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Crisis In Romania: Constitutional Court Votes Pension Cuts Unconstitutional, IMF Loan In Jeopardy, Presidential Palace Stormed, CDS Blows Out
Several days after the Romanian parliament passed a law to cut pensions by 15% in order to qualify for a critical $20 billion IMF loan, the Romanian Supreme Court found this law was not only unconstitutional, but unappealable (along the lines of what our own SCOTUS will do once the Fed's transparency appeal gets to the very top, resulting in confirmation once and for all that American laws are only made for the benefit of the Federal Reserve). The decision was reached hours after dozens of Romanian citizens stormed the presidential palace "to get an audience with President Traian Basescu." As a result of the Constitutional Court's decision, the IMF loan "may now be delayed, and this will be a big blow to the government
of Prime Minister Emil Boc, the BBC's Nick Thorpe reports." Also as a result, Romanian (and by association, neighboring Bulgaria) CDS blew up today and closed +30 to 410 for Dracula's host country, and +20 to 360 bps for the country that served as the reverse engineering center of the former Communist Bloc.
From BBC:
A top court in Romania has ruled out a pension cut demanded by the country's government as part of a deficit-cutting financial austerity measure.
The government wanted to cut state pensions by 15%, as well as slashing wages and welfare allowances.
But the Constitutional Court said the pension cut was unconstitutional, a ruling which cannot be appealed.
Romania wants to cut spending to qualify for a $20bn loan from the International Monetary Fund.
That may now be delayed, and this will be a big blow to the government of Prime Minister Emil Boc, the BBC's Nick Thorpe reports.
The court decision came after dozens of people tried to force their way into the presidential palace to get an audience with President Traian Basescu.
Riot police repelled them from the palace.
The court did not publish its reasoning behind the ruling, but unions say pensions partly funded by worker contributions to are protected by the constitution.
Just wait until Greeks get wind of this ruling, and ask the logical question why their own constitution allows their pensions to be cut by as much as 30%. So much for the smooth and glitch-free passage of austerity across all of Europe. Oh, and it is about time, as we have long been claiming, that investors take a long hard look at Eastern European CDS. It is still not too late.
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"Any system that promises to give the receiving party MORE than that party has actually contributed is a Ponzi scheme."
An investor "contributes" 300 thousand dollars to a mutual fund. Stocks go up. The investor withdraws his money, now it's 500 thousand dollars. The receiving party (the investor) gets MORE than it have contributed. Ponzi scheme??
Poor humanity... Poor humanity...
He took a risk... stocks going up in tandem on a reliable basis is absolutely a recent phenomenon generated by a combination of monetary policy and legislation.
Agreed. What happens when the investor puts 300 thousand into the mutual fund and has only 100 thousand left?
poor ZH readers...poor ZH readers...
So, if he "took the risk" it's not a Ponzi... But if he hard worked the whole life, and expects some tranquility in his last decades, it's Ponzi... Very logical...
Poor, poor humanity...
Dear Zina, you said it yourself: "he took the risk". Let's say he managed his own retirement money. He could have put it in a bank, earned interest and could have easily computed at a given interest rate how much money he would have at a certain age given a certain steady rate of deposits and given a certain interest rate. Simple. There can be no arguing with that. It is basic mathematics.
But what if he wanted MORE at retirement while he contributed LESS during his life? Well then he had to invest in RISKIER investments. RISKIER means that the investments will go UP more than the savings account but they will also go DOWN more than the savings account.
Now, there used to be a time, long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, that if our investor wanted to take that risk, he could sit down, read publicly available information about a company, analyze its products, its balance sheet and income statement, its cash flows, its management, etc. and make the decision to buy the stock in the hopes that his individual judgment was correct that the company would grow faster than the savings account and that the rest of the market would recognize that as well. Unfortunately, those days are long gone. But let's agree that he was willingly taking a RISK in order to get a higher return.
The guys who managed his pension took the risk on his behalf and took very huge risks because they knew from the start that our friend was NEVER going to pay in enugh money to collect what he had been promised to be paid when he retired. So, in the absence of astronomical rates of return, the bosses knew they could never pay out what they promised. This is known as a Ponzi scheme.
So your lament about all the genius required to design a fair retirement scheme is all wasted emotion because the original scheme was fraudulent but incredibly clever because it played on a basic instinct of human nature: everybody wants something for free! So, the system was designed to pay out to people MUCH more than they ever contributed in. And it played to their gullibility. And it got politicians elected and it got union bosses elected but now the bill has come due. And, of course, everybody wants to blame it on Mr. Market. But the truth is, that it comes down to the same basic greed that motivates every Ponzi scheme. You have the greed of the sponsor. But you also have the greed of the mark who thinks he is getting something for free.
Zina,
I realize this is late but...there is no free lunch. A promise for one's retirement from one's government is as good as the government's word. You might think that the government's word is as "good as gold" or "stronger than oak", but might I ask why? Is it because of the gun they hold to everyone elses' heads? Is it the promise of future taxes on the working? And what happens when the amount taken out outweighs the amount taken in?
Poor Zina's momma, poor Zina's daddy...
There was no promise in that transaction, just risk.
As a point in fact, that is EXACTLY what Social Security is. As a point in fact, that is EXACTLY what Medicare is.
Mitchman, then what is TARP et. al?
What are billions-for-bankster bonuses?
I agree with your point, but question the blind spot/perspective in your examples.
Bi. I was only addressing a limited scope. I agree with you completely on TARP the banksters and the rest of the ripoff.
you won't have to wait until 2012.
Zina, allow me to explain the difference:
CERN, LHC, Hubble Telescope = Examples of Science, Rationality, Individual Creativity
Guaranteed future Income: Example of Science Fiction, Irrationality
Perverted logic... Perverted humanity...
POOR, POOR HUMANITY!!!!!
This austerity plan will last as long as it did for Germany after Versailles. Seriously.
At some point, there will be enough palace storming that governments will fall and be replaced by those who will not play along. A meme revolving around ethnicity will reemerge and people will begin to take a look at the curious monolithicity of that in high finance.
Some of these nations will likely be reduced to ashes in a Weimaresque implosion.
You Jew-baiters are totally full of shit. Finance is loaded with WASPs, and if anything, Jews are looked down on as only slightly higher life forms than women.
Are there unusual numbers of Jews in law, accountancy, and academia? There, you'd have a better case. But nowadays, people of all races, creeds, and levels of pretend religious belief are involved in stealing your gold.
I mean, shit... why do primitives always feel the burning need to throw someone down the well?
Disappointing Apostate. Next you are going to tell me that AIPAC does not distort US policy to the detriment of the American people and that there are no Rothchilds. Is LLoyd a Zionist?
Policy direction in the US of A is squewed in favor of the Zionist agenda. Tell me I'm wrong and loose some more cedibility.
Of course, individuals need to be evaluated by their own actions, but it is foolish in the extreme to be under attack and refuse to call a spade a spade because of some PC bullshit that got stuffed down the communal throat.
Come on Apostate. You can do better.
ps. I didn't junk you.
Sorry BI. You're a good poster but I'm with Apostate on this one. when Chris Dodd sign his name on the Financial Deform bill no one writes that another white bread and mayonnaise-eating WASP is saving his country club pals from extinction. When we put down Soros, no one makes a reference to his ethnicity. No one writes "that Kraut" Angela Merkel or "that Frog" Sarkozy. But everything that goes wrong or everything that is untoward where a Jew is involved there is always an attachment to the Jews. As if the Jews were the only power bloc in the US. Now they run Romania too! A country infamous for its anti-semitism! A country that when the Nazis invaded the locals helped the Nazis root out the Jewish inhabitants! Give me a break!
Mitchman - I lay down the same challenge to you that I threw down to Apostate;
Policy direction in the US of A is squewed in favor of the Zionist agenda. Tell me I'm wrong and loose some more credibility.
I realize it is along long story that goes back centuries, involving issues like Jews engaged in usury because Christians were prohibited from doing so, because Jews were prohibited from various types of employment, because Jews have a history of money changing going back to paying temple taxes --> Hence JC's one momnet of violence, tipping over the tables. JC was a Jew BTW. Prof. Norman Finkelstein, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Dennis Bernstein at KPFA are all Jews. People have to be seen as individuals.
But some individuals have banded together based on greed and ethnic affinity to pursue policy to the detriment of the American people. They call their policy Zionism. What is all that AIPAC money for? Isreal has become a safe haven, above the law for criminals with the proper ethnicity and their ill-gotten gains.
So it goes like this. In an unsustainable and damaging way, the economy is being propped up. If it wasn't propped up we could not engage in the wars on behalf of Zionism, against Muslims, that we are currently engaged in. The wars must go on to fullfill the Zionist agenda and so the American people will be destroyed. The Fed makes it all happen and the Fed is a foreign, Jewish entity imposed in the middle of the night on the American people. Go back and look at Jekyll Island if you don't believe me.
The longer people's ability to discuss this is supressed, the bigger the eventual blow-up will be.
And ah, people do talk about Soros' ethnicity.
I have read that Goldman helped Greece game the EMU entrance criteria. Who would be surprised if they were active in Rumania as well?
Re. Give me a break! Look, Rubin, Greenspan, Bernarke, Timmy, Larry Summers, Rahm, Bawney, Axelrod - does this look to you like a representative cross section of the American populace?
If somebody came for you Mitchman, I would do what I could to help. I have Jewish friends who are not Likudnik-Zino-Nazis. I have been at anti-war protests and found myself standing next to Jewish anti-war groups. I can see that ethnicity is not a crime. The danger you don't see is that not everyone sees with the same clearity and you are dreaming or disembling about what's really going on.
It's time to stop the rape of America.
Thanks for the response. Shalom.
Bi. Thanks for the note. Don't quite know how to reply. I think of it as two sets of subjects one being the rape of America, the second the wars and then we can tie them together.
The rape of America, I think most of us agree started with our essential declaration of national bankruptcy when we went off the gold standard in 1971. Since then, it has been one monetary crisis after another on a global basis regardless of who has been in charge. Remember that we had the petrodollar mess in the mid-70's (at the same time we had runaway inflation) which was followed by the eurodollar mess, which was followed by our 21% prime rate which was followed by the Asian default which was followed by the Russian default, etc. most of which happened without the Jews being in charge-and certainly not in Russia and in Asia (I imagine someone could manufacture a GS connection but remember that Morgan Stanley used to be a heavy duty firm populated by WASPs as were some others). But I am not the least bit happy that this cadre of idiot running the economy is so heavily Jewish and am at a loss for words as to what to say about an Africa America president whose main voting bloc (other African Americans) is well known for its anti-semitism appointing so many Jews to those positions other than to have them visibly take the fall when the whole thing comes crashing down as we all know that it will.
Now, the wars. As you know, the US has been fighting wars of influence certainly as long as I have been alive and I am almost 60. I am a child of the Cold War and of Viet Nam (I had a low draft number but the war was over by the time I was called). So I can tell you that the US has supported Israel for a long time because they were our counterbalance to the Soviet's support of Egypt (one of the reasons the Arabs were always losing all those wars against the undermanned Israelis is because they were using the inferior Russian made stuff) and the other Arab states.
I have no explanation as to why we invaded Iraq. But I don't even think that Iraq was a threat to Israel. The one time they did become a threat, Israel bombed the nuclear reactor and all Iraq could do was bluster. There is no explanation for Af/Pak. Neither country can directly strike Israel. Neither country has much of a standing army and, as a matter of fact, has much of a government to whom the army would be loyal. So the theory that we are in Af/Pak at Israel's behest has a hard road with me because I think that Israel has a much bigger threat from Hamas/Hezbolah/Iran than from anyone in AfPak. And the fact is that when it comes to Iran, our good "friends" the Saudis and the kuwaitis are probably lobbying us every bit as hard-if not harder about going after the Iranians as are the Israelis.
Let me buy you a beer sometime, my friend. I apologize in advance for typos.
Read "The Illuminatus! Trilogy", by R. Shea & R.A. Wilson, ISBN: 0-440-53981-1
Let's get some better conspiracy theories around here!
Mitchman -
The rape of America, I think most of us agree started with our essential declaration of national bankruptcy when we went off the gold standard in 1971.
That's a bit of revisionist history IMO Mitchman. There has been a debate since the founding about the role of a national bank. Alexander Hamilton got killed over this. Andrew Jackson got shot over it. Our most recent troubles began when the Federal Reserve was founded in 1913 after some late night Christmas Eve vote with few senators in attendance.
The 1971 gold default was just a more recent stage of the breakdown.
...most of which happened without the Jews being in charge-and certainly not in Russia and in Asia
The Asian default was a George Soros inspired adventure.
All, or nearly all of the Russian oligarchs, who got away with the cash, are Jews. One of them owns Chelsea FC right now. [I like Chelsea football]
...other than to have them visibly take the fall when the whole thing comes crashing down as we all know that it will.
This is the point I am trying to make to all those otherwise decent common people who are cheerleaders for Zionist agression. Like it's some video game that won't come home to bite them in the ass. It's not like supporting a team at the WC. Innocents are being slaughtered.
I have no explanation as to why we invaded Iraq. But I don't even think that Iraq was a threat to Israel.
Saddam compensated families of suicide bombers after their homes were destroyed. Saddam was within range to fire Scuds into Isreal and had enough western desert to shuffle them around in to make them hard to find. Saddam's acceptance of the Euro for oil payments put him on a collision course with the banksters pet reserve currency. Saddam was an Arab nationalist.
There is no explanation for Af/Pak. Neither country can directly strike Israel.
Pakistan can and will if attacked launch on Israel, then go to guerilla war. I'm surprised you don't realize this.
I agree that there is more to wars than the Zionist agenda. There is synergy with the GMIC aganda. There's the Bankster agenda, wars are profitable for those in the know. There's oil of course. But why do we never move beyond oil? Because it is a convenient way to grab the sheeples by the throat. Why do you want to line up with these dark-hearted characters?
You bring the beer and I'll roll a spliff.
Shalom again.
Sorry I didn't respond BI. Went to sleep early last night. I'm sure we'll pick this up again sometime soon. You make some very good points.
Forget the beer. I'll bring some spliff too.
MM - My post has been blacked out above!! I've never seen that before on ZH. I mentioned Alexander Hamilton v. Aron Burr. Andrew Jackson getting shot for opposing a national bank and our current round of troubles kicking off on Jekyll Island in 1913.
And it got blacked out!
Tyler what's going on? Is ZH censoring posts?
Update - now it's all back. Interesting.
Bringin. Sorry I missed the whole thing. I look forward to continuing our discussions. Weird what happened to you. Hang in pal.
what a great post Bringin It !
there is so much ignorance, so much fear around bringing up the subject, and yet the more the knee-jerk silencers scream, the more anger and prejudice builds. People must begin to unravel the knots of lies that have been woven into the fabric of our collective cultures for hundreds of years, and more, for everyone's sake.
the questions you raise in your post deserve to be answered, without fear nor hatred. . . not sure if this is the space though. . .
Thanks CA.
...Have you even read the Mearsheimer-Walt book?
I criticize the Israeli project all the time here at ZH. I criticize religion in general. But I'm not going to cherry-pick and just say that this is all some kind of grand effect of Zionism and Jews is totally false.
It's hard to be anti-Semitic if you live in New York, because there are just as many Jews here as Israel.
Most of my friends have been Hews. Most of my lovers have been shiksas. I'm descended partly from Jews. I know Jews are super-rare outside of this city, but here, they're too much a part of my life to bark at the moon about the Jewish plot to destroy the world.
Apostate - I criticize the Israeli project all the time here at ZH.
I know. Hence my surprise to see you label t-rav as a Jew-baiter, based on his comment.
Perhaps you should define Jew-baiter? In the not too distant past, anyone who leveled any criticism of the evil-entity was labelled an anti-semite, jew baiter. The semantics of the debate have been intentionally distorted so as to surpress discussion of the crime.
So what did t-rav say? he said A meme revolving around ethnicity will reemerge. I think this is clearly already underway.
Then he mentioned a curious monolithicity. Is there a curious monolithicity in finance? law? media? [Accountancy? Isn't that a prerequisite for finance?] How about in the USgov? Is there a curious monolithicity in the USgov? Like a pack of scared rabbits, we see the truth, but can't say anything.
It's hard to be anti-Semitic if you live in New York, ... Well then don't be. But call a spade a spade like you usually do.
OT
Tyler et al. you have disallowed anonymous postings. Is there a way you could disallow "anonymous" junking, too? I know it will be resource intensive to display names of all who have junked a particular response. Maybe you could add a tab to the user profile that displays all comments belonging to articles that a particular user has junked. This way participants can be held accountable for junking. Otherwise, this junking of comments I disagree with is getting a bit too ridiculous, in my opinion.
Good suggestions Sisyphus.
I afraid your efforts to change things will be futile, Sisyphus.
After only a day or 2 having the ultra-privilege to post (THX 1138), I agree. It's like you push, tweak, roll and heave the posting all the way up to the top of the heap, and it gets junked all the way down again. Almost pointless.
If people want to riot in the US, it's really very simple.
1. Go to Meetup.com
2. Start a meetup focused on rioting.
3. Post fliers on college campuses
4. Provide riot training
5. Set dates, publicize them
6. Raise funds
7. Achieve freedom?
So, I mean, if you want to riot, nothing is really stopping you.
Never call other people cowards unless you're willing to get on the front lines and risk your own life and liberty.
Protests happen fairly often in the US, in larger absolute numbers than in Europe. Our police forces are just better coordinated. The media rarely covers it because it rarely results in anything.
A typical protest happened down my block in Brooklyn a couple months ago. In a majority Hispanic/Chinese neighborhood, a bunch of white cripples came in with about a half-dozen cameramen from universities and other websites to protest a McDonalds manager who disallowed a blind man with a seeing eye dog from entering the premises.
The manager was caught in a catch-22 - he could violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, or he could break the NYC health code. The protesters were in favor of the ADA.
It was a totally random occurrence, probably concocted to befuddle more rich idiots and their wives to dump money on their corrupt foundation.
If we want a society with less theft and violence, it makes little sense to use more violence to achieve those ends. Revolutions almost never end well.
The Hamiltonians repudiated own American revolution almost immediately. The French Revolution created a horrific tyranny and lead to Napoleon. The Spanish civil war was a blood-bath that generated a long-lasting tyranny.
The US government was far more regressive for many years than the British one. After all, the Brits abolished slavery peacefully.
OK I'll wade in, eventhough this is hot water. Most, if not all, western nations abolished slavery without a single shot fired. Some use this as evidence that the US Civil War was not fought over this, that the straw that broke the camels back and divided the states were import/export taxes. Enriching the newly industrialized north at the expense of the agricultural south. Lincoln openly campaigned to increase this embalance. Freeing the slaves was a wartime strategy to destablize the south. Now I'm not saying I know this to be true as I wasn't around then, but even the French ambassador to the US said that Lincoln freed the slaves in the territories he didn't contriol and left them in the territories he did (or something like that).
THe only reason I wade in these dangerous waters...economic warfare is always a leading indicator to armed conflict and I see a lot of that today.
Romanian Term Limits.
How come Slovenia gets a $25 billion allowance and Romania only gets $20 billion? Romania needs to stamp its feet and have a good old tantrum about that!
Want to see the report card Slovenia got? See below. All you have to do is piss off the natives so they have a few riots, then big daddy IMF gives you a good report card.
http://www.imf.org/external/np/ms/2010/061110.htm
“We thank the Slovenian authorities for their open discussions, excellent cooperation, and warm hospitality.” Gag me with a spoon.
We Americans never storm anything. We should really start storming shit.
we storm restaurants.
Gluttony, the only sin left. Soon to be expelled with Obamacare. As Lurch said: "It's funny that so many people think that means free trips to the doctor, when it really means control of what you are allowed to eat. By law."
And Wal-Marts on Black Friday...
Billy Bo Bob Brain, I hear they impale people & drink their blood in that country. Yesirree.
"....
Obama strategy for G-20 in Ottawa: Push Euro Down: Drive Renminbi up: Attack Germany and Keep Toxic Derivatives in Charge of the World Economy
With Obama’s letter to the G-20 countries released at the end of last week, the US strategy for the upcoming Ottawa summit is clear: Obama will attempt to sabotage the meeting with a two-pronged attack designed to knock China and Germany off balance, and to prevent any urgent measures from being discussed which might roll back the exorbitant proliferation of derivatives, impose a Tobin tax on speculators, or regulate and restrain the hedge fund hyenas whose activities are ravaging the globe.
Obama, as usual, operates under a veil of dissembling and deception. His letter talks first of all in edifying terms about the priority which must be given to economic recovery and growth. He says he wants to encourage the growth of internal consumption, especially in countries with large trade surpluses, meaning China and Germany, or possibly Japan. He sheds crocodile tears about the drastic austerity policies of the type being introduced by the Merkel government in Berlin. He tells countries which have built their strategy around exports that it is unwise to rely on exports.
Much of this represents an attempt to prevent the Germans from bringing up the issues that are important to them and to the world, such as the need to restrain over-the-counter derivatives, especially the extremely toxic naked credit default swaps which Berlin has now banned in regard to government bonds denominated in euros. Obama does not want to hear about the German government’s plans for a Tobin tax on speculative turnover. He also wants to divert attention away from the European Union efforts to regulate and restrain hedge funds, which have played a prominent role in exacerbating the current world economic depression.
The other prong of Obama’s attack is his blather about the superiority of “market-based rates” for currency exchange. Obama, in effect, demands the perpetuation of the current chaos of the floating exchange rate system, which has done so much to hinder world economic development in the nearly 40 years since Nixon and Kissinger, acting under British pressure, destroyed the Bretton Woods system on August 15, 1971. In particular, Obama wants the Chinese yuan or renminbi to be driven sharply upwards. There is now a significant strike wave breaking out in China, especially at factories owned by Japanese, Taiwanese, and other foreign companies. The US knows that for every penny which the renminbi gains on the US dollar, a measurable number of Chinese export firms operating on narrow profit margins will be forced out of business and into bankruptcy, increasing unemployment and magnifying the social tensions which are already abroad in China. There is also the chance that US pressure on this point will inflame the contrasts between the elitist and populist factions inside the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese first instinct, which was to refuse to discuss matters of sovereign economic policy at a multilateral gathering, was undoubtedly the correct one. The subsequent report that China is willing to be more flexible on its exchange rates is fine if it is meant as a smokescreen, but opens the door to great trouble if the Chinese begin to make significant concessions on this point.
During the early months of this year, the United States systematically provoked China on issues related to Google and the administration of the Internet. After that phase, there has been a relatively quiet interlude. One suspects that the US was attempting to apply a kind of aversive conditioning to Beijing, most probably with the goal of inducing the Chinese to dump large quantities of euros during the month of May. The Chinese are estimated to have 2 ½ trillion dollars worth of foreign exchange reserves, of which about one quarter is held in euros. A recent story planted in the London Financial Times by Anglo-American intelligence circles claimed that China was indeed about to dump the euro. The Chinese government agency which administers foreign exchange quickly denied this report, stressing that China regards Europe is an important area of future investment and economic cooperation.
The best guess possible at this time is that the US and the British had intended to launch a very rapid Blitzkrieg against the euro in May, with the intent of provoking a panic flight of hot money out of the joint European currency within a matter of weeks, before the end of last month. In this estimate, the German ban on naked credit default swaps and on the naked shorting of German bank stocks was partly a defensive measure against this looming Blitzkrieg, and partly a signal that Berlin intended to fight the Anglo-American predators with additional serious countermeasures. As a result, the collapse of the euro has now been halted for the moment, and this currency has exhibited greater stability over the past two weeks.
The forces of economic depression in the world economy are colossal, and they cannot be neutralized without the deleting or shredding (as Germany has begun to do) of large portions of the cancerous mass of $1.5 quadrillion of derivatives that is crushing the world economy, and without a wave of debt moratoria and debt write-offs among those nations who have destroyed their public finances by socializing the private speculative and derivatives losses of zombie banks and hedge fund hyenas. Since this is not being done by most countries, the forces of depression emanating from the black hole of world derivatives will necessarily do their destructive work in one direction or another. During the second half of 2009, the victim was the dollar. For the last several months, it has been the euro. If the euro somehow gets off the hook, the British pound sterling might be the next victim. Or, it could be the Japanese yen. This will become clear shortly.
The notorious hedge fund predator George Soros is frenetically churning out his own variations on the Anglo-American line in advance of the G-20 with a series of attacks on Germany. He does not make the ban on naked credit default swaps the issue, but bashes Berlin using other pretexts. Soros pretends to be concerned about the German austerity policies, which are admittedly ill-advised in the extreme. Soros wants brutal austerity for Greece and the southern tier, but demands deficit spending and consumerism in Germany. This is the old Carter-Mondale locomotive theory of 1977, when Germany and Japan were expected to launch vast stimulus programs to weaken their currencies and reduce their exports so as to relieve the pressure on the US dollar. In an interview with Die Zeit of Hamburg, Soros absurdly blamed the entire hedge-fund induced European crisis on the Germans, pontificating: “The German policy is a danger for Europe, it could destroy the European project.” Soros thinks that the collapse of the euro may be at hand; in fact, his hedge funds have been a key part of the speculative attack, for which he has also served as ideologue. Soros thinks that the end of the euro may be followed by a new era of European wars: “That would be tragic, because then Europe would be threatened by the sort of conflicts between states that have shaped European history.”[1]
According to a recent speech by Soros in Berlin, current German austerity policy “is in direct conflict with the lessons learnt from the Great Depression of the 1930s and is liable to push Europe into a period of prolonged stagnation or worse…. The wide range of possibilities will weigh heavily on the financial markets. They will have to discount the prospects of deflation and inflation, default and disintegration…. In a worst case scenario that could undermine democracy and paralyze or even destroy the European Union. If that were to happen, Germany would have to bear a major share of the responsibility because as the strongest and most creditworthy country it calls the shots. By insisting on pro-cyclical policies, Germany is endangering the European Union. Austerity is a bad thing, but it is absurd to blame Germany for the current depression, the direct cause of which was the 2008 panic in the $1.5 quadrillion derivatives bubble centered in Wall Street and the City of London.
The G-20 should ban all credit default swaps, starting with the naked ones already targeted by Germany. A bright line prohibition of collateralized debt obligations is also long overdue, as even Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs has conceded. Individual countries should generate revenue and suppress speculation by instituting a 1% Tobin tax on financial transactions, to be collected and used at the national level. Hedge funds need to be thoroughly regulated, meaning that they will cease to be hedge funds in the current sense. So far, only Germany has taken concrete steps on these issues.
Depressions like the current one do not end thanks to some mysterious business cycle or other deus ex machina. They end when destructive policies are abandoned, and effective recovery programs are set into motion. If the G-20 fails to restrict speculation, the world economic depression will continue to worsen..."
Geopol you are quoting Webster Tarpley , nothing wrong with that but maybe you should mention it to the others :)
Yes it should be BostonTerrierOwner but its very hard to correct the nick once it was approved by ZH
Great analysis regardless of authorship although attribution is important. My sympathy is with the Germans and with getting rid of naked CDS. I note Tyler's post of Thursday where Germany, despite its strong fundamentals was one of the five countries against which the greatest number of CDS had been purchased.
I have a hard time thinking Obama is capable of the kind of strategizing mentioned in the article. Reminds me of those Saturday Night Live episodes where the Reagan character would only know how to say "Aw shucks" or to nod off when the cameras were on but would immediately launch into a fast-talking, hard-headed, detailed analytical strategy session when they were turned off.
Oblahblah is a puppet, albeit a talented one, for the guys with the real brains in the criminal outfit.
Thanks for the exposure.... You need to read the ZH manifesto.. As you have only been connected for three weeks five days...
WGT
"Yes it should be BostonTerrierOwner but its very hard to correct the nick once it was approved by ZH"
It certainly is.
The EURO buying support continues so far...
http://stockmarket618.wordpress.com
Nail on head, Nail on head
Presidential palace "stormed"? Really?
Holy fucking hyperbole, Batman!
Come on, guys, tone it down a notch. Veracity is important.
Update: to make up the difference the Romanian government increases VAT from 19% to 24%. The flat income tax remains unchanged at 16%.
Quotes from the June 24 article, Greece Starts Putting Island Land Up for Sale to Save Economy by Elena Moya, in The Guardian--
The Guardian has learned that an area in Mykonos, one of Greece's top tourist destinations, is one of the sites for sale. The area is one-third owned by the government, which is looking for a buyer willing to inject capital and develop a luxury tourism complex, according to a source close to the negotiations.
Potential investors also looking at property on the island of Rhodes, are mostly Russian and Chinese. Investors in both countries are looking for a little bit of the Mediterranean as holiday destinations for their increasingly affluent populations. Roman Abramovich, the billionaire owner of Chelsea football club, is among those understood to be interested, although a spokesman denied he was about to invest. …
In its battle to raise funds, the country is also planning to sell its rail and water companies. Chinese investors are understood to be interested in the Greek train system, as they already control some of the ports. In a deal announced earlier this month, the Greek government also agreed to export olive oil to China.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/spl2/greece-selling-island-land.html
As Geopol says, “The notorious hedge fund predator George Soros is frenetically churning out his own variations on the Anglo-American line in advance of the G-20…" Is there any doubt that a shadow government does exist that puts no value on liberty over enslavement of peoples as nations fall like dominos in the wake of the IMF’s and World Bank’s notoriously impoverishing outcomes and the growing domination of China, as in Greece?
What’s wrong with good healthy off-shoring, globalization, and “progress” with international organizations such as the IMF and World Bank...? Exhibit A: George Soros.
And the extent of the damage accumulating from our leaders’ trading off America’s manufacturing and labor base for private gain just got bigger today with the announcement of China’s mammoth Internet company, Alibaba, of its purchase of Palo Alto-based Vendio.
With Soros heavily on board and pushing Alibaba, this Chinese giant in its rush to take over global ecommerce gains an additional 80,000 targeted American business customers as it looks to expand its appeal as a global leader in small- and medium-sized business ecommerce.
According to alacra PULSE, Soros’ Soros Fund Management is now one of the top three shareholders of Alibaba Group’s Alibaba.com subsidiary; Yahoo is the top shareholder in Alibaba Group with a roughly 43 percent stake.
Riot? Who riots and for what reason. So am I to have sympathy for ghetto residents who burn down their own neighborhood when the welfare checks end? Hardly. Am I to have sympathy for California state employees who riot when their pensions evaporate? Hardly. I have no reason to riot because I don't expect anything from the state in the first place. Neither does anyone else here who's been amassing gold, guns, and groceries. If they want to march peacefully in demanding more of my money be tranferred to them via the taxman, I have no truck with that. If they do it by looting and pillaging, I say gun them all down where they stand...