The Obama administration is warning of catastrophic consequences if Congress does not increase the debt ceiling, the legal limit on how much the federal government can borrow, but Barack Obama held a different view on the issue as a senator in 2006.
Five years ago, then-Sen. Obama (D-Ill.) voted against raising the debt ceiling and even spoke about it on the Senate floor before the Republican-controlled Senate voted 52-48 to increase it.
“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure,” Obama said on March 16, 2006. “Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of pour children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit.”
Failure of Leadership
I remind the president “The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of pour children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better."
I urge Congress to disregard the self-serving fear-mongering of president Obama and Pimco CEO El-Erian because we have a debt problem and a failure of leadership to do anything about it. Americans deserve better, and the way to do that is to act responsibly on a deficit-reduction package, now, not 10 years from now.
Philippe Chalmin, expert en matières premières et professeur d'économie à l'université Paris-Dauphine, a présenté, lundi 27 juin, un rapport final sur l'évolution des prix et des marges dans l'alimentation au cours des dix dernières années.
Le lait, les viandes bovines, porcines, les fruits et légumes, et généralement les productions les plus touchées par les dernières crises agricoles, affichent des écarts considérables entre le prix payé au producteur et celui acquitté par le consommateur.
L'exemple de la longe de porc, cité par Les Echos, illustre bien cette répartition et ces évolutions. En 2000, 45 % du prix final du produit revenait à l'éleveur, qui touche aujourd'hui seulement 36 %. La part de l'industriel, chargé de l'abattage, a également chuté, passant de 11 % à 8,8 %, tandis que le distributeur a augmenté sa marge, passant de 39 % du prix final en 2000 à 55 % aujourd'hui.
En même temps, la différence de prix des légumes entre le marché et le supermarché ne laisse que peu de place au doute...
S'il a vu aussi juste là dessus que sur la spéculation qui est l' "écume de la vague"...
Taxes will increase by 2.32bn euros this year, with additional taxes of 3.38bn euros in 2012, 152m euros in 2013 and 699m euros in 2014.
A solidarity levy of between 1% and 5% of income will be levied on households to raise 1.38bn euros.
The tax-free threshold for income tax will be lowered from 12,000 to 8,000 euros.
There will be higher property taxes
VAT rates are to rise: the 19% rate will increase to 23%, 11% becomes 13%, and 5.5% will increase to 6.5%.
The VAT rate for restaurants and bars will rise to 23% from 13%.
Luxury levies will be introduced on yachts, pools and cars.
Some tax exemptions will be scrapped
Excise taxes on fuel, cigarettes and alcohol will rise by one third.
Special levies on profitable firms, high-value properties and people with high incomes will be introduced.
PUBLIC SECTOR CUTS
The public sector wage bill will be cut by 770m euros in 2011, 600m euros in 2012, 448m euros in 2013, 300m euros in 2014 and 71m euros in 2015.
Nominal public sector wages will be cut by 15%.
Wages of employees of state-owned enterprises will be cut by 30% and there will be a cap on wages and bonuses.
All temporary contracts for public sector workers will be terminated.
Only one in 10 civil servants retiring this year will be replaced and only one in 5 in coming years.
SPENDING CUTS
Defence spending will be cut by 200m euros in 2012, and by 333m euros each year from 2013 to 2015.
Health spending will be cut by 310m euros this year and a further 1.81bn euros in 2012-2015, mainly by lowering regulated prices for drugs.
Public investment will be cut by 850m euros this year.
Subsidies for local government will be reduced.
Education spending will be cut by closing or merging 1,976 schools.
CUTTING BENEFITS
Social security will be cut by 1.09bn euros this year, 1.28bn euros in 2012, 1.03bn euros in 2013, 1.01bn euros in 2014 and 700m euros in 2015.
There will be more means-testing and some benefits will be cut.
The government hopes to collect more social security contributions by cracking down on evasion and undeclared work.
The statutory retirement age will be raised to 65, 40 years of work will be needed for a full pension and benefits will be linked more closely to lifetime contributions.
PRIVATISATION
The government aims to raise 50bn euros from privatisations by 2015, including:
Selling stakes this year in the betting monopoly OPAP, the lender Hellenic Postbank, port operators Piraeus Port and Thessaloniki Port as well as Thessaloniki Water.
It has agreed to sell 10% of Hellenic Telecom to Deutsche Telekom for about 400m euros.
Next year, the government plans to sell stakes in Athens Water, refiner Hellenic Petroleum, electricity utility PPC, lender ATEbank as well as ports, airports, motorway concessions, state land and mining rights.
It plans further sales to raise 7bn euros in 2013, 13bn euros in 2014 and 15bn euros in 2015.
Toujours le bank run...
Grèce : importantes baisses des dépôts
Le blog finance, Elisabeth Studer, 27/06/2011 (en Français )
Moody's est décidément sur tous les fronts.
Après l'Italie, c'est au tour de la Grèce d'être suivie de très près. Selon l'agence de notation, les banques grecques ont perdu 8% environ des dépôts de la clientèle du secteur privé depuis le début de l'année.
Moody's indique par ailleurs que les établissements concernés s'exposeraient à une grave pénurie de liquidités si ces dépôts diminuaient de plus de 35%. Ce qui n'est pas encore le cas. L'agence note toutefois que les sorties sur les dépôts bancaires se sont accélérées en mai et en juin dernier.
Et plus de détail sur ZeroHedge :
Moody's Warns Of "Severe Greek Bank Cash Shortage" Due To Accelerating Deposit Flight
We have long been warning that by fat the biggest risk to the Greek banking system is not whether or not its retains its access to the ECB funding window (it will, probably even in the case of a Greek bankruptcy through covert pathways), but domestic confidence in the financial institutions as expressed by deposits, or rather, the lack thereof. Today, as part of its Weekly Credit Outlook, Moody's issued for the first time a very stark warning that should the rate of attrition in domestic deposits (and to see where these are going merely look at the daily EURCHF chart) persist, or accelerate, the results would be disastrous. To wit: "a sustained decline of deposits by more than 35% (roughly equal to the consolidated banking system’s liquid assets and ECB funding availability) within a short period of time, would cause a severe shortage of cash among banks."
Et voila le plan B...
EU Working On Greek "Plan B" If Austerity Plan Voted Down
EU WORKING ON CONTINGENCY PLAN IN CASE PARLIAMENT REJECTS AUSTERITY PLAN
SEVERAL OPTIONS FOR GREEK CONTINGENCY PLAN RULED OUT, INCLUDING EU BRIDGING LOAN - SOURCES
ONE OPTION IN CONTINGENCY PLAN WOULD BE FOR A THIRD PARTY TO EXTEND A NEW LOAN TO GREECE
But, but, didn't Schaeuble just say there is no "Plan B"... or was that just the now traditional weekend lie to get the EURUSD to spike higher on nothing but an endless barrage of lies. In other news, here comes the (heavily collateralized) Greek Debtor in Possession loan we predicted a month ago. More from Reuters: European Union officials are working on a contingency plan for Greece if its parliament rejects an austerity program and the country cannot receive the next instalment of EU/IMF emergency loans, three euro zone sources said on Monday.
Grèce : le «plan B» de l'opposition conservatrice
Les Echos, Massimo Prandi, 28/06/2011 (en Français )
Le jeune député de l'opposition de centre-droit, Christos Staikouras, économiste de formation estime qu'il faut réduire le poids de l'État et les impôts en Grèce pour relancer l'économie.
Mais le parti d'Antonis Samaras diverge profondément du Pasok, le parti socialiste au pouvoir, sur la question fiscale et sur les moyens pour relancer l'économie du pays. Sa recette est relativement simple : il ne faut pas relever mais baisser les impôts et il faut frapper tailler plus vif dans le mou de la fonction publique et des entreprises nationalisées.
Ils espèrent s'en sortir en baissant les impôts ? Mais ils ne payent pas d'impôts les grecs... Tout ceci tourne au burlesque...
L'adoption par le Parlement grec cette semaine du plan d'austérité est "le seul moyen" pour le pays d'éviter une faillite immédiate, a prévenu mardi la Commission européenne, en affirmant qu'il n'y a "pas de plan B". "Le seul moyen d'éviter un défaut [de paiement] immédiat est l'adoption par le Parlement du programme économique révisé", a indiqué le commissaire aux affaires économiques, Mr Olli Rehn, dans un communiqué
Du côté du too big to fail, voici ce qu'on peut lire dans le Spiegel :
'The German Government Will Pay Up'
Der Spiegel, Interview De Stefan Homburg, 27/06/2011 (traduire en Français )
In a SPIEGEL interview, leading German economist Stefan Homburg argues that euro-zone members should not bail out Greece, discusses who is making a profit from the crisis and explains why he himself is buying Greek bonds. "I believe in the boundless stupidity of the German government," he says.
Homburg: A bank can waive a portion of a debt with the aim of saving the remainder. This occurs in all bankruptcy proceedings. But things are different here, precisely because of the bailout package: If the bank refuses to make its own contribution, taxpayers alone will pick up the tab. This is exactly what a board of directors has to strive to achieve to avoid being accused of criminal breach of trust.
Homburg: The alleged risk of contagion is a myth that doesn't stand up to closer scrutiny. If you share my conviction that all this talk of Greece being too big to fail is simply nonsense, then there is no reason for bailouts …
SPIEGEL: … yes, but only if you're right.
Homburg: No, it also holds true in the reverse situation. If the bankruptcy of little Greece were actually to trigger a global financial crisis, new bailout programs couldn't solve the problem: They would actually exacerbate it. If no more states or banks are allowed to go bankrupt because this might precipitate a financial crisis, then we're finished. Then the problem continuously escalates and leads to a much greater crisis.
Homburg: I wouldn't call it a strategy. First, states bailed out their banks, now states themselves are being bailed out. But there is no next level to fall back on beyond this bailout. The bailout packages have merely exacerbated the crisis. Last year, if we had adhered to the Lisbon Treaty, which prohibits assistance payments, Greece would have restructured its debt, just as Uruguay, Argentina, Russia and other countries have done over the past 15 years ...
Homburg: After the Greek bonds have been paid back at full value, the gamblers will turn to the next candidate, such as Portugal. If creditors suffered losses in Greece, however, they would renounce this business model. In this sense, the rescue measures are exacerbating the problem.
Homburg: In recent days, I myself have invested a considerable sum in Greek bonds. They will mature in one year's time and, if all goes well, produce a 25 percent return on investment. I sleep very soundly at night because I believe in the boundless stupidity of the German government. They will pay up.
Homburg: Absolutely. Greece is neither economically nor politically capable of sorting out its finances. It will never be in a position to repay the money that it has borrowed up to now. The German government will pay up all the same.
SPIEGEL: And what will happen next?
Homburg: Many politicians have also come to the realization that the path that we are on ultimately leads to national defaults and currency reforms. This process is already irreversible, but nobody wants to say it out loud and go down in history as the one who triggered the explosion. So we leave the bankruptcy to subsequent German governments and, in the meantime, throw good money after bad. Sooner or later, this much is certain, the system will be blown apart by political and economic factors. And, unfortunately, there is a great danger that, when this happens, it is not only the euro that will fall apart, but also the entire EU.
L'exposition par pays des assurances vie au papier rance grec :
Exposition à la Dette des péeiphériques européens : Gros risques pour les assureurs européens
Britain's banks will be urged by the Treasury to take multimillion pound losses as part of Europe-wide plans to prevent a catastrophic meltdown of the Greek financial system.
Despite the assurance of David Cameron that the UK taxpayer will not pay towards the latest EU bailout of Greece, Treasury officials are working behind the scenes to persuade British banks holding Greek bonds to take a "haircut" now as the best way to avert a potential global crisis. Britain's banks hold about £2.5bn of Greek bonds.
Toujours le too big to fail, l'aléa moral et le bailout des faillis érigé en principe de base du groucho capitalisme :
Guest Post: Inevitable Catastrophe - The Fruits Of Moral Hazard On A Global Scale
Of two minds via ZeroHedge, Charles Hugh Smith, 24/06/2011 (traduire en Français )
Inevitable Catastrophe: The Fruits Of Moral Hazard On A Global Scale Insulate participants from risk with policies like the Bernanke Put and you guarantee destruction of both the market and institutional legitimacy.
Identify the common characteristic of these three statements:
1. The Federal Reserve will never let the stock market decline, i.e. the "Bernanke put"
2. The Chinese government will never let property prices decline
3. The European Central Bank will never let Greece default
The answer of course is moral hazard: a person who is insulated from risk will have an insatiable appetite for risky bets because any gains will be theirs to keep but any losses will be covered by the central bank or government. The global financial authorities’ success in propping up assets (stocks in the U.S., real estate in China, banks in Europe, etc.) over the past three years has strengthened this asymmetric disregard for systemic risk into a dangerously quasi-religious faith that central banks and governments have essentially unlimited power to keep asset prices aloft via printing money, manipulation of markets and financialization of their economies.
What happens if markets crumble despite massive, sustained central bank and government intervention? The institutions that created moral hazard will be revealed as false gods, and that faith will be destroyed. This loss of faith in the transparent functioning of markets will trigger what I call the delegitimization of both the markets and the institutions which have essentially promised a permanent upward bias in assets.
Moral hazard is the ultimate perverse incentive: it rewards all that is unproductive and risky and punishes long-term investment and prudent risk assessment.
A second feature of the global central bank's moral hazard is the necessity to punish any punters who dare to bet against the banks' manipulations. Thus Fed Chairman Bernanke could opine that oil would decline and presto-magico, a "surprise" release of oil by central authorities occurs the next day.
This second feature of central bank manipulation leaves a market devoid of short sellers and thus of any buyers as markets crumble.
Once trust is lost, it cannot be won back. Once participants' faith in the markets and in the god-like power of central bank intervention is crushed, the markets will lose participation on a grand scale. The authorities' favorite game, goosing asset prices to create an illusion of recovery and rising wealth, will be revealed as a global fraud.
Announcements of future interventions will be scornfully dismissed and thus they will have lost their power to prop up the markets.
All of this flows from the very nature of moral hazard: insulate participants from risk and give them unlimited leverage and "free money" to play with, and what you eventually end up with is catastrophe. There is no other possible end state.
Et parce qu'il n'y a pas que la Grèce et que d'autres attendent à la suite pour faire faillite à leur tour...
Alors tout d'abord, l'Italie est bien attaquée...
Sur le dark pool Sigma X de Goldman Sachs, les actions avec les plus gros volumes sont les banques italiennes :
Italian Bank Trading Dominates Sigma X For Second Day In A Row Following Rumors Of Tremonti Resignation
The additional margin required for positions of Portuguese government bonds will consequently be increased from 65% to 80% for long positions. The additional margin required for positions of Irish government bonds will be increased from 75% to 80% for long positions.
On s'attend à ce qu'une banque européenne sur 6 rate le stress test :
One In Six Banks Expected To Fail EU-Wide Stress Tests
Reuters via ZeroHedge, 28/06/2011 (traduire en Français )
The first piece of red herring news out of Europe is already on the tape, after Reuters reports that 15 out of 91 banks are expected to fail the second round of stress tests: "Up to one in six European banks is set to fail an EU-wide financial health check, according to euro zone sources close to the stress-testing, as officials scramble to set up backstops for those at risk. Euro zone sources said the European Banking Authority is set to announce within weeks that between 10 and 15 of the 91 banks being tested had failed the tests, with casualties expected in Greece, Germany, Portugal and Spain. In the drive to ensure the credibility of the bank assessments, the European Banking Authority (EBA), which runs the tests and the European Central Bank, which sets the macroeconomic scenarios, are pushing for a higher number of banks to fail than last year's seven. "How many do we expect to fail? I would say 10 to 15," said one senior euro zone central banking source."
230 milliards d’actifs toxiques dans les Bilans des Banques Espagnoles !!!
Reuters via Le blog à Lupus, 28/06/2011 (en Français )
En 2009, on comptait deux logements par habitant en Espagne.
Selon les révélations du site espagnol d’informations « El Confidential(1)« , le secteur financier espagnol détiendrait pour 50 milliards d’euros d’actifs immobiliers problématiques et « non reconnus ».
Découverte lors des « stress tests » des banques espagnoles, cette somme s’ajoute aux 180 milliards d’actif toxiques déjà détenus par la Banque d’Espagne.
Pour le Boston Consulting Group (BCG), « l’évolution de l’économie ne permettra pas de générer un solde positif suffisant pour compenser ces détériorations ». Le BCG estime que les banques hispaniques ont besoin de 20 à 30 milliards d’euros de liquidités supplémentaires. Dans ce contexte, le Fonds de restructuration bancaire (FROB) initié par le gouvernement espagnol en 2009 pourrait prendre possession de 20% du secteur bancaire national.
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Prix ajustés de l'inflation :
Mais ils ne payent pas d'impôts les grecs... Tout ceci tourne au burlesque...
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