“This crisis has the potential to be a lot worse than Lehman Brothers,” said George Soros, the hedge fund investor, citing the lack of an authoritative pan-European body to handle a banking crisis of this severity. “That is why the problem is so serious.
Samassa tilanteessa on Suomi. Vaikka Suomessa ei ole sotalaivateollisuutta, Kreikan uuden tukipaketin myötä suomalaiset osallistuisivat hankintaan laskennallisesti jopa 24 miljoonalla eurolla. Der Spiegel kertoo erikoisesta tilanteesta, joka voi hyvinkin olla valtiovarainministeri Wolfgang Schäublen eilisen Kreikka-toppuuttelun taustalla. Kreikan puolustusvoimat on nimittäin tilaamassa kahdesta neljään raskasta sota-alusta Ranskalta. Tilauksen arvo on vähintään 600 miljoonaa euroa, ja se pitää sisällään mahdollisuuden palauttaa tuote, jos siltä tuntuu. Saksalainen telakka- ja varustamoyhtiö ThyssenKrupp on julkisuudessa hiljaa, mutta Spiegelin tietojen mukaan se käy armotonta lobbaussotaa ranskalaisia kilpailijoitaan vastaan. Kiista on jo saanut poliittisen luonteen, jonka pelätään uhkaavan ensi viikonlopun eurosopua. Eritoten saksalaisyhtiötä kismittää Ranskan tarjoama viiden vuoden maksuaika ja sen jälkeen voimaan astuva optio palauttaa laivat Ranskan merivoimille. Thyssen näkee tässä ranskalaisten juonen tukea omaa telakkateollisuuttaan saksalaisten kustannuksella. Suomi rahoittaisi ostosta laskennallisesti noin 6 miljoonalla eurolla per sotalaiva.
07/05/2010 France and Germany, while publicly urging Greece to make harsh public spending cuts, bullied its government to confirm billions of euros in arms deals, a leading Euro-MP alleged Friday. Franco-German lawmaker Daniel Cohn-Bendit said that Paris and Berlin are seeking to force Prime Minister George Papandreou to spend Greece's scarce cash on submarines, a fleet of warships, helicopters and war planes. "Mr Fillon and Mr Sarkozy told Mr Papandreou: 'We're going to raise the money to help you, but you are going to have to continue to pay the arms contracts that we have with you'," Cohn-Bendit said. "In the past three months we have forced Greece to confirm several billion dollars in arms contracts. French frigates that the Greeks will have to buy for 2.5 billion euros. Helicopters, planes, German submarines."
By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: October 23, 2011 ...at this point, Greece, where the crisis began, is no more than a grim sideshow. The clear and present danger comes instead from a sort of bank run on Italy, the euro area’s third-largest economy. Investors, fearing a possible default, are demanding high interest rates on Italian debt. And these high interest rates, by raising the burden of debt service, make default more likely.
new report on Country-by-Country Reporting "Exposing the lost billions: How financial transparency by multinationals on a country by country basis can aid development".
Enl. Wyplosz fokuserar EU-ledrana i alltför hög grad på att gardera sig mot moral hazard ( moralisk risk: utsikten att en part som är isolerad från risk kan bete sig annorlunda än hur den skulle bete sig om parten var fullt utsatt för risk) gm att förstärka stabilitets- och tillväxtpakten. Nationalekonomerna har inte kunnat enas om en diagnos på krisen. Stabiltetapakt och/eller nytt EU-fördrag räcker inte för att lösa problemet. EU-ländernas sammanlagda skuld uppgår till 9000 miljarder euro. Stabilitetsfonden skulle kunna hosta upp 200 mrd, IMF ytterligare 200 mrd. Enast ECB kan kapitalisera bankerna. Alternativ till ett nytt EU-fördrag: "budgetdisciplinärt råd" och ECB:s regler för säkerheter (collaterals): "The proposal is for some European authority (the Commission? Or some other body?) to take over fiscal policy in a country that runs afoul of the Stability and Growth Pact. The idea that a country loses fiscal policy sovereignty is inspired by IMF programmes. " "The ECB has the authority to decide what collateral it accepts and it could decide to only accept treasury bonds issued by governments that exercise fiscal discipline. "
By Nick Dearden of Jubilee Debt Campaign: "The International Monetary Fund and World Bank lent money to dozens of countries which would otherwise have defaulted, in order to keep the debt repayments flowing back to the banks of the rich world who had created the crisis by their own reckless strategies. Then, those countries, which benefited not at all from these ‘bail-out’ funds, were told to implement structural adjustment policies which saw industry privatised, money freed from government control and markets ripped open to competition with well-subsidised companies from the US and Europe. Poverty boomed, inequality soared and finance was proclaimed king. The same logic lies barely concealed behind the Greece ’bail-out’ being agreed by European finance ministers today. There is not even a pretence that Greece’s people will benefit from these funds.
Jönsson, Dan: Ingenmansland (Leopard) , recenserad av Morris Wikström "...om varje inköp vi gör på ett eller annat sätt tvingar oss djupare in i konsumtionsekonomins ekorrhjul finns det åtminstone en dröm om att en bra fastighetsaffär ska rädda oss ur det. Men det är långt ifrån säkert att drömmen slår in."
Azam, Balibar mf l i le monde 13.1.2012, KU 24.1. original: http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2012/01/13/contre-le-discours-dominant-sur-la-dette-publique_1629374_3232.html
Jan Hurri Taloussanomat 8.1.14Eurovaltioilla ja euromaiden muilla julkisen talouden yksiköillä oli ennen kriisiä vuoden 2007 lopussa karkein luvuin 6 000 miljardia euroa velkaa. Sitä oli enemmän kuin EU-sopimusten mukaan olisi saanut olla – ja enemmän kuin velkaisimmat pystyivät maksamaan. Velkaa oli ennen kriisiä hieman alle 70 prosenttia suhteessa euromaiden vuotuisen kokonaistuotannon arvoon, kun EU:n sääntöjen mukaan velkaa olisi saanut olla korkeintaan 60 prosenttia vuotuisen bkt:n arvosta. Nyt velkataakka on suurin piirtein puolta raskaampi, vaikka velkakriisin alkamisesta on viitisen vuotta. Railakkaimmin on kasvanut kriisimaiden velkataakka, vaikka juuri näitä muut euromaat ovat kriisitoimillaan ja hätäluotoillaan "pelastaneet".
HS 3.1.14 Aalto-yliopiston kansainvälisen talouden professori Pertti Haaparanta tyrmää EU:n talouskomissaari Olli Rehnin hehkutuksen eurokriisipolitiikan onnistumisista.
Mark Blyth (author of "Austerity - The History of a Dangerous Idea") interviewed by C. J. Polychroniou for Truthout 16.2.14 "The rise in debt was a consequence of the lending crisis, not a spending crisis." "the greatest bait-and-switch in human history"
The shocking fact at a time of austerity is that EU military expenditure totalled €194 billion in 2010, equivalent to the annual deficits of Greece, Italy and Spain combined. "Despite the clear evidence of the cost of high military spending, military leaders continue to push a distorted and preposterous notion that European Union’s defence cuts threaten the security of Europe’s nations. NATO’s secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen “has used every occasion to cajole alliance members into investing and collaborating more in defense.” "
Mike Whitney, Counterpunch 11-13 Oct: "Absent a debt ceiling deal, the repurchase market–known as repo–would undergo another deep-freeze as it did in 2008 when Lehman Brothers defaulted..." "...The same tragedy will play out again, if congress fails lift the ceiling and reinforce the present value of US debt." "Repo is at the heart of the shadow banking system, that opaque off-balance sheet underworld where maturity transformation and other risky banking activities take place beyond the watchful eye of government regulators." "Keep in mind, the US government does not have to default on its debt to trigger a panic in the credit markets. Changing expectations can easily produce the same result... when people start to doubt that US Treasuries will be liquid cash equivalents in the future" "This is what the Fidelity flap is all about. It’s about the erosion of confidence in US debt."
#1 Chinese credit rating agency Dagong has downgraded U.S. debt from A to A- #2 China's recent currency swap agreement with the eurozone... will result in a lot less U.S. dollars being used in trade between China and Europe... #3 Currency swap agreement with UK last June #4 The exposure to the 1.3 trillion dollar debt is becoming a major e internal issue #5 Govt adviser Mei Xinyu's warning that China may decide to completely stop buying U.S. Treasury bonds #6 China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange is looking to diversify into real estate investments in Europe #7 Xinhua has called for a "de-Americanized world" #8 and said that the debt deal "was no more than prolonging the fuse of the U.S. debt bomb one inch longer." #9 China is the largest producer of gold in the world, and it has also been importing an absolutely massive amount of gold ... the Chinese appear to be accelerating their gold buying.
Guardian, 12 Nov A group of Occupy Wall Street activists has bought almost $15m of Americans' personal debt over the last year as part of the Rolling Jubilee project to help people pay off their outstanding credit. Rolling Jubilee spent $400,000 to purchase debt cheaply from banks before 'abolishing' it, freeing individuals from their bills 'Our primary purpose was to spread information about the workings of this secondary debt market,' said Andrew Ross
JAK Vi måste ta tillbaka makten över våra pengar – och därigenom våra liv!!! Det har tagit så lång tid för oss människor att förstå och genomskåda vad exponentiell tillväxt faktiskt är…men tack och lov börjar insikten sprida sig snabbt nu