European Central Bank

"The letter has been sent." Greece formally invites the troika back to Athens sparking anger, resentment among a conquered people.

• Greek PM keeps lid on party rebellion to pass bailout vote (Reuters)
• Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras Remains Popular Despite Tough Bailout Deal (WSJ)
• Beijing's stock rescue has $800 billion bark, small market bite (Reuters)
• Capital exodus from China reaches $800bn as crisis deepens (Telegraph)
• Why Investors Shy Away From China’s $6.4 Trillion Bond Market (WSJ)
• Oil Rigs Left Idling Turn Caribbean Into Expensive Parking Lot (BBG)
• Bank of America replaces CFO in management shake-up (Reuters)
• The Financial Buzz? Pearson to sell Financial Times (Reuters)

What if Syriza were not just a particularly fluffy breed of miniature Europoodle but actual honest-to-goodness revolutionaries, ready to do whatever it takes? How would they act differently? And what would be the result? Given that the price is so high, perhaps it would be better after all if we just sat quietly, allowed the rich get richer as the poor get poorer, watched listlessly as the environment got completely destroyed by capitalist industrialists in blind pursuit of profit, and eventually curled up, kissed our sweet asses good-bye and died? Good luck selling that idea to young radicalized hotheads who have nothing to lose - except maybe you, if you happen to stand in their way as they change the world!

French President Francois Hollande said that the 19 countries using the euro need their own government complete with a budget and parliament to cooperate better and overcome the Greek crisis. “Circumstances are leading us to accelerate,” Hollande said in an opinion piece published by the Journal du Dimanche on Sunday. “What threatens us is not too much Europe, but a lack of it.”... Countries in favor of more integration should move ahead, forming an “avant-garde,” Hollande said.

Everyone seems to be focusing on Greece these days – a country so indebted that it needs even more loans to repay just a fraction of its gigantic credits. Clearly this is unsustainable and something has to give. Even the IMF agrees. But what about the other Southern European countries? Actually, Portugal’s financial situation is looking particularly shaky, and any hiccups could have serious cross-border repercussions from Madrid all the way to Berlin.

There’s one side of the story which hasn’t been highlighted at all by the mainstream media...

Greece’s lesson for Russia, and for China and Iran, is to avoid all financial relationships with the West. The West simply cannot be trusted. The “globalism” that is hyped in the West is inconsistent with Washington’s unilateralism. No country with assets inside the Western system can afford to have policy differences with Washington. It is testimony to the insouciance of our time that the stark inconsistency of globalism with American unilateralism has passed unnoticed.

There’s simply too much debt and too little cheap oil for there to be any other trajectory to this story. We need to all prepare for the inevitability that, as the rot proceeds, the people of Greece will not be the only casualties of the banks' attempts at self-preservation. They'll try to throw all of us under the bus before taking any losses themselves.

The trick is to borrow as much as you can and leverage it to the hilt, and buy, buy, buy.

With Puerto Rico missing a payment on a bond overnight "due to non-appropriation of funds" but denying that this constitutes anything close to a default, the territory may be about to retake the limelight as Greece is now "fixed." As Peter Schiff explains, this is far from over... As in Greece, the Puerto Rican economy has been destroyed by its participation in an unrealistic monetary system that it does not control and the failure of domestic politicians to confront their own insolvency. But the damage done to the Puerto Rican economy by the United States has been far more debilitating than whatever damage the European Union has inflicted on Greece. In fact, the lessons we should be learning in Puerto Rico, most notably how socialistic labor and tax policies can devastate an economy, should serve as a wake up call to those advocating prescribing the same for the mainland. 

"The European Central Bank has introduced secret credit lines to Bulgaria and Romania as part of a broader effort to convince foreign regulators not to pull the plug on the local subsidiaries of Greek banks," FT reports.

It was less than three weeks ago that, in the aftermath of the surprising announcement of the Greek referendum and the even more surprising cap on the ECB's now clearly conditional ELA, the world was greeted to massive lines of Greeks waiting at ATMs where they were allowed to withdraw only €60 per day. Following the Greek capitulation, whose sole directive was recovering access to locked up bank funds, hopes were that Greek banks would promptly reopen, and now, according to a Greek senior banker cited by Reuters we know just when that will happen: Monday.

Comments by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Tuesday evening undermined trust that Greek govt will take ownership of economic adjustments in new bailout program, German Deputy Finance Minister Jens Spahn says on ARD public television. Spahn is a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party.  “What the Greek prime minister did on Greek television yesterday irritates me."

To all appearances, at least “a new Day has dawned” for Greece, the nations of the Rest of the World, and any other members/victims of the Corrupt West also seeking to reclaim their sovereignty, and find economic salvation for their people. Let’s hope that the reality which follows reflects these hopes for a better world.

At an annualized return of approximately 20,622,184,553,370,800,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000%, Greece just gave everyone the best trade opportunity of the year...