Eurozone Banks Stop Lending To Each Other

The eurozone banks have stopped lending to each other in a clear sign that mistrust has entered the system. We already know that Deutsche Bank is 60 times over leveraged with a massive derivative exposure. As Irish economist Karl Whelan put it best “At any point in time, this thing can blow up”.

EUROZONE banks are refusing to lend to peers in other countries in the common currency bloc, signalling a worrying fall in confidence that appears to have worsened since the Cyprus bailout earlier this year, data analysed by Reuters shows.
European Central Bank data shows the share of inter-bank funding that crosses borders within the eurozone dropped by one-third, to just 22.5pc in April from 34.5pc at the start of 2008.

The silent retreat to within national borders is most pronounced in the troubled economies of southern Europe, but is even seen in Germany.

Cross-border inter-bank funding of German banks was down by 11.2pc year-on-year in March, equivalent to banks elsewhere in Europe withdrawing €29.5bn from its biggest economy.

Eurozone banks’ stock of lending to their Greek peers was a startling 68pc lower in April than in the same month a year earlier, equivalent to €18bn withdrawn. In Portugal, the decrease was roughly a quarter.

The ECB figures include lending between separate banks in different eurozone countries and within a single banking group to its cross-border units.

CYPRUS

Faltering confidence may be responsible for the reduction in cross-border lending, due in part to a bailout of Cyprus that closed one of its two main banks.

Lobbyists for the banking industry also say a soon-to-be-finalised EU law making it possible to impose losses, or “haircuts”, on bank creditors could hurt confidence.

“At any point in time, this thing can blow up,” said Karl Whelan, an economist at University College Dublin, warning of a potential spillover on to regular savers.

“We are relying on an absence of panic among depositors while we sit around and work out who to haircut. There is a risk of large-scale deposit withdrawals in Spanish banks, in particular. They are the obvious tinder box.”

A spokesman for the European Central Bank countered that the trend was due to a general shift towards secured lending and funding via retail deposits. Banks were deleveraging, which increases the importance of stable retail deposits. (Reuters)

Source: Irish Independent

3 Eurozone Countries With Debt-to-Income Ratio Over 300%

Forget the usual Debt-to-GDP ratio that is thrown about when discussing a countries ability to pay. A more realistic ratio is between its debt and its income since debt is paid from a governments income. When you consider this comparison, then 3 countries in the eurozone have  a ratio greater than 300%. Worse still is the US with a debt-to-income of 304% in 2012.

Ireland, Greece and Portugal are labouring under debt-to-income ratios of more than 300%, according to figures that expose the indebtedness of eurozone governments in relation to their government revenues.

The measure, intended to show governments’ abilities to pay debts, shows Ireland’s total debt in 2012 was €192bn (£163.1bn), or 340% of the government’s income. Ireland came a narrow second in the table to fellow bail-out recipient Greece, which has amassed an even worse debt-to-revenue total of 351%. Portugal – which has also received aid from the troika of the International Monetary Fund, the European commission and the European Central Bank – came third with a debt-to-revenue ratio of 302%, while Britain was sixth last year on the list of 27 European Union member states, with a debt-to-revenue ratio of 212%, according to calculations based on European commission figures.

 Debt figures are usually calculated as a ratio of a country’s national income and expressed as a proportion of GDP. But national income figures reflect activity across the whole economy, in both the public and private sectors. governments must pay debts from tax receipts and other government income, not the income for the economy as a whole. Some analysts argue a government’s debt-to-revenue ratio provides a clearer picture of its ability to fund annual debt payments once interest rates are taken into account.

The US is in even worse shape than Greece. Its $16tn (£10tn) debt is the equivalent of 105% of GDP, but more than 560% of government revenues. Washington’s debt payments are cheap after a plunge in the interest it pays on government bonds, but with revenues of only 14% of GDP compared with about 40% across much of the EU, its ability to pay is weakened.

Ireland, which is often commended for its recovery from the banking crash, has seen a sharp rise in its debt-to-revenue ratio in the last four years. In 2009 the ratio was 187%. A year later it had jumped to 262% before reaching 340% in 2012. However, the country appears to be in better shape when debt-to-GDP figures are used. It ranks fourth, with a 117.6% ratio, after Greece, Italy and Portugal.

Greece’s performance, by contrast, has improved. It has pushed through a huge clampdown on government spending and has seen its ratio fall from 402% in 2011 to 351% in 2012.

Some of Europe‘s strongest economies have jumped up the league table of indebted EU nations when the debt-to-revenue measure is used. Germany has a ratio of 181%, Malta’s is 178%, while France has a ratio of 174%, all higher than countries that are often cited as troubled and at risk of default such as Slovenia (120%) and Hungary (168%).

The healthiest economies according to the debt-to-revenue measure are the Nordic nations, where Sweden enjoys a 75% ratio, Denmark a 82% ratio and Finland a 99% ratio in 2012.

In the aftermath of the 2009 banking crash, the US investment bank Morgan Stanley argued that debt-to-government-revenue ratios should be included in any discussion of a possible sovereign debt default.

Analyst Arnaud Marès, who has since left the firm, said in August 2010: “Whatever the size of a government’s liabilities, what matters ultimately is how they compare to the resources available to service them. One benefit of sovereignty is that governments can unilaterally increase their income by raising taxes, but they will only ever be able to acquire in this way a fraction of GDP.

“Debt/GDP therefore provides a flattering image of government finances. A better approach is to scale debt against actual government revenues. An even better approach would be to scale debt against the maximum level of revenues that governments can realistically obtain from using their tax-raising power to the full.

This is a function of the people’s tolerance for taxation and government interference. Seen from this angle, the US federal debt no longer compares quite so favourably with that of European governments.”

In 2010, US debt to revenue was 365%.

Source: The Guardian

Some Pigs Are More Equal Than Others

Our EUSSR masters are handsomely paid. No wonder they are out of touch with reality. With wealth confiscation, high prices, manipulated media, government spin, one would be forgiven for thinking you were living in the USSR. 😉 Looks to be where we are headed.

EURO: Cock-Up or Conspiracy?

Godfrey Bloom MEP discusses how the Euro was doomed to failure to force fiscal integration. Where is the democratic remit for fiscal integration since nobody was asked?

Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider, Professor of Law at Erlangen-Nurnberg University said of the euro:

The euro will inevitably fail. It was always clear that the euro-project would not succeed. Already in 1993 I have processed the Maastricht law suit that was mostly against the introduction of the monetary union. Without the consent of the nations comprising the EU, the euro is being used as a political lever to make the EU a super state that, for example, goes against Russia, and at the same time, serves as a counterbalance against China, the USA and other economic giants. But this lever was always economically doomed to failure.

 

German Finance Minister Who Launched Euro, Calls For Its Breakup

That the euro has been a disaster is now beyond question.  Even the German Finance Minister, Oskar Lafontaine who was responsible for Germany launching the euro is now calling for its breakup. He believes countries would unite against Germany, forcing change. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes:

Oskar Lafontaine, the German finance minister who launched the euro, has called for a break-up of the single currency to let southern Europe recover, warning that the current course is “leading to disaster”.

“The economic situation is worsening from month to month, and unemployment has reached a level that puts democratic structures ever more in doubt,” he said.

“The Germans have not yet realised that southern Europe, including France, will be forced by their current misery to fight back against German hegemony sooner or later,” he said, blaming much of the crisis on Germany’s wage squeeze to gain export share.

Mr Lafontaine said on the parliamentary website of Germany’s Left Party that Chancellor Angela Merkel will “awake from her self-righteous slumber” once the countries in trouble unite to force a change in crisis policy at Germany’s expense.

His prediction appeared confirmed as French finance minister Pierre Moscovici yesterday proclaimed the end of austerity and a triumph of French policy, risking further damage to the tattered relations between Paris and Berlin.

“Austerity is finished. This is a decisive turn in the history of the EU project since the euro,” he told French TV. “We’re seeing the end of austerity dogma. It’s a victory of the French point of view.”

Mr Moscovici’s comments follow a deal with Brussels to give France and Spain two extra years to meet a deficit target of 3pc of GDP. The triumphalist tone may enrage hard-liners in Berlin and confirm fears that concessions will lead to a slippery slope towards fiscal chaos.

German Vice-Chancellor Philipp Rösler lashed out at the European Commission over the weekend, calling it “irresponsible” for undermining the belt-tightening agenda.

The Franco-German alliance that has driven EU politics for half a century is in ruins after France’s Socialist Party hit out at the “selfish intransigence” of Mrs Merkel, accusing her thinking only of the “German savers, her trade balance, and her electoral future”.

It is unclear whether the EU retreat from austerity goes much beyond rhetoric. Mr Moscovici conceded last week that the budget delay merely avoids extra austerity cuts to close the shortfall in tax revenues caused by the recession.

The new policy allows automatic fiscal stabilisers to kick in, but France will stay the course on the original austerity. “It is not about relaxing the effort to cut spending. There will no extra adjustment just to satisfy a number,” he said.

Mr Lafontaine said he backed EMU but no longer believes it is sustainable. “Hopes that the creation of the euro would force rational economic behaviour on all sides were in vain,” he said, adding that the policy of forcing Spain, Portugal, and Greece to carry out internal devaluations was a “catastrophe”.

Mr Lafontaine was labelled “Europe’s Most Dangerous Man” by The Sun after he called for a “united Europe” and the “end of the nation state” in 1998. The euro was launched on January 1 1999, with bank notes following three years later. He later left the Social Democrats to found the Left Party.

Remember Helmut Kohl’s recent comments on introducing the euro in an interview that was conducted by Jens Peter Paul, a German journalist in 2002, but only recently published. Kohl said that he would have lost any popular vote on the euro by an overwhelming majority.

“If a Chancellor is trying to push something through, he must be a man of power. And if he’s smart, he knows when the time is ripe. In one case – the euro – I was like a dictator …

“I knew that I could never win a referendum in Germany,” he said. “We would have lost a referendum on the introduction of the euro. That’s quite clear. I would have lost and by seven to three.”

So there you have it, stuck with a currency that was rammed through against peoples wishes and a completely predictable disaster. Of course a currency union, as the elites point out, cannot work without a fiscal union. That has always been the end game, to hand over all economic power to the EUSSR. In other words a “power grab”. Hegelian dialect, the method to implement something you want by creating a problem which induces a reaction , whereby you already have the solution. After all, the Soviet Union was based on Hegelian dialectic techniques.

Source: The Telegraph

Bundesbank’s Report To German Court Could Torpedo Draghi’s OMT

Draghi’s great plan to buy bonds of struggling eurozone countries through Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) has taken a massive knock. A report issued by the Bundesbank on friday, to the German court which has yet to give its consent to OMT,  is damning to say the least.  The following line from the report says it best “It is not the duty of the ECB to rescue states in crisis”.

The hardline central bank – known as the temple of monetary orthodoxy – told Germany’s top court that the ECB’s pledge to shore up Italian and Spanish debt entails huge risks and violates fundamental principles. “It is not the duty of the ECB to rescue states in crisis,” it wrote in a 29-page document leaked to Handelsblatt.

  The Bundesbank unleashed a point by point assault on every claim made by ECB chief Mario Draghi to justify emergency rescue policies – or Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) – unveiled last summer to stop Spain’s debt crisis spiralling out of control.

The Draghi plan mobilized the ECB as lender of last resort and led to a spectacular fall in borrowing costs across the EMU periphery, buying nine months of financial calm. The credibility of the pledge rests entirely on German consent. Analysts say the crisis could erupt again at any moment if that is called into question.

“The report borders on economic warfare,” said Harvinder Sian from RBS. “We think there is going to be fear and dread in the market that the court will reject OMT.”

The document said OMT entails the purchase of “bad bonds”, violates ECB independence and entails a high risk of heavy losses in the “not unlikely” event that debtor states are forced out of EMU.

 

It said Greek debacle had shown that conditions cannot be enforced, and, in any case, is “very questionable” whether it is desirable to drive down the borrowing costs of profligate states.

To cap it all, the Bundesbank said the ECB has no mandate to uphold the “current composition of monetary union”. Its task is to uphold price stability and let the chips fall where they may.

While the Bundesbank’s president, Jens Weidmann, has openly criticised the Draghi plan before, the aggressive language in the report shocked economists. The document was submitted in December but was not revealed until Friday.

Germany’s constitutional court will rule on the legality of the bond rescue plan on June 12. It gave a provisional go-ahead last September for other parts of the EMU rescue machinery, but limited Germany’s bail-out share to €190bn (£160bn). Crucially, it warned that the Bundestag may not alienate its tax and spending powers to any supra-national body or be exposed to “unlimited” liabilities.

“If the court rules against OMT, it means the end of the euro. The stakes are so high that I don’t see how they could just pull the trigger,” said Mats Persson from Open Europe.

He said the Draghi plan is a legal hot potato because it is, by definition, unlimited. “The previous rulings by the court have all been predicated on this point.”

German historian Michael Stürmer said the tough report is a bid by the Bundesbank to “reassert its primacy”. “They have told the ECB in no uncertain terms that it is exceeding its mandate. Angela Merkel may be smiling because this helps her set limits in Europe.”

Prof Sturmer said the forthcoming ruling – wider than just the Draghi plan – is “much more serious” than last September’s judgment, limited to an injunction brought by eurosceptic groups. “This is about issues of sovereignty. I don’t think the Court will dare to issue a ruling before the elections in September. They will procrastinate,” he said.

The court has some jurisdiction over ECB policy because it intrudes on the German Grundgesetz, or Basic Law. “Once the ECB starts bailing out states it is moving into dangerous waters,” he said.

The court made a glancing reference to OMT in September, stating that ECB bond purchases “aimed at financing the members budgets is prohibited, as it would circumvent the ban on monetary financing”.

The bond markets ignored the leaked report on Friday, confident that the court will once again find some formula to avert a crisis. It could cite a clause in the Lisbon Treaty stating that the ECB has a duty to “support the general economic policies in the Union”, which would include saving the euro.

“They might refer the case to the European Court but that would leave the Sword of Damocles hanging over the market for another two years,” said David Marsh, author of books on the Bundesbank and EMU. “I think use of OMT is practically impossible until this is resolved.”

Sovereign bond strategist Nicholas Spiro said markets are “sick and tired” of the eurozone debt crisis and have stopped paying attention to the detail. “There is this ravenous hunt for yield and they think there is all this money coming from Japan. But it has long been unclear whether OMT is real or just a myth, and the eurozone’s underlying economic crisis is still getting worse. The window of opportunity created by Draghi has been wasted.

“If the court sides with the Bundesbank in any way the whole house of cards could come crashing down.”

Source: The Telegraph

Solvenian Banks Close To Collapse

After Cyprus, next up looks to be Slovenia. Over the weekend there has been an official denial that the banks are about to collapse and we know what that means. If it does turn out to be the case, then another  “bail in” would cause panic right across the Euro area.

 

Are Slovenian depositors about to get Cyprus’d with a wealth/deposit confiscation?  If the intensity of the denials by Slovenian officials are any indication, a bank crisis is imminent for the tiny balkan nation. 
New Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek attempted to calm Slovenians over the weekend stating: We are absolutely no Cyprus. We don’t need help. All we need is time.
If and when the 2nd bail-in episode in the EU is attempted, expect all hell to break loose across the European banking system as depositors in Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and even France realize that as DISELBOOM openly admitted, Cyprus really was the template for bank failures going forward.

As the AP reports, the official denial is in:

Slovenian officials have a message for the world: Don’t panic — we won’t be the next to fall.
The tiny European Union member is trying to convince its people and foreign investors that it won’t be the next in line for a banking system collapse and a messy international bailout.
“We are absolutely no Cyprus,” says new Slovenian Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek. “We don’t need help. All we need is time.”

Contrary to PM Bratusek’s claims, a recent report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation claims that the equity in Slovenian state banks has been “virtually wiped out.”:

The Alpine country’s banks have been on a lending spree for years, loaning money to unprofitable state companies or privileged officials who used the cash to buy the firms they ran, using the state assets as collateral.
Many such businesses have now collapsed or have huge debts. A recent report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation says that the equity of the state banks has been “virtually wiped out.” As much as 15 percent of all loans are now non-performing, the third-highest ratio in the eurozone, the Paris-based group said.

Which brings us to the important question: Exactly how much gold does Slovenia supposedly own as its reserves that are about to be confiscated by the ECB?  3.20 tons according to Slovenia’s latest report…all likely stored in London and already rehypothecated and leased to bullion banks 1,000 times over.

Que the MSM reports that Slovenia’s 3.2 tons of gold will need to be liquidated.

Source: SilverDoctors

Nigel Farage: This European Union Is The New Communism

Nigel Farage (MEP) latest attack on the EUSSR. On the day of the funeral of Margaret Thatcher it must be acknowledged that she saw through the frailties of the euro.  Full transcript is below.

The Full transcript:

Years ago, Mrs Thatcher recognised the truth behind the European Project. She saw that it was about taking away democracy from nation states and handing that power to largely unaccountable people.

Knowing as she did that the euro would not work she saw that this was a very dangerous design. Now we in UKIP take that same view and I tried over the years in this parliament to predict what the next moves would be as the euro disaster unfolded.

But not even me, in my most pessimistic of speeches would have imagined, Mr Rehn, that you and others in the Troika would resort to the level of common criminals and steal money from peoples’ bank accounts in order to keep propped up this total failure that is the euro.

You even tried to take money away from the small investors in direct breach of the promise you made back in 2008.

Well the precedent has been set, and if we look at countries like Spain where business bankruptcies are up 45% year on year, we can see what your plan is to deal with the other bailouts as they come.

I must say, the message this sends out to investors is very loud and clear: Get your money out of the Eurozone before they come for you.

What you have done in Cyprus is you actually sounded the death knell of the euro. Nobody in the international community will have confidence in leaving their money there.

And how ironic to see the Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev compare your actions and say, ‘ I can only compare it to some of the decisions taken by the Soviet authorities.’

And then we have a new German proposal that says that actually what we ought to do is confiscate some of the value of peoples’ properties in the southern Mediterranean eurozone states.

This European Union is the new communism. It is power without limits.
It is creating a tide of human misery and the sooner it is swept away the better.

But what of this place, what of the parliament? This parliament has the ability to hold the Commission to account. I have put down a motion of censure debate on the table. I wonder whether any of you have the courage to recognise it and to support it. I very much doubt that.

And I am minded that there is a new Mrs Thatcher in Europe and he is called Frits Bolkenstein. And he has said of this parliament – remember he is a former Commissioner: ‘It is not representative anymore for the Dutch or European citizen. The European Parliament is living out a federal fantasy which is no longer sustainable.’

How right he is.

Source:  ZeroHedge

Ollie Rehn – Depositors To Take Hit If An EU Bank Fails Under Planned Law

Hey, here’s a great idea, let’s make the Cyprus solution official. Ollie Rehn has disclosed that the EU plans to make it official in law for governments to steal your money when banks go bankrupt. Looks like the Dutch Finance Minister wasn’t alone in thinking this was a great idea after all.

(Reuters) – Big bank depositors could take a hit under planned European Union law if a bank fails, the EU’s economic affairs chief Olli Rehn said on Saturday, but noted that Cyprus’s bailout model was exceptional.

“Cyprus was a special case … but the upcoming directive assumes that investor and depositor liability will be carried out in case of a bank restructuring or a wind-down,” Rehn, the European Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner, said in a TV interview with Finland’s national broadcaster YLE.

“But there is a very clear hierarchy, at first the shareholders, then possibly the unprotected investments and deposits. However, the limit of 84,890 pounds is sacred, deposits smaller than that are always safe.”

The European Commission is currently drafting a directive on bank safety which would incorporate the issue of investor liability in member states’ legislation.

To secure a 10 billion euro EU/IMF bailout last month, Cyprus forced heavy losses on wealthier depositors. Initially it had also pledged to introduce a levy on deposits of less than 84,890 pounds – even though they are supposedly protected by state guarantees – before reneging in the face of widespread protests.

Source: Reuters

 

How Russia Could Take Revenege Over Cyprus Deal

Europe has already had a taste of what Russia can do in 2009, due to the dispute with Ukraine over an unpaid gas bill. That winter the tap was turned off and maybe that was point, to remind Europe not to cross Russia in future. Steve Keen in this CNBC article takes a look at the possible way in which an angry Russia can hit back.

Germany might be telling the world not to blame it for Cyprus’ bailout plan, but one analyst told CNBC that Russia could avenge the loss of billions of dollars it has invested and deposited on the island by cutting Germany’s energy supply.

As the Cypriot parliament prepares to vote on a controversial and unprecedented proposal to levy a tax on bank accounts held on the island, the deal has been described as a covert move by Germany and its euro zone partners to tackle what they perceive as Russian money laundering in Cyprus.

Twenty percent of total deposits of the Cypriot banking system are held by Russians and many Russian businesses are registered in Cyprus, making any plan to levy a 15.6 percent tax on deposits over 100,000 a moot point for Russia. The country has also given Cyprus a $3.3 billion loan that Cyprus wishes to extend.

Russia’s leaders have already condemned the European bank levy proposal, with President Vladimir Putin calling it “unfair, unprofessional and dangerous” on Monday. On Tuesday, Russian Prime Minister Dimitry Medvedev added to the growing Russian frustration over the move. “Quite strange and controversial decisions [are] being made by some EU member states. I mean Cyprus. Frankly speaking, this looks like the confiscation of other people’s money,” Medvedev said on Monday.

Steve Keen, professor of Economics & Finance at the University of Western Sydney, told CNBC that Russia could retaliate against the perceived proxy attack on its citizens, and their money.

“If you try to target the Russians, and there’s President Putin acting under the image of the ‘strong man’ of Russia, why would he not then decide to shut down gas supplies to Germany until that was righted?

“If you’re going to attack money laundering then attack it directly, don’t make Cypriot peasants and small businessmen collateral in your campaign against Russian oligarchs. Declare the campaign rather than doing it under the carpet like this too,” he added.

“Russia has been willing to play that card before,” Keen said, alluding to when Russia’s largest state-owned gas and oil supplier Gazprom reduced gas supplies to Europe in 2009 during a dispute with an Ukrainian energy company.

With 36 percent of Europe relying on Russia for its gas supply, the threat or act of limiting supplies gives Russia a powerful card to play should it wish to push home a political point against Germany.

“It is an explosive political situation,” Nick Spiro, head of Spiro Sovereign Strategy, told CNBC. “This is a rubicon which should have never been crossed…This bailout agreement has Germany’s political fingerprints all over it,” Spiro told CNBC Europe’s “Squawk Box.”

“If Germany’s aim was that the larger deposit holders, the Russian ones, were going to bear the brunt of this, then obviously it’s backfired,” he added.

Steve Keen told CNBC that the proposal was tantamount to “blowing the brains out of capitalism” and such a proposal would destroy the euro and the idea of a monetary system.

“It’s mind-boggling that German bureaucrats and politicians can think that this is a sensible way to share the pain,” Keen said. “If you destroy the trust that depositors have in their bank accounts, you fundamentally destroy the oil of capitalism.”

“This is an absurd decision which has to be blocked somehow. If the Russians block it or the Cypriots block, somebody has to block it,” he said, ahead of a crucial debate in the Cypriot parliament over whether to ratify the plan.

Approving the plan is central to Cyprus receiving a 10 billion euro bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund (IMF) but as yet, the outcome of the vote is uncertain.

The Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades reportedly told German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the European Union’s economics affairs commissioner Olli Rehn on Monday that he would stand by what was agreed at a euro zone finance ministers’ meeting last week but “insisted that EU partners offer some additional help,” a state spokesman, Christos Stylianides, told state radio on Tuesday.

(Read More: Cyprus President Is a ‘Fool:’ Gartman)

Stylianides added that President Anastasiades is also likely to talk to the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, on Tuesday.

Against a backdrop of protests in Cyprus and sharp declines in global equity markets on Monday, the German finance minister attempted to deflect blame from his country, saying the solution had not been a German idea and that he was open to it being changed.

“The levy on deposits below 100,000 euros was not the creation of the German government,” Wolfgang Schuble told reporters in Berlin on Monday. “If one reached another solution we would not have the slightest problem,” he added. On Tuesday, however, Schuble said that Germany pressed for a “bail-in” of Cypriot depositors to protect European taxpayers.

Source: CNBC

Cypriot Bank Holiday As Savers Lose 10% of Deposits

Cyprus finally gets its long-awaited bailout of €10 billion instead of the €17 billion that is required to recapitalize its bust banking system. It comes with strings attached as the corporation tax has to be raised from 10% to 12.5% and more importantly depositors face having 10% of their savings taken. Bad enough taking a 10% reduction on capital, German finance minister and the IMF were pushing for a 40% reduction. To prevent capital flight over the weekend a bank holiday is being imposed. Tune in to see how deposit holders react on Tuesday when the banks open. This can only further the call to protect your wealth through holding precious metals.

Every so often, a moment comes along when you learn something important about how economies work. Thanks to the Euro area member states, we’re about to get one of these moments. Next week, we’re going to find out how people react when their bank deposits are at risk of being confiscated.

Faced with the prospect of having to lend €17 billion to Cyprus to bail out its banks, the Euro area member states had three choices: Lend all this money but have Cyprus default on its existing sovereign bonds, lend all the money on terms that make it clear you’re not getting it back or lend less money and let the banks default on their obligations.

The Eurogroup chose the last option. Cyprus is introducing what the Eurogroup calls “an upfront one-off stability levy” on bank deposits (though I doubt those affected by it will be feeling too stable this weekend).  The levy takes 6.75 percent of all deposits under €100,000 and 9.9 percent of all deposits above €100,000.

Cypriot banks are closed on Monday for a scheduled holiday but we will find out on Tuesday whether people are willing to keep their money in bank accounts in a country that occasionally imposes “one-off stability levies” – most things that people claim are one-off aren’t.

The more interesting question, however, is how will depositors react in the rest of the Eurozone.  There will undoubtedly be promises that this is the only country in the euro area that will write down deposits but promises from European politicians don’t mean much.  They insisted for ages that a default in Greece was “not an option” but it happened and Cyprus’s own finance minister dismissed the idea of a depositor haircut only a few days ago saying  ”Really and categorically – and this doesn’t only apply in the case of Cyprus but for the world over and the euro zone there really couldn’t be a more stupid idea.”  Well maybe but it’s a stupid idea whose time has come.

How will depositors in Spain react next week? Everyone knows the Spanish banks are sitting on large unrealized losses and that, sooner or later, these banks will have to be dealt with. Now that people know that a depositor haircut is part of the European toolkit for dealing with banking problems, why would you sit around and wait for it to happen to you? This decision has the potential to trigger a full-scale bank run across the euro area and such an outcome could place in question the continued existence of the euro as a common currency.

However, we simply don’t know whether depositors will react at all. Up to now, despite clear evidence that large corporations have tended to move their money out of crisis countries, we haven’t seen much evidence of ordinary retail investors wanting to move their money out of bank accounts in Europe’s periphery (though the Northern Rock incident in 2007 shows that this can happen).

Personally, I’ve been surprised at how many people have kept their money in retail bank accounts in Greece.  You can also ask why people still had their money in Cypriot accounts this week even with newspaper headlines suggesting this levy was one of the options being considered.

So it may be that nothing happens because people believe the politicians about Cyprus being a one-off or else simply don’t know enough to realize their money is at risk.

Still, the Cyprus deal is structured in way that is likely to maximize potential concerns elsewhere. As this option was being discussed in recent weeks, a common theme was that this levy shouldn’t worry European depositors because Cyprus was a sui generis problem: Its banks were stuffed with deposits from Russian oligarchs of dubious moral repute and there was no question of ordinary depositors taking a hit.

But the decision to tax all deposits below €100,000 shows that ordinary Cypriots are going to be hit very hard by this plan.  And the fact that Cyprus’s small amount of bond creditors are being left untouched is likely to deepen the perception of unfairness. (You really have to wonder why they couldn’t have implemented a plan that raised the same amount of money but exempted all deposits below some threshold amount, thus protecting people who don’t have much wealth).

One way or another, next week will tell us a lot about the willingness of European retail depositors to keep calm and carry on in the face of worrying developments.

Even if we get through the next week without panic, my gut feeling is that this decision is a bad one and the Europeans should have chosen from the other two options on the table.  Over the longer-term, I doubt if financial stability in the euro area (and the continued existence of the euro) is compatible with a policy framework that doesn’t protect the savings of ordinary depositors.

Source: Forbes

Anti Euro Sentiment Growing

Right across the eurozone people are waking up to the damage the euro has done to their economies. In Italy there is a growing backlash against the euro as both Berlusconi and Grillo have an anti euro policy. It now seems Germany is getting in on the act.

 

Anti-euro movements were pushed aside or squashed by political establishments across the Eurozone. There is, for example, Marine Le Pen, of the right-wing FN in France—“Let the euro die a natural death,” is her mantra. Though she finished third in the presidential election, her party has next to zero influence in parliament. Austria has Frank Stronach, who is trying to get an anti-euro party off the ground, without much effect. Germany has the Free Voters, an anti-bailout party that has been successful in Bavaria but not on the national scene.

Then Italy happened. Two anti-austerity parties with no love for the euro, one headed by Silvio Berlusconi the other by Beppe Grillo, captured over half the vote—and locked up the political system. Newcomer Grillo had thrown the status quo into chaos, for better or worse. Suddenly, everyone saw that anger and frustration could accomplish something.

It stoked a fire in Germany. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s euro bailout policies—“There is no alternative,” is her mantra—hit increasing resistance, particularly in her own coalition, but wayward voices were gagged.

“Time has come,” Konrad Adam called out as a greeting to the crowd Monday night and reaped enthusiastic applause. Despite the snowy weather, over 1,200 people had shown up at the Stadthalle in Oberursel, a small town near Frankfurt, for the first public meeting of the just-founded association, Alternative for Germany (AfD), that isn’t even a political party yet, and that wants to be on the ballot for the federal elections on September 22.

So Adam, one of the founders and a former editor at the Welt and FAZ, was pressed for time. It’s wrong to say there’s no alternative to the euro bailouts, he said. “Politics is nourished by alternatives.” He introduced his demands:

– Dissolution of the “coercive euro association.” An orderly end of the monetary union. Countries should be able to legally exit if they “could not, or did not want to remain.” The euro would be replaced by parallel national currencies or smaller, more stable monetary unions.

– Observance of the rule of law, specifically the laws laid out in the now totally flouted Maastricht Treaty that specified, for example, that no Eurozone member would guarantee the debts of other members.

– A referendum if “the basic law, the best constitution that Germany ever had,” were modified to allow the transfer of sovereignty to a centralized European state.

The event had been opened by co-founder Bernd Lucke, an economics professor who’d been a member of Merkel’s CDU for 33 years until he abandoned it in 2011 over her bailout policies. So he hammered her. “We have a government that has failed to comply with the law and the rules and the contracts, and that has blatantly broken its word that it had given to the German people,” he said to rousing applause.

But this wasn’t the radical fringe of Germany. The mood was enthusiastic and serious. The people weren’t so young anymore. Supporters, by now 13,000, were a well-educated bunch, with a higher concentration of PhDs than any party. Among the early supporters were prominent economics professors, ex-members of the CDU, and even Hans-Olaf Henkel, the former president of the Federation of German Industry (BDI), an umbrella lobbying organization representing 100,000 businesses. And so the event was orderly, a picture, as the Wirtschafts Woche described it, of the “German bourgeoisie.”

Many supporters hailed from the center-right CDU and FDP, but AfD didn’t want to be categorized in the classic scheme of left and right. “We represent non-ideological values that people of different views can share,” Lucke said.

A claim that was validated: 26% of Germans would consider voting for a party that would steer the country out of the monetary union. They came from all political directions: on the right, 17% of CDU voters and almost a third of FDP voters; on the left, 15% of SPD voters, 27% of Green voters, and 57% of Left voters.

The challenges are huge. One is fragmentation. It would be difficult to get people from that kind spectrum to agree on anything. Another is time. The founding convention will be on April 13 in Berlin. By June 17, the party and sections for each state must register with the federal election office. By July 15, the party must collect signatures in every state amounting to 0.1% of the electorate or 2,000, whichever is lower, just to get on the ballot. But Lucke was optimistic. “With you, we can easily get the signatures,” he told the crowd.

It will be tough. Merkel is immensely popular. The major parties are well-oiled political machines. The AfD lacks truly prominent personalities, experienced politicians, economically powerful supporters, financial resources, structure…. And its platform is still skimpy.

But it doesn’t need to govern. The parliament let itself be intimidated by the executive branch “through the assertion that there is no alternative,” Lucke said. When the AfD arrives in parliament, “it will cause the large parties to begin to rethink.” This would lead to “a critical questioning of the monetary union.” And to a look at the very alternatives that Merkel said didn’t exist.

There have been waves of threats by Eurozone politicians to bully people into accepting “whatever it takes” to keep the shaky monetary union glued together. These threats peaked last year with disorderly default, and when that wasn’t enough, with collapse of the Eurozone. But now, the ultimate threat has been pronounced: war. Read…. The Ultimate Threat In The Euro Bailout and Austerity Racket: War

Source: testosteronepit

Euro May Have To Devalue By Mid Year

In an original interview with Handelsblatt, Felix Zulauf founder of  Zulauf Asset Management in Switzerland has declared that the euro will most likely experience a crisis by mid year and will have to devalue.

The Euro crisis will escalate again says Felix Zulauf. Swiss money manager is preparing for a collapse of the stock market. But even greater is his concern that angry citizens could take to the streets.

The markets were expecting the world economy to recover, but he suspected that neither the economy nor corporate earnings would develop as hoped. Once the distance between “wish” and “reality” became apparent, “it could cause a crash.”

Timeframe? This year. Optimism might hang in there for a while; the second quarter would be more problematic. Over time, downdrafts in some markets could reach 20% to 30%. Despite the incessant insistence by Eurozone politicians that the worst was over, he didn’t see “any normalization.” The structural problems were still there, they’ve only been hidden, “drowned temporarily in an ocean of new liquidity.”

“Look at the economic data,” he said. “There is no visible improvement.” As if to document his claim, the Eurozone Purchasing Managers Index was released. It dropped again after three months of upticks that had spawned gobs of hope that “the worst was over.” Business activity has now declined for a year and a half. New orders, a precursor for future activity, fell for the 19th month in a row. While Germany was barely in positive territory, France’s PMI crashed to a low not seen since March 2009 and was on a similar trajectory as in 2008—when it was heading into the trough of the financial crisis!

Sure, the financial markets calmed down, but only because the ECB pulled the “emergency brake” by declaring that it would finance bankrupt states so that the euro would survive. It was a signal for the banks to buy sovereign debt. Borrowing from the ECB at 1%, buying Spanish or Italian debt with yields above 5%, while the ECB took all the risks—”a great business for the banks,” he said. As a consequence, the banks were once again loaded up with sovereign debt. “The problems weren’t solved but kicked down the road,” he said.

Politicians would muddle through. Government debt would continue to rise. But next time something breaks, the pressure would come from citizens, he said. Standards of living have been deteriorating. Many people have lost their jobs. Real wages have declined. “We’ve sent millions into poverty!” People were discontent. And it was conceivable that “someday, they could go on the street and attack these policies.”

Mid year is the timframe for the euro to hit a crisis. Draghi will have no choice but to “lira-ize” the euro.

Countries were devaluing their currencies to gain an advantage. This “race to the bottom” could escalate to where governments would impose limits on free trade. The devaluation of the yen would hit other countries. In Germany, it would pressure automakers, machine-tool makers, and others. By midyear, he said, “Europe will reach a point when it can no longer live with this euro.”

It would have to be devalued. France’s President François Hollande was already agitating for it. “And he has to because the French economy is in a catastrophic condition. It’s no longer competitive. France is becoming the second Spain.”

But didn’t the ECB emphasize that the exchange rate was irrelevant for monetary policy? And wasn’t the Bundesbank resisting devaluation?

“The policies of the Bundesbank are unfortunately dead,” he said, and its representatives were only “allowed to bark, not bite.” Monetary policy at the ECB was made by Draghi, “an Italian.” He’d push for the “lira-ization of the euro,” he said, “not because he likes it, but because he has no choice.” It was the only way to keep the euro glued together. “Mrs. Merkel knows that too, but she cannot tell the truth; otherwise citizens would notice what’s going on.”

So what does Zulauf recommend ?

Given this dreary scenario, what could investors do? Long-term, equities were a good choice, he said, but this wasn’t the moment to buy.

Gold? That it was down from its peak a year and half ago was “normal,” he said. Currently, gold funds were forced to liquidate, which could cause sudden drops, but it also signified “the end of a movement.” He expected the correction to end by this spring. “Long-term, the uptrend is intact,” he said.

Bonds? They had a great run for 30 years but were now “totally overvalued”—in part due to central banks that had bought $10 trillion in debt “with freshly printed money” over the past five years. Debt markets were completely distorted, but central banks would be able to hold the bubble together for “a while longer.” So he admitted, “Last summer, I sold all long-term debt.”

But where the heck was he putting his money now? That’s when he made his sobering remark, “I’m sitting on cash.”

Source: Testosteronepit, Handelsblatt

CEO Of Saxo Bank Says Euro Is Doomed

Another name added to the list of people who believe the end of the euro is a matter of time. Lars Seier Christensen the co CEO of Saxo Bank has delivered his frank views on the euro.

Lars Seier Christensen, co-chief executive officer of Danish bank Saxo Bank A/S, said the euro’s recent rally is illusory and the shared currency is set to fail because the continent hasn’t supported it with a fiscal union.

“The whole thing is doomed,” Christensen said yesterday in an interview at the bank’s Dubai office. “Right now we’re in one of those fake solutions where people think that the problem is contained or being addressed, which it isn’t at all.”

………..

While the euro has strengthened, the economies of Germany, France and Italy all shrank more than estimated in the fourth quarter. Ministers from the 17-member euro area met during the week to discuss aid to Cyprus and Greece as a tightening election contest in Italy and a political scandal in Spain threaten to reignite the region’s debt crisis.

“I’d be a bigger seller of the euro at anything near 1.4,” according to Christensen, who said he isn’t making any speculative bets against the currency.

France is the danger ahead.

“Another possible fallout is getting rid of some of the countries that are being ruined by being in the euro, notably the southern European economies,” Christensen said. “People have been dramatically underestimating the problems the French are going to get from this. Once the French get into a full- scale crisis, it’s over. Even the Germans cannot pay for that one and probably will not.”

………..

“It’s the political world that has been extremely supportive of the euro, not for economic reasons but for political reasons,” said Christensen, a long-time critic of the single currency who now lives in Switzerland.

Source: Bloomberg

 

 

 

 

EU Toll Patrol To Counter Euro Skepticism

The EUSSR are launching a troll patrol in preparation for next years Euro elections to counter the growing skepticism within the empire EU. And we thought the USSR was bad 😉

Germany On Verge Of Bailing Out Cyprus

This euro crisis just gets better and better. Cyprus is locked out of the bonds markets for over a year now and is being kept alive by a loan from Russia but badly needs a bailout. Thats where the dilemma lies for Germany which will bear the brunt of any bailout. A lot of the depositors in Cypriot banks are Russian black money and with an election later this year, it would be very embarrassing for Merkel to be seen to supporting handing over German taxpayers money to pay back dodgy Russians.

When German officials said they would save the euro zone at all costs, the prospect of bailing out Russian oligarchs was not what they had in mind.

But eight months before a crucial election in Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing charges that Europe is doing just that as the tiny island of Cyprus, a haven for Russian cash, threatens to become the next point of contention in the euro crisis.

In recent days, Germany has signaled that it is reluctantly edging toward a bailout for Cyprus, after lifelines have been extended to Greece, Ireland and Portugal to prevent potentially calamitous defaults. While Cyprus makes up just a sliver of the euro zone economy, it is proving to be a first-rate political headache.

“I don’t think that Germany has ever in the history of the euro zone crisis left itself so little wiggle room,” said Nicholas Spiro, the managing director of Spiro Sovereign Strategy in London. “But Germany wants the euro to succeed and survive, and they are saying we can’t afford a Cyprus bankruptcy.”

But giving a bailout to Cyprus is trickier than it seems. Cyprus’s politicians would prefer not to take European money, which comes with the harsh austerity conditions that have spread misery in Greece. And they can argue that Cyprus was doing relatively well until Greece’s second bailout, when Greek government bonds — of which Cypriot banks held piles — lost considerable value.

The question of keeping the euro together had seemed to be conveniently fading for Ms. Merkel, who in the fall put her full backing behind the euro zone, quieting fears of a breakup. But Berlin seems to have been caught off guard by the political tempest stirred up by Cyprus, which has been shut out of international bond markets for a year but has been kept afloat by a $3.5 billion loan from the Russian government.

Here, is where it get hilariously funny 😉

With that money running out, Germany and its European partners have been locked in a fierce debate over whether and how to throw Cyprus a lifeline. The problem is, most of the money lost by Cypriot banks was Russian, and the worry is that most of the bailout money could wind up in the hands of Russian oligarchs and gangsters. That fear, backed by a recent report by German intelligence, has stoked a furor even among some of Ms. Merkel’s political partners. “I do not want to vouch for black Russian money,” Volker Kauder, a prominent member of her conservative bloc, said recently.

The Russian presence is thick on Cyprus, a picturesque Mediterranean island and a onetime British colony. The bustling, large city of Limassol has an enclave of restaurants, shops and fur boutiques so packed with Russians that locals call it “Limassolgrad.”

You know when something is true, when you get an official denial.

Officials in Cyprus say there is no proof that the Russian cash in its banks is of dubious origin, and they insist that they cracked down on money laundering before joining the European Union. The officials point to an evaluation by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development showing that Cyprus is compliant with more than 40 directives against money laundering.

With a population of slightly over 1 million, Cyprus is looking for about €22 billion for its banks.And  I thought Ireland messed up its banks bigtime.

While any lifeline for Cyprus would be small — about $22 billion compared with about $327 billion for Greece — the quandary has reverberated in Europe’s halls of power, and especially in Berlin, which appears to have been backed into a corner by Ms. Merkel’s commitment to keep the euro zone together no matter what.

The outspoken German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, recently cast doubt on whether Cyprus should even be considered for a bailout, given its small size and the stark reality that it is not nearly as vital to the euro’s existence as the larger economies of Spain or Italy. His blunt assessment reportedly drew an admonishment from Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, which has spent hundreds of billions of euros on a program intended to discourage financial market speculators from attacking euro zone countries.

Already Cyprus is implementing austerity measures and they are having predictable consequences.

With Russia refusing to provide any further financing unless the so-called troika of creditors — the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission — provides most of the bailout, the Cypriot government has few options. It signed a memorandum of understanding in November with the troika, setting off a wave of austerity measures that are already starting to hit the enfeebled Cypriot economy.

The salaries of public sector workers have since been slashed by up to 15 percent, state pensions are to be cut by up to 10 percent and the value-added tax is set to rise. “The island has been hard hit, and there is an atmosphere of fear,” Mr. Faustmann said. “People are not sure if they will keep their jobs, and if they do, how long they will have them.”

Mr. Faustmann estimated that it would take at least a half-decade for the Cypriot economy to recover — assuming that the conditions required by Germany and the troika do not send Russian money fleeing from the banks. “If that happens,” he said, “then Cyprus is dead.”

Source: NY Times

EU Moving Towards EUSSR

How long before the EU becomes the EUSSR?

 

Related Story: EU provides funding for propaganda

Draghi Silences German Finance Minister Over Cyprus “let them default” Comments

There is one word within the EUSSR that’s never to be uttered and thats DEFAULT. No matter what, bank debt must be honoured, God forbid they loose one cent and that is at the heart of the matter in Germany. Just before the German parlimentary elections, nobody wants to be seen bailing out Cyprus or more importantly shady Russia money via the back door since the majority of Cyprus’s debt is owned to Russia.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has publicly stated that he doesn’t think a Cyprus default would have much harm on the euro. Draghi’s response was of the line, “you are a lawyer so STFU”.

A debate has been raging in Germany about Cyprus. Not that the German parliament, which has a say in this, wouldn’t rubberstamp an eventual bailout, as it rubberstamped others before, but right now they’re not in the mood. Cyprus is too much of a mess. Bailing out uninsured depositors of Cypriot banks would set a costly precedent for other countries. And bailing out Russian “black money,” which makes up a large portion of the deposits, would be, well, distasteful in Germany, a few months before the federal elections.

For the tiny country whose economy is barely a rounding error in the Eurozone, it would be an enormous bailout. At €17.5 billion, it would amount to about 100% of GDP: €10 billion for the banks, €6 billion for holders of existing debt, and €1.5 billion to cover budget deficits through 2016. The new debt, a €2.5 billion loan that Russia extended in 2011, and other debt would amount to 150% of GDP, according to Moody’s. Unsustainable. So haircuts would be necessary. But whose hair would be cut?

As always, there is never an alternative to a bailout. “It’s essential that everybody realizes that a disorderly default of Cyprus could lead to an exit of Cyprus from the Eurozone,” said Olli Rehn, European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs. “It would be extremely stupid to take any risk of that nature.”

A risk German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble would be willing to take. He’d been saying publicly that it wasn’t certain yet that a default would put the Eurozone at risk—”one of the requirements that any bailout money can flow at all,” he said. Cyprus simply wasn’t “systemically important.” In fact, there were alternatives.

Heretic words. He needed to be shut up, apparently. And that happened at the meeting of Eurozone finance ministers a week ago, details of which sources just leaked to the Spiegel.

The meeting was marked by the transfer of the Eurogroup presidency from Jean-Claude Juncker to the new guy, Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem. Cyprus was also on the agenda, but not much was accomplished, other than an agreement to delay the bailout decision until after the Cypriot general elections in February. The government has resisted certain bailout conditions, such as the privatization of state-owned enterprises and the elimination of cost-of-living adjustments for salaries. Now, everyone wanted to deal with the new government.

The put down.

But what didn’t make it into the press release was that ECB President Mario Draghi, bailout-fund tsar Klaus Regling, and Olli Rehn, all three unelected officials, had formed a triumvirate to gang up on Schäuble.

That Cyprus wasn’t “systemically important” was something he kept hearing everywhere from lawyers, Draghi told Schäuble at the meeting. But it wasn’t a question that can be answered by lawyers, he said. It was a topic for economists.

A resounding put-down: Schäuble, a lawyer by training—not an economist—wasn’t competent to speak on the issue and should therefore shut up!

The smoke and mirror argument the triumvirate used was that a Cypriot default would affect Greece, which is true, but for German taxpayers it would be extremely distasteful for the majority of this bailout to go to shady Russian depositors.

The two largest Cypriot banks had an extensive network of branches in Greece, the triumvirate argued. If deposits at these branches weren’t considered safe, Greek depositors would be plunged again into uncertainty, which could then infect Greek banks and cause a serious relapse in Greece.  

If Cyprus went bust, they contended, it would annihilate the flow of positive news that has been responsible recently for calming down the Eurozone.

For weeks, all signs have pointed towards an improvement, they argued. Risk premiums for Spanish and Italian government debt have dropped significantly, and balances between central banks, which had risen to dangerous levels, have been edging down. If the money spigot were turned off, this recovery could reverse, they argued. Contagion would spread and could jeopardize Ireland’s and Portugal’s return to the financial markets.

Further, Cyprus was carrying its portion of the bailout funds and therefore had a right to its own bailout—a legal argument even a mere lawyer should be able to grasp.

And so, letting tiny Cyprus default could tear up the rest of the Eurozone, they argued—saying essentially that bailouts were a delicate con game, and that Schäuble, by digging in his heels, was blowing it up.

Eurocrats bitch slap the German Finance Minister and tell the Germans to hand over the cash. If this show of force from the bankers doesn’t demonstrate who holds the balance of power in eurozone then I don’t know what will.

It made for another bitter Eurozone irony: the democratically elected finance minister of a country whose taxpayers have to pay more than any other for the bailouts got shut down by unelected Eurocrats who, in a continued power grab, postulated that Cypriot banks, their bondholders, their depositors, even their uninsured depositors, even Russian “black money” depositors had a “right” to the German money (and anyone else’s). And if Schäuble refused, it would blow up the entire Eurozone. Schäuble’s response hasn’t bubbled to the surface yet. And bailout queen Chancellor Merkel, who is trying to avoid tumult ahead of her elections, has a new headache. Read…  Russian “Black Money” Threatens To Boot Cyprus Out Of The Eurozone.

Source: Testosterone Pit

Jan 2013: 20 Facts About The Euro Collapse

The lamestream media are hell-bent on covering up the real state of the euro zone, even going onto to praising Mario Draghi for his money printing powers as the EU claps itself on the back for getting a bizarre Nobel Peace prize. The following article helps to bring some focus on whats really happening under the veneer. This is what happens when politicans take on too much debt on behalf of the nation.

The economic implosion of Europe is accelerating. Even while the mainstream media continues to proclaim that the financial crisis in Europe has been “averted”, the economic statistics that are coming out of Europe just continue to get worse. Manufacturing activity in Europe has been contracting month after month, the unemployment rate in the eurozone has hit yet another brand new record high, and the official unemployment rates in both Greece and Spain are now much higher than the peak unemployment rate in the United States during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The economic situation in Europe is far worse than it was a year ago, and it is going to continue to get worse as austerity continues to take a huge toll on the economies of the eurozone.

It would be hard to understate how bad things have gotten – particularly in southern Europe. The truth is that most of southern Europe is experiencing a full-blown economic depression right now. Sadly, most Americans are paying very little attention to what is going on across the Atlantic. But they should be watching, because this is what happens when nations accumulate too much debt. The United States has the biggest debt burden of all, and eventually what is happening over in Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and Greece is going to happen over here as well.

The following are 20 facts about the collapse of Europe that everyone should know…

#1 10 Months: Manufacturing activity in both France and Germany has contracted for 10 months in a row.

#2 11.8 Percent: The unemployment rate in the eurozone has now risen to 11.8 percent – a brand new all-time high.

#3 17 Months: In November, Italy experienced the sharpest decline in retail sales that it had experienced in 17 months.

#4 20 Months: Manufacturing activity in Spain has contracted for 20 months in a row.

#5 20 Percent: It is estimated that bad loans now make up approximately 20 percent of all domestic loans in the Greek banking system at this point.

#6 22 Percent: A whopping 22 percent of the entire population of Ireland lives in jobless households.

#7 26 Percent: The unemployment rate in Greece is now 26 percent. A year ago it was only 18.9 percent.

#8 26.6 Percent: The unemployment rate in Spain has risen to an astounding 26.6 percent.

#9 27.0 Percent: The unemployment rate for workers under the age of 25 in Cyprus. Back in 2008, this number was well below 10 percent.

#10 28 Percent: Sales of French-made vehicles in November were down 28 percent compared to a year earlier.

#11 36 Percent: Today, the poverty rate in Greece is 36 percent. Back in 2009 it was only about 20 percent.

#12 37.1 Percent: The unemployment rate for workers under the age of 25 in Italy – a brand new all-time high.

#13 44 Percent: An astounding 44 percent of the entire population of Bulgaria is facing “severe material deprivation”.

#14 56.5 Percent: The unemployment rate for workers under the age of 25 in Spain – a brand new all-time high.

#15 57.6 Percent: The unemployment rate for workers under the age of 25 in Greece – a brand new all-time high.

#16 60 Percent: Citigroup is projecting that there is a 60 percent probability that Greece will leave the eurozone within the next 12 to 18 months.

#17 70 Percent: It has been reported that some homes in Spain are being sold at a 70% discount from where they were at during the peak of the housing bubble back in 2006. At this point there areapproximately 2 million unsold homes in Spain.

#18 200 Percent: The debt to GDP ratio in Greece is rapidly approaching 200 percent.

#19 1997: According to the Committee of French Automobile Producers, 2012 was the worst year for the French automobile industry since 1997.

#20 2 Million: Back in 2005, the French auto industry produced about 3.5 million vehicles. In 2012, that number dropped to about 2 million vehicles.

Source: thecomingdepressionblog

Cyprus Bailout MoneyTo Benefit Russia

Cyprus is on the verge of a bailout from the EU but according to Testosteronepit it is Russian “black” money that will benefit. Either way, Cyprus needs €17 billion for its bankrupt banks following in the path of other Eurozone countries whereby the banks destroyed the nation and governments under orders, signed its citizens up to repaying the banks debts.

German Bailout Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is trying to avoid any tumult ahead of the elections later this year, has a new headache. Cyprus, the fifth of 17 Eurozone countries to ask for a bailout, might default and exit the Eurozone under her watch. Using taxpayer money or the ECB’s freshly printed trillions to bail out the corrupt Greek elite or stockholders, bondholders, and counterparties of decomposing banks, or even privileged speculators, is one thing, but bailing out Russian “black money” is, politically at least, quite another.

Cyprus is in horrid shape. Particularly its banks. Their €152 billion in “assets” are 8.5 times the country’s GDP of €17.8 billion. “Assets” in quotation marks because some have dissipated and because €23 billion in loans, or 27% of the banks’ entire credit portfolio, are nonperforming. That’s 127% of GDP! And then there are the Russian-owned “black-money” accounts.

A “secret” report by the German version of the CIA, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) was leaked last November, revealing that any bailout of Cyprus would benefit rich Russians and their €26 billion in “black money” that they deposited in the now collapsing banks. The report accuses Cyprus of creating ideal conditions for large-scale money laundering, including handing out Cypriot passports to Russian oligarchs, giving them the option to settle in the EU. Much of this laundered money then reverses direction, turning minuscule Cyprus into Russia’s largest foreign investor [read…  The Bailout of Russian “Black Money” in Cyprus].

Now Cyprus needs a bailout of over €17 billion but Merkel faces an enormous task back home in convincing a sceptical public in bailing out Russian interests.

Now Cyprus needs €17.5 billion—just about 100% of its GDP—of which €12 billion would go directly to the murky and putrid banks. The package should be wrapped up and signed on February 10 at the meeting of the European finance ministers.

“I cannot imagine that the German taxpayer will save Cypriot banks whose business model is to abet tax fraud,” grumbled Sigmar Gabriel, chairman of the opposition SPD that has been a supporter of euro bailouts; and Merkel, hobbled by opposition within her own coalition, had relied on them to get prior bailouts passed. “If Mrs. Merkel wants to have the approval of the SPD, she must have very good reasons,” he said. “But I don’t see any….”

The Greens are resisting the Cyprus bailout for the same reasons. And 20 members of Merkel’s own coalition are categorically opposed to it. For the first time, Merkel has no majority to get a bailout package passed. The opposition smells an election advantage.

Before the German finance minister can vote in the Euro Group of finance ministers for disbursement of bailout funds, he must seek parliamentary approval. The German Constitutional Court said so, inconveniently. But without his yes-vote, which weighs 29%, the qualified majority of 73.9% cannot be reached. The bailout disbursement crashes. That’s what Cyprus is contemplating.

Fearing defeat, sources within the government now made it known that they wouldn’t even present a bailout package unless Cyprus agreed to “radical reforms,” including massive privatizations of the bloated state sector—precisely what communist President Dimitris Christofias has ruled out.

The Russian “black money” is so unpalatable that even the bailout-happy President of the EU Parliament, Martin Schulz, got cold feet. Before a bailout package could be put together, he said, “it must be disclosed where the money in Cyprus is coming from.”

Markus Ferber, head of Merkel’s coalition partner CSU, demanded a guarantee that “we help the citizens of Cyprus and not the Russian oligarchs.” In addition, he wants Cyprus to reform its naturalization law. If Cyprus wants to get bailed out, he mused, it must make sure “that not everyone who has a lot of money can get a Cypriot passport.

Source: Testosteronepit