms, that a no vote would be much harder,” said the senior official.

The Eurogroup document said experts from the troika of creditors – the International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank– would be on the ground in Athens to monitor the proposed bailout programme. The trio would also have a say in all relevant Greek draft legislation before it is presented to parliament. Furthermore, the Greeks will have to amend all legislation already passed by the Syriza government this year that had not been agreed with the creditors.

While Greece’s fate was being debated in Brussels, in Athens the ruling leftwing Syriza party was showing signs of disintegration. Demands that the reforms be approved by the Greek government and put into law by Wednesday were described as “utter blackmail” by leading party members and met with disbelief

Watch These Charts To Better Understand China's Stock Market Crash

Mainland China’s stock market continued to gyrate wildly last week after crashing by more than a third since mid-June. After plunging earlier in the week, stocks finally surged on Thursday and Friday due to several aggressive countermeasures taken by Chinese authorities.

These countermeasures includean interest rate cut, curbing IPOs, loosening margin requirements, allowing the use of property as collateral for margin loans, and encouraging brokerage firms to buy stocks with cash from the People’s Bank of China. Short sellers have even been threatened with arrest, which has raised eyebrows around the world.

China's stock market turbulence is over? Don't count on it

An investor covers her face in a stock exchange hall in Nantong, Jiangsu province, China, during the recent week of turbulence.

The numbers are mind-boggling. Ten days of falls on the Shanghai stock exchange resulted in losses that exceeded the GDP of Mexico. And 12 million Chinese citizens who opened share-trading accounts in May were nursing potentially ruinous losses. Margin trading – speculating on the stock exchange with borrowed money – increased five-fold in a year to 2.3tn yuan (£230bn).

Gerald Celente: Greek Crisis, Gold and Geopolitics

Gerald Celente is Publisher of the Trends Journal and he developed the Globalnomic® methodology to identify, track, forecast and manage trends. Unencumbered by political dogma, rigid ideology or conventional wisdom, Mr. Celente, whose motto is “think for yourself,” observes and analyzes the current events forming future trends for what they are — not for the way he wants them to be.

Image result for greek extortion cartoon

More Leading Global Headlines

Greece Financial Crisis Hits Poorest and Hungriest the Hardest

Are Big Banks Using Derivatives To Suppress Bullion Prices?

China, Greece and the NYSE: Black Swans or Red Flags?

Greece offered euro exit as bailout talks drag on

Chad police: Anyone wearing face veils will be arrested

Top Weekly Ideas and Insights

An Inconvenient Truth:

What Happens If Global Warming Continues?

EXISTENTIAL REALITY

Methane Bomb

or Archaic

Fabrications?

Tuesday, 30 June 2015

What A Mess, Greece, China, Bonds, Brazil, Water ...? & More

Greece In Shock As Banks Shut After

Snap Referendum Call

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who blindsided creditors by calling a referendum on the austerity cuts in the aid package proposed by the creditors, appeared on television on Sunday night to announce capital controls to prevent banks from collapsing.

Their imposition capped a dramatic weekend for Greece that has pushed the country towards a likely default on 1.6 billion euros ($1.77 billion) of International Monetary Fund loans on Tuesday and closer to an exit from the euro currency bloc.

The Global Template for Collapse: The

Enchanting Charms Of Cheap Easy

Credit

Cheap, easy credit has created moral hazard and nurtured magical thinking throughout the global economy.* *According to polls, the majority of Greek citizens want the benefits of membership in the euro/EU and the end of EU-imposed austerity.* The idea that these are mutually exclusive doesn't seem to register. *This is the discreet charm of magical thinking:* it promises an escape from the difficulties of hard choices, tough trade-offs, the disruption of vested interests and most painfully, the breakdown of the debt machine that has enabled the distribution of swag to virtually every...

Many Italian banks fail to start trading Monday

MILAN--Several Italian banks failed to start trading on Monday as fears over a Greek debt default induced many investors to shed peripheral stocks, including Italian, with banks suffering the most.

Sales orders on Italian stocks, in particular financial stocks, piled up before the market opening. At the start, the sales orders were so numerous that the system couldn't manage to process them, something that often happens when specific news causes a sell-off on a stock.

Japan industrial output falls more than forecast

TOKYO--Japanese industrial production fell 2.2% in May from the previous month, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Monday, as slowing exports took the wind out of the sails of Japan's manufacturing industry.

The fall was larger than a decline of 0.8% expected by economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal and the Nikkei.

The sluggish output figures for May came after data on consumption, inflation and employment showed Friday that the economy is growing in fits and starts after a recession last year.

Opinion: Recession time bomb ticking faster, louder

Yes, the clock’s ticking louder, louder, warns the Economist, “only a matter of time before the next recession strikes.” Unfortunately, the “rich world is not ready.” America’s not prepared. You are not ready.

Get it? America’s 95 million investors are at huge risk. Remember the $10 trillion losses in the crash and recession of 2007-2009? The $8 trillion lost after the dot-com technology crash and recession of 2000-2003? This is the third big recession of the century. Yes, America will lose trillions again.

Especially with dead-ahead predictions like Mark Cook’s 4,000-point Dow correction. And Jeremy Grantham’s warning of a 50% crash around election time, with negative stock returns through the first term of the next president, beyond 2020. Starting soon.

Petrobras Fallout Runs Deep

As Brazilian Bond Issuance Sinks 80%

The damage inflicted by Brazil’s unprecedented bribery scandal is leaving deep scars in the country’s overseas bond market.

Foreign debt sales from the country have plunged 80 percent to just $7.5 billion this year as Petroleo Brasileiro SA -- the state-controlled oil producer at the center of a graft probe -- scales back offerings and borrowing costs remain high. The decline in issuances is the biggest since 2009.

The collapse is also being exacerbated by an economy heading for its biggest contraction in a quarter century. That’s left companies with little desire to raise funds to finance investment or expand. Petrobras itself, which sold $13.6 billion in the first half last year, has issued $2.5 billion in 2015 and announced Monday that it was slashing investment plans through 2019 by 37 percent.