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Billionaire investor George Soros has warned European leaders they have a "three-month window" to save the euro...
..."I expect the Greek public will be sufficiently frightened by the prospect of expulsion from the EU that it will give a narrow majority of seats to a coalition that is ready to abide by the current [bailout] agreement," he said.
However, this would provide only temporary respite, he warned, as the German public becomes less willing to continue bailing out its weaker European neighbours.
"The crisis is likely to come to a climax in the [autumn]. By that time, the German economy will also be weakening, so that Chancellor Merkel will find it even more difficult than today to persuade the German public to accept any additional European responsibilities.
"That is what creates a three-month window."
Oligarchy (from Greek ὀλιγαρχία (oligarkhía); from ὀλίγος (olígos), meaning "a few", and ἄρχω (archo), meaning "to rule or to command") is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people. These people could be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, education, corporate, or military control. Such states are often controlled by a few prominent families who pass their influence from one generation to the next.
[Soros] said leaders did not understand "the nature of the crisis".
He said that while European leaders were focusing on debt levels, the crisis was "more of a banking problem and a problem of competitiveness".
The Collapse is the Easy Part
by John Galt
May 31, 2012 23:00 ET
johngaltfla.com...
"Throughout the recent five years of American economic, political, and Constitutional crises the world chugged along with winners and losers selected by fate and foolishness as the erosion of our modern civilization continued from within. This system crash at all levels, morality, financial structure, religion, politics, and the viability of the nations impacted from this disaster is going to lead to some extremely long term changes in the world, some of which will shock the unprepared, and kill the unaware. There is, however, some good news:
The collapse is the easy part...
No matter what we witness, what happens in the weeks, months, and years ahead the title of this article should provide some assurance that each and every day which passes now could be construed as the good old days.."
The chiefs of four European institutions are in the process of creating a master plan for the euro zone, the daily Die Welt reports Saturday, in an advance release of an article to be published Sunday.
Suggestions targeting a fiscal, banking, and political union, as well as structural reforms, are being worked out by E.U. Council President Herman van Rompuy, E.U. Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, Eurogroup Chairman Jean-Claude Juncker and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, according to the article. The plan is to be presented at a summit of European leaders at end of June, the article says.
All countries, ranging from the U.S. to China, have asked where Europe is heading, the article cites an E.U. representative as saying.
"After two years of crisis, it's finally time to answer the questions," he adds, according to the article.
The idea is to present E.U. and euro-zone leaders with a roadmap at the summit in late June, rather than firm actions that can be voted on at the time, the article says.
The plan may well mean that the euro zone adopts measures not immediately accepted by the whole of the European Union, the article adds.
Until states agree to these steps and the unprecedented loss of sovereignty they involve, the officials say Berlin will refuse to consider other initiatives like joint euro zone bonds or a "banking union" with cross-border deposit guarantees - steps Berlin says could only come in a second wave.
The goal is for EU leaders to agree to develop a road map to "fiscal union" at a June 28-29 EU summit, where top European officials including European Council President Herman Van Rompuy will present a set of initial proposals.
European countries would then put the meat on the bones of the plan in the second half of 2012, several European sources have told Reuters, including a timetable for overhauling EU treaties, a step Berlin sees as vital for setting closer integration in stone.
"The fundamental question is relatively simple. Do our partners really want more Europe, or do they just want more German money?" a government official in Berlin said.
If European countries go ahead, the steps would represent the most significant policy leap since they agreed to give up their national currencies and cede control over monetary policy 13 years ago. But the hurdles are daunting.
"The world is not coming to an end; rather, it feels as if we are on the doorstep to another major European integration move," said Erik Neilsen, chief economist at Unicredit. "But why do these initiatives only come when we are on the edge of the cliff where the risk of an accident is so much higher?"
Joschka Fischer, Germany’s former vice-Chancellor, said EU leaders have two weeks left to save the project.
"Europe continues to try to quench the fire with gasoline – German-enforced austerity. In a mere three years, the eurozone’s financial crisis has become an existential crisis for Europe."
"Let’s not delude ourselves: If the euro falls apart, so will the European Union, triggering a global economic crisis on a scale that most people alive today have never experienced," he said.
The window of opportunity offered by US recovery is slamming shut again. America’s dire jobs data for May - and the downward revision for April - confirm the fears of cycle specialists that the US economy has slipped below stall speed. America risks tanking back into recession as the "fiscal cliff" approaches late this year, unless the Fed comes to the rescue again soon.
Brazil wilted in the first quarter. India grew at the slowest pace in nine years. China’s HSBC manufacturing index fell further into contraction in May, with new orders dropping sharply and inventories rising.
We face the grim possibility that all key engines of the global system will sputter together, this time with interest rates already near zero in the West and average public debt in the OECD club already at a record 106pc of GDP.
"The world’s largest emerging economies are no longer in a position to carry the global economy through tough times, as they did during the 'recovery' years of 2009-2011," said China expert Andy Xie.
According to Michael Gayed, Chief Investment Strategist, Pension Partners, now could be a “do or die” moment for central banks to embark on easing. He said U.S. bond yields, which are at levels “not seen since Post-Lehman” days, are indicating that markets are expecting such a move, especially by the U.S. Federal Reserve.
“There has been a tremendous escalation of commitment by fiscal authorities and central banks in an attempt to prevent a complete collapse in the global financial system. Quite frankly, they cannot let it go,” Gayed said. “They’ve already committed so much time, capital and reputation to prevent the event from happening. So we could see another global ‘shock and awe’ in the monetary system driven by central banks that will simply say, you know what, we have to front-run the possibility of 2008 repeating.”
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, the namesake of U.S. rules designed to rein in banks’ proprietary trading, proposed another regulatory overhaul: this time, regarding supervision of global capital flows.
“This is a subject that has been basically ignored for 20 or 30 years now, ever since the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system,” Volcker said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Hong Kong today. “Behind this immediate crisis of the financial system, the weaknesses in the international monetary system have left these huge imbalances going on and on.”
A new framework is needed to apply “discipline” against the types of imbalances that swelled between the U.S. and China in recent years, with excess American consumption financed by surplus Chinese saving, Volcker said. In a speech later, he proposed a system revolving around “equilibrium exchange- rates” and trading bands that would still allow markets to help determine currency levels.
The world’s most-traded currencies have been set mainly by markets since the postwar Bretton Woods system of fixed currencies broke down in the early 1970s. Volcker, 84, witnessed the collapse when he was at the U.S. Treasury Department in 1973. He later went on to helm the Fed from 1979 to 1987.
“The central idea is that individual nations would direct their interventions and if necessary their economic policies to defending the ‘equilibrium rate,’” Volcker said in his speech at a conference organized by the Fung Global Institute. “One more radical suggestion is that aggressive intervention by trading partners might be authorized by an international authority to promote consistency.”
The War Business is a dead end.
Suggestions targeting a fiscal, banking, and political union, as well as structural reforms, are being worked out by E.U. Council President Herman van Rompuy, E.U. Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, Eurogroup Chairman Jean-Claude Juncker and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi...
gained international notoriety when, in September of 1992, he risked $10 billion on a single currency speculation when he shorted the British pound. He turned out to be right, and in a single day the trade generated a profit of $1 billion – ultimately, it was reported that his profit on the transaction almost reached $2 billion. As a result, he is famously known as the "the man who broke the Bank of England."
It is important to realize that put options may be bought or sold, which means that investors can take positions depending on the direction they think the price of the underlying stock will go in. In addition, buying a put option is a good way for investors to hedge. An investor with a lot of shares in a particular stock might want to buy a put option to protect against the price of that stock falling.
As is the case with any investment opportunity, put options can do damage if the price goes in the opposite direction from what the investor is hoping. This could be especially damaging in the case of those who are selling these options. Whereas option buyers are only at risk for the premium paid for the option, option sellers, or writers, can suffer limitless losses.
I'm sure george is in on the plan
For him to say this is prolly part of the pump and dump
in this case I would guess he is short.
Obama met today with unelected bureaucrats of the European Union to discuss the eurozone debt crisis. European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso attended a meeting held at the White House.
No European heads of state were in attendance, despite earlier conversations between Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Secretary of State Clinton and Treasury boss Timothy Geithner were present.
Monti names unelected government of technocrats and bankers
16.11.11 @ 18:38
Monti groomed to be Italy's new PM›
ECB man to rule Greece for 15 weeks›
The EU's 'techno party' is hollowing out democracy...
...Incoming Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti has named a government entirely composed of unelected figures, just days after a technocratic government was installed in Greece, where the presence of far-right figures linked to the military junta are raising hackles.
Monti, an ex-EU-commissioner, was appointed officially on Wednesday by the president of the republic