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Ghost Dog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-11 03:23 PM
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Franco-German call for 'true euro economic governance'
Source: BBC


The French and German leaders have called for "true economic governance" for the eurozone in response to the euro debt crisis.

Speaking at a joint news conference, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged much closer economic and fiscal policy in the eurozone...

...However, there are fears that spending cuts by governments - something strongly advocated by Germany - will undermine overall economic growth.

In an article published in the Financial Times newspaper, the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, warned governments that they must balance spending cuts with measures to support growth to avoid the risk of a double-dip recession.



Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14549358




U.S. stocks fell for the first time in four days and the euro slid from a three-week high against the dollar as France and Germany said they will propose a financial transaction tax and rejected the sale of common European bonds. Treasuries rallied, while oil and copper slid.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index declined 1 percent to 1,192.5 at 2:09 p.m. in New York after rallying 7.5 percent in the three previous sessions, its biggest jump since March 2009. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index lost 0.1 percent following weaker- than-forecast economic growth in the region. The euro slipped 0.2 percent to $1.4416. Ten-year Treasury yields lost eight basis points to 2.23 percent. Copper fell 1.1 percent while oil dropped 1.5 percent...

...Germany and France are working on “ambitious” joint proposals to defend the euro, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said. The two countries share an “absolute determination” to defend the euro, Sarkozy told reporters in Paris today after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He said the two countries would propose a financial transaction tax in September, without providing specifics. A European financial- transaction tax was rejected in 2010.

Merkel and Sarkozy rejected euro bonds and expanding the 440 billion-euro ($633 billion) rescue fund. They proposed debt limits be written into national law and establishing a “euro council” to be headed by European Union President Herman van Rompuy as part of a planned “economic government” for Europe...

/... http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-16/asian-stocks-gain-on-takeovers-valuations-euro-trades-near-3-week-high.html

----

PARIS | Tue Aug 16, 2011 8:01pm BST (Reuters) - The leaders of France and Germany unveiled wide-reaching plans on Tuesday for closer euro zone integration, including deficit limits and biannual summits, but said joint euro bonds could only be a longer-term option.

Under heavy pressure to restore confidence in the euro zone following a dramatic market slump, President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chancellor Angela Merkel stopped short of increasing the euro zone's EFSF rescue fund but vowed to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in defending the single currency.

Their message was that the focus should be on further economic integration rather than signing bailout cheques.

In a further rap to financial market players, whose panic-selling this month wiped some $4 trillion (2.42 trillion pounds) off global stocks and sparked a temporary ban in Europe on short-selling, the two leaders also proposed taxing financial transactions.

In plans to be sent on Wednesday to European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, the two leaders want a president to be elected to represent the euro zone and twice-yearly meetings of the leaders of the embattled 17-nation bloc.

/... http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/08/16/uk-eurozone-idUKTRE77E1IR20110816
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xchrom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-11 03:44 PM
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1. Recommend
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KamaAina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-11 03:46 PM
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2. Spending cuts by governments undermine overall economic growth?
Someone better get our Cat Food Committee up to speed on that pronto!!
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bemildred Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-11 03:46 PM
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3. Or what? nt
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Ghost Dog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-16-11 07:33 PM
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4. Well... I agree with something along the lines of this prognosis:
LEAP/E2020: The insolvency of the global financial system (and financial road to serfdom)
Posted by Ghost Dog in Editorials & Other Articles
Fri Jun 17th 2011, 08:14 AM
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Ghost%20Dog/462
(non-copyright public announcement)

Global systemic crisis – Last warning before the Autumn 2011 shock, when $15 trillion of financial assets go up in smoke

The insolvency of the global financial system, and of the Western financial system in the first place, returns again to the front of the stage after just over a year of political cosmetics aimed at burying this fundamental problem under truckloads of cash.

We estimated in 2009 that the world had about 30 trillion USD in ghost assets. Almost half went up in smoke in the six months between September 2008 and March 2009. For our team, it's now the other half’s turn, the 15 trillion USD of ghost assets remaining, purely and simply vanishing between July 2011 and January 2012. And this time, it will also involve government debt, unlike 2008/2009 where it was mostly private players who were affected. To gauge the extent of the coming shock, it is worth knowing that even US banks are starting to reduce their use of US Treasury Bonds to guarantee their transactions for fear of the increasing risks weighing on US government debt (6).

For the financial world’s players, the Autumn 2011 shock will literally be the ground giving way beneath their feet, since it’s really the foundation of the global financial system, the US Treasury Bond, which will plunge sharply (7).

...

The detonating mechanism of European government debt

The Anglo-Saxon financial operators have played sorcerer's apprentice for the last year and a half and the first headlines in the Financial Times in December 2009 on the Greek crisis quickly became a so-called "Euro crisis". We will not dwell on the vicissitudes of this enormous chicanery with a news item (8) orchestrated from the City of London and Wall Street, as we have already devoted many pages to it in a number of GEAB issues throughout this period. Suffice it to say that eighteen months later the Euro is doing well while the dollar continues its downward spiral against major world currencies; and that all those who bet on the collapse of the Eurozone have lost a lot of money. As we anticipated the crisis favors the emergence of a new sovereign, Euroland, which now allows the Eurozone to be much better prepared than Japan, the United States or the United Kingdom (9) for the Autumn 2011 shock ... even if it ends up, quite reluctantly, playing the role of detonator. The "bombardment" (since we must call things by their proper name) (10), interspersed with breaks of several weeks (11), to which Euroland has been subjected during all this time, in fact had three consecutive major effects, two of them far from the results expected by Wall Street and the City:

1. at first (December 2009 - May 2010), it removed the European currency’s sense of invulnerability formed in 2007/2008, introducing doubts about its durability and more precisely putting the idea that the Euro was the natural alternative to the US dollar (or even its successor) into perspective

2. then (June 2010 - March 2011), it conducted Euroland leaders to start work at "top speed" on all measures to safeguard, protect and strengthen the single currency (measures which should have been taken many years ago). In so doing it has revitalized European integration and reinstated the founding core at the head of the European project, thus marginalizing the United Kingdom in particular (12). At the same time it has boosted increasing support for the European currency from the BRICS, headed by China, which after a moment of hesitation became aware of two fundamental points: first Europeans were acting seriously to face up to the problem and secondly, given the Anglo-Saxon determination, the Euro was obviously an essential tool for any attempt to exit the "dollar world" (13).

3. Finally, (April 2011 - September 2011), it is currently compelling the Eurozone to start reaching for the sacrosanct private investors to make them contribute to solving the Greek problem especially via “voluntary” repayment rescheduling (or any other form of cuts in expected profits) (14).

...

And with this fourth series one enters the heart of the contagion process that will trigger the US federal debt bomb. Because, first, in creating a global media and financial environment ultra-sensitive to the issues of government indebtedness, Wall Street and the City have revealed the unsustainable size of US, British and Japanese government deficits (20). This has even forced the rating agencies, faithful watchdogs of the two financial centres, to engage in a mad race to downgrade countries’ ratings. It is for this reason that the United States now finds itself under the threat of a downgrade, as we had anticipated, even though it seemed unthinkable to most experts only a few months ago. At the same time, the United Kingdom, France, Japan... also find themselves in the rating agencies’ crosshairs (21).

Remember that these agencies have never forecast anything of importance (neither subprime, nor the global crisis, nor the Greek crisis, nor the Arab Spring, ...). If they downgrade willy nilly today it’s because they have been caught at their own game (22). It’s no longer possible to downgrade A without affecting B’s rating if B is no better off. The "assumptions" on the fact that it’s impossible for any particular state to default on its debt have not withstood three years of crisis: this is where Wall Street and the City have fallen into the trap which threatens all aspiring sorcerers’ apprentices. They have not seen it would be impossible for them to control the hysteria kept up over Greek debt. So today it’s the US Congress, with the bitter debate on the debt ceiling and massive budget cuts, that the consequences of the misleading articles in recent months about Greece and the Eurozone enlarge. Once again, our team can only stress that if history has any sense, it’s certainly a sense of irony.

/Much more... http://www.leap2020.eu/GEAB-N-56-Special-Summer-2011-is-available-Global-systemic-crisis-Last-warning-before-the-Autumn-2011-shock-when-15_a6679.html
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