Want to have a run on the Euro?

To go with the excerable video I highlighted yesterday that has since been picked up a few places elsewhere is this pdf press kit (HT @Quarsan )


Not only is it filled with ripe absurdities like this piece of paranoia,

The folder contains open files related to this press kit as well as high- resolution images of euro banknotes and coins, images of people handling cash as well as footage on the production of euro banknotes. This material may be used for publication, but only for reports on the euro. You will be asked to sign the disclaimer to ensure appropriate use of the material.

To this,

The coins... have a European side and a national side, featuring a symbol of the respective country. As such, they subtly help people to identify more closely with the European Union, of which their country forms a part.

The single currency is a symbol of economic and monetary integration. It facilitates business generally and payments for goods and services abroad specifically. The creation of the euro area in a continent as disparate as Europe is a significant achievement.  Over 330 million people now use the euro
.
Ten years on, the Eurosystem has reaped the practical benefits of having a common currency, notably in terms of the cash cycle and banknote  procurement. The benefits – as well as the lessons learnt from this broad and deep collaboration – will continue to bear fruit in the future.

To this,

Yes, you are being invited to take part in a run on the currency.

ECB glorifies 10 years of the Euro : Timing is everything

This video has been made at some cost (looking at the graphics) to celebrate the 10th anniversary over the Euro notes and coins by the European Central Bank. It must be noted that the comments section has been disabled - I cannot imagine why.

The disembodied voice is placed somewhere of the coast of the Azores, and the whole thing is just utterly ill timed and ill-advised. It makes the priceless observation that the notes are 'thicker in parts', bit like the Eurozone.

What I have learnt from this is that until the 1st of March Drachma are still legal in Greece.

Chaps, don't get rid of them now for God's sake, you might well need them soon enough.

Van Rompuy's Delusions revealed in grammar

Our president, the not so quiet 'assasin of Nations' that bag of charisma and foresight Herman Van Rompuy reveals all just by his use of tense in his speech today.

The various instances of complete lack of self awareness, both on his own part and on that of the institution he leads are legion. (Go and read the speech here if you want, if you have a clue about economics, please ensure that you are away from any co-workers, definately not safe for work. The sound of your hollow laughter might disturb digital networks).

I highlight merely this,

So the Euro Plus Pact has been made consistent with, and builds upon, existing instruments like the EU 2020 Strategy, the European Semester, Integrated Guidelines, the Stability andGrowth Pact and the new macroeconomic surveillance framework.
All these policies -- from the new Stability and Growth Pact to the Euro Plus Pact -- will work in the same direction: pushing Member States towards these reforms. Lagging countries - big or small - will be spotted by the markets and can be hit by sanctions. The time of complacencies is over. We learned these lessons, the hard way. The crisis was arough teacher.

Leave aside the plethora of failing institutions/strategies/projects/roadmaps/six packs and what have you and look at that last sentance.

Notice that it is in the past tense.

The crisis was a rough teacher

Yes, that's right. Was!!!  He, the Haiku-weilding mountebank thinks that the crisis is over. Finished. The lessons have been learnt.

'Phew' he seems to be saying 'that was tough but it is all right now'.

What he doesn't realise (OK he knows full well but wants to lie to us) is that what we have had so far is merely Grendel.

The monster's mother hasn't even arrived at Herot yet, but when she does, Van R and his cohorts will fain find a Beowulf.

Why the Greeks are unhappy

I recieved this from one of the Greek MEP's explaining why Greece is unhappy at the austerity package.


You might think it is partial, but it goes some way to illustrate the depth of feeling Greece about what many see as a German inspired take over of their country,

German indebtedness to Greece from the 2nd World War

I would like to inform you on the Greek financial demands from Germany, as an aftermath to what happened during the 2nd World War.

In April 1941, Germany attacked and occupied Greece. During the German occupation, the conquerors executed the residents of 89 Greek cities and villages. In addition to that, they burnt more than 1800 villages and settlements.

During the war Greece lost 13% of her population. That was not only in the war fields but also due to the famine and the atrocities as well as the plundering of their troops.

On the parallel Germany forced the vicarious Greek government to give a loan of 3,5 billion dollars and they signed the relative contract. After the end of war, the Conference of Paris adjudicated the amount of 7,1 billion dollars to Greece as war reparations. Germany did not pay neither the reparations nor the loan that was owes to Greece.

Italy paid back to Greece a part of the total amount of the loan that was forcefully agreed during the occupation. Italy and Bulgaria paid back war reparations to Greece.

While Germany paid war reparations to Poland (1956) and Yugoslavia (1971), Greece had to demand the paying off of the forced loan on 1945, 1946, 1947, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1974, 1987 and 1995. Nevertheless, Germany denies paying off what owes to my country as an obligation that arise from the "occupation loan" and the war reparations. At 1964, the German Chancellor Erhard promised paying the off the loan after the unification of Germany, which was realized in 1990.

The following is an indication of the actual value of the German reparations towards Greece: Taking as indicative the average rate of the USA bonds between 1944 till 2010, that is about 6%, the actual value of the "occupation loan" is up to 163,8 billion dollars and that of war recuperations is estimated in 332 billion dollars. On the 2nd of July 2011, the French economist and advisor of the French government Jacques Delpla declared that the German indebtedness to Greece because of all that happened during the 2nd World War is up to 575 billion dollars (Les Echos, Saturday, July 2, 2011). The German historian Dr. Albrecht Ritschl advised Germany to follow a more moderate policy during the euro crisis of 2008-2011, because she might have to face justified demands for war recuperations of the 2nd World War (Der Siegel, June 21, 2011, guardian. co.uk).

It has to be mentioned that Germany has profited to the tune of 9 billion euro from the euro zone crisis over the past few years, while the German bonds yields close to zero since the European sovereign debt crisis began some two years ago. Berlin's two-year bond yields currently stand at just 0.3 percent and its 10-year bonds at 1.7 percent. Six-month papers - usually giving the lowest return to investors - stand at just 0.08 percent, down from 0.3 percent just one month ago.

According to Carsten Brzeski a senior economist with the ING bank in Belgium, "Interestingly, this is already more than the recently announced [German] tax relief of around €8 billion for 2013 and 2014. It almost looks as if the Greeks financed the little German tax reform," he added (Valentina Pop, "Germany estimated to have 9 bn euro profit out of crisis", www.euobserver.com).

The old statement of Mussolini is indicative: "Germans have even stolen from Greeks their shoelaces"
I would like to thank you for your attention and to ask for your help and your understanding so to demand what is rightful for my country.

Memories are short, andthe hurt is near the surface.

Greek military sackings highten fears

In an extraordinary developement the heads of all three of Greece's armed services have been sacked and replaced with figures seen to be more sympathetic with George Papendreou's regime.

General Ioannis Giagkos, chief of the Greek National Defence General Staff, to be replaced by Lieutenant General Michalis Kostarakos

Lieutenant General Fragkos Fragkoulis, chief of the Greek Army General Staff, to be replaced by lieutenant general Konstantinos Zazias

Lieutenant General Vasilios Klokozas, chief of the Greek Air Force, to be replaced by air marshal Antonis Tsantirakis

Vice-Admiral Dimitrios Elefsiniotis, chief of the Greek Navy General Staff, to be replaced by Rear-Admiral Kosmas Christidis

Like the anouncement of the referendum yesterday this seems to have been done with the utmost of speed and secrecy.

The opposition are furious and point out, not without reason that with a vote of confidence to be passed next week this is a rather precipitous act.

“Under no circumstances will these changes be accepted, at a time when the government is collapsing and has not even secured a vote of confidence,”

Is it just me or has the tyemperature round here just dropped a couple of degrees?

A tale of two polls

I give you the vote in the Bundestag this afternoon. In which Angela Merkle amnaged to get the vote she wanted, Germany will pay on the nail (at least the last tranche of the Greek bailout). The next vote is a few months away and she has gained her breathing space. But at what cost?


The numbers tacked up thusly,

The result of the vote was read out by Wolfgang Thierse, deputy speaker of the Bundestag: 523 voted in favour and 85 against, 3 members abstained.
The result means that the vote passed with 85.6 per cent support in the house. But we still need to wait for the precise breakdown to see if Ms Merkel got her absolute majority based on her own supporters.

The problem is that there was another poll done last week in Germany by the broadcaster ZDF, which highlights the utter disconnect between the political class and the  people who, they ought to be reminded, pay their wages.

As their politicians prepare for next Thursday’s parliamentary vote on extending the euro rescue fund, a survey has found that a clear majority of Germans do not want them to decide in favour.

A survey commissioned by public broadcaster ZDF showed that 75 percent of those asked, rejected the idea. Only 19 percent supported the proposed increase to €211 billion of the German credit guarantees to rescue the euro.

This rejection was fairly evenly spread through all political colours, with 70 percent of conservatives expressing that view as well as 73 percent of Social Democrat (SPD) supporters, 71 of Left voters, 67 percent of Green supporters and 82 percent of Pirate Party supporters, the Handelsblatt newspaper reported on Friday.

 That the German people were rather confused as to what to do at all is apparant from the rest of the poll, but that is hardly surprisng given the political monocuulture that that country has had to deal with since the war.

The good news keeps coming for Brussels

Or rather it doesn't. Bloomberg have just produced their quarterly survey of their subscribers and it makes pretty dire reading.

About three-quarters of those questioned this week said the euro-area economy will fall into recession during the next 12 months and 53 percent said turmoil will worsen in a banking sector laden with government bonds, according to the quarterly Global Poll of 1,031 investors, analysts and traders who are Bloomberg subscribers. Forty percent see the 17-nation currency bloc losing at least one member in the next year.

And it gets worse

Fifty-six percent said they will reduce their exposure to the euro in the next six months and even one in three inside the region plan to. Half of all investors said they expect the Euro Stoxx 50 index to fall.

and worse

The debt crisis is raising questions about whether the 12- year old currency bloc can maintain its current form. While 4 in 10 respondents said they expected a nation to leave within a year, a further 32 percent said a member would leave in two to five years. Fifty-one percent said the euro zone would collapse at some point although only 8 percent expected that to occur in the next year.

That is a full 72% reckon that in the next few years at least one country will be forced out of the Euro.

You pays your money

The IMF crowd are down Athens way, and the EU is looking at their books again. Meanwhile they are loking at Ireland.

Here, for example is the Greek situation,

The EU and IMF left a critical audit of Greek finances unfinished on Friday saying more budget work was needed, and the government admitted its deficit target is in trouble.
Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos conceded that Greece would have to revise its public deficit target for this year, a key condition for continued funding from the 110-billion-euro ($158-billion) EU-IMF-ECB bailout loan agreed last year.

The Greek vacuum is still operating. Slightly better news however comes from Ireland,

The EU has agreed to provide Ireland with the next installment of its bailout package.


Ireland will receive €7.5bn over the next two months from the €85bn package granted by the EU and IMF last year.

The EU said the decision to release funds to Ireland followed "positive" quarterly reviews by the troika.

In a statement released this afternoon, the EU praised Ireland for making progress in the recovery programme and addressing weaknesses in the financial sector.

This isn't good news remember, it is merely not worse news. The bailouts are still necessary, and the crisis is far from over, but the shadow over Greece grows deeper and deeper. Meanwhile, what do they have that could act as collateral?

First they send over 'technical assistance'

It is one of those well worn tracks of international affairs. When one big powerful country wants to take over a smaller less powerful country. But wants to do it subtlety.

It starts with the offer of technical assistance. It is how the East India Company operated in India. It was what Kennedy described the first involvement in Vietnam. It now appears to be what is happening in Greece.

It is the provision of 'technical assistance'.

Here are some comments of Barroso quoted on Monday,

The Commission president said he had "no doubt" of the Greek government's determination to push through the necessary structural reforms. "But there are problems in terms of administrative capacity," he said.

This was quoted elsewhere on Agence Europe,

In Brussels on Monday evening the Greek prime minister, George Papandreou, is believed to have expressed his interest in this initiative. Technical assistance may also be forthcoming to help Greece to resolve a deficit in its "administrative capacity", said Barroso.

So what we are seeing here is the Commission will be sending over 'experts' to provide technical assistance and 'help' the Greek authorities carry out measures that the Greek people do not want, against their will.

The policies are those demanded by the suzerain overlords of Brussels.

UKIP predict Greek bailouts in Feb 2009

Here is John Whittaker, one of UKIP's former MEPs predicting the Greek bailouts in 2009, and predicting that they would fail.



You saw it here first