The "up-to-the-minute Market Data" thread

The writing is on the wall for Greece, surely. This is a must-read:

Germany pushes Greece to the brink in dangerous brinkmanship

Germany and Holland have threatened to block rescue payments to Greece unless the country complies to the letter with bail-out terms, raising the spectre of default and a chain-reaction through southern Europe.

German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble said there will be no more money until Grecce "actually does" what it agreed to do. "I understand that there is resistance among the Greek population to austerity measures. But in the end it is up to Greece whether it can fulfil the conditions necessary for membership of the common currency. We offer no discounts," he told Deutschlandfunk. The wording has been taken as a threat to eject Greece from EMU, though is there no legal mechanism for such drastic action.

Dutch finance minister Jan Kees de Jager said the Netherlands "will not participate" in further payments to Greece unless it secures the go-ahead from the EU-IMF Troika, which left Athens abruptly last week after talks broke down...

...The tough line on Greece reflects hardening opinion in northern Europe...

The Greek parliament's own watchdog said the debt dynamic is "out of control". Public debt will reach 172pc of GDP next year. The policy of an IMF-style austerity package without the usual IMF cure of debt restructuring and devaluation appears to have tipped the economy into 1930s debt-deflation. The self-evident failure of the strategy makes it extremely hard for Mr Papandreou to secure democratic consent for further cuts.

Harvinder Sian from RBS said the sovereign humiliation of Greece by EU creditor states smacks of colonialism and can expect to meet fierce resistance. It may be tempting for Greece to precipitate a "hard default" before the second rescue package comes into force and switches a large stock of debt contracts from Greek law to English law, he said.

It is not clear who is in the stronger position in the latest round of brinkmanship between Greece and the German bloc. If pushed too far, Greece can set off a powderkeg. The International Monetary Fund says European banks are highly vulnerable and need to raise their capital by €200bn. Many of the weakest are in Germany...

It gets worse...

The Greek crisis has spilled over into Cyprus, raising the risk that a fourth country will soon need an EU bail-out...

...While Cyprus is too small to be systemically important, its banking system is roughly nine times GDP with liabilities of €156bn, according to Fitch Ratings. This is equivalent to Iceland before it blew up. Cypriot banks have 40pc of their assets in Greece, and hold a significant chunks of Greek debt.

The ECB is facing brushfires across a string of countries. Traders say it intervened yet again on Thursday to stabilize Italy’s debt markets...

I've been left speechless on a number of occasions since the crisis in '98. But this time that same feeling of foreboding just before the original collapse is giving me simultaneous déjà vu. Based on reality.

reply to post by pause4thought


Nope,its Fu(c)kU "Euro" Shima,and the German Goverment is Tepco...saying: "Everything is ok now" without saying that the Population will die a long,slow,painful Death...

reply to post by DangerDeath


And the corruption keeps growing, but nobody seems to notice, still we get to have the remaining companies in the nation that call themselves "Americans" getting the congress to approve grants for oversea workers to be trained so they can come to the US and work for them with H1B visas. Because in America is not skill workers to do the job.

reply to post by pause4thought


You know what the irony is and what all those small countries in trouble have with the EU and the US corruption, they are all linked together, by the housing mess.

I wonder if Greece will start suing the US banks too.

reply to post by marg6043


Can a (virtually) bankrupt entity sue other (virtually) bankrupt entities?

(I also assume the Greek government doesn't want to make any more enemies. It's already got an entire population on the verge of storming the parliament. Especially if the govt. actually goes ahead with the reforms it promised in order to secure further loans...)

reply to post by pause4thought


The people are not stupid in Greece, they know that the first bailout didn't work, that another will just keep making them more slaves to the foreign funders.

Just like the stimulus in the US, two already that have no done a darn thing, now another one, the only thing the are doing is indebting the tax payer more and more.

reply to post by marg6043


I agree. Arguably the Greek government should have accepted the need to default long ago. It would have been traumatic, but more sensible than the current course of action that has made the situation infinitely worse, (in terms of the potential for recovery in Greece itself).

Mind you, from the perspective of many banks across Europe, a Greek default was unthinkable from the start.

Possibly the only sensible solution would have been for the banks to have swallowed the very large losses that would have ensued. But across Europe political considerations have tended to blind the decision-makers to the reality that the game is up. They have preferred a few extra months in cloud cuckoo land (via the various pending bailout mechanisms) over and against admitting the Euro project has failed.

Interestingly the citizens of Germany in particular have been voicing a lot of opposition to the idea that the Euro must be saved at any cost. They've realised the stronger economies can't realistically afford to keep the failing economies afloat ad infinitum.

Bend over America :

* OBAMA SEEKS TO CUT IN HALF PAYROLL TAX FOR WORKERS, SMALL FIRMS
* OBAMA PROPOSES $447 BILLION PACKAGE TO SPUR JOB GROWTH
* OBAMA PROPOSES $105 BILLION IN INFRASTRUCTURE SPENDING
* OBAMA BACKS USING JOBLESS AID FOR ON JOB TRAINING PROGRAMS
* EXTENDED UNEMPLOYMENT AID OF $62 BILLION IN OBAMA PLAN
* NO PLAN FOR REPATRIATING OVERSEAS PROFITS IN OBAMA PROPOSAL
* STATE AID IN OBAMA PLAN $35 BILLION FOR TEACHERS, POLICE FIRE
* OBAMA CALLS FOR MODEST ADJUSTMENTS TO MEDICARE, MEDICAID
* OBAMA SAYS `VAST MAJORITY' OF CEOS WILLING TO PAY MORE TAXES
* OBAMA CALLS FOR `REFORMING' U.S. TAX CODE 7:10
* INFRASTRUCTURE PLAN WOULD MODERNIZE 35,000 SCHOOLS, OBAMA SAYS

So more extended unemployment... kinda good, except by the own FED numbers, extended unemployment adds 1% of unemployment since people only go look for a job seriously when their unemployment is about to run out. (but still it'll help a lot of people) But seriously, is this gonna mean 150 weeks of unemployment benefits or what?

More money for teachers even if the education system is a big failure... doesn't matter the amounts of money thrown at it, as shown in the past. (this is a big political move to buy votes) What the education system needs is a big big big reform, not more money.

More money for the police... like they need it.

Modest adjustments to medicare/medicaid aka you gonna get screwed.

``Vast majority of CEOs willing to pay more taxes`` (Of course all Obama's buddies, GE, oil corporations, war contractors, unions businesses and banks, will still have their exemptions)

``Reforming tax code``... won't happen.

Modernize 35 000 schools... yeah considering on how that money was spent in the past, except more of the same... which will be wasting huge amounts of money on ridiculous stuff. (like an Olympic sized pool for the 5 people in the swimming team)

At least there's $105 billion to infrastructure (which is not enough).

And Obama say ``all of this will be paid for``... yeah like he never said that before. You know it's total bunk and that if it passes, the deficit for 2012 will go over 2 trillion, easily.

reply to post by Vitchilo


Actually this is the same breakdown of the first stimulus he did and it was also 400 billion dollars, now what did the last stimulus under Obama accomplished? it increased the debt, kept states from having to do mass lie outs on teachers and police and jobs for infractures were temp.

We forgot that the stimulus will include the bailout for the US postal, still, when the money runs out just like the last two stimulus one under Bush and one under Obama we will need another stimulus to pay for the same darn thing.

We are a stimulus nation now to be able to survive.

reply to post by marg6043

We forgot that the stimulus will include the bailout for the US postal

I don't think it includes the bailout for US postal. That will be aside.

reply to post by Vitchilo


Are you sure? I remember reading that it was part of the stimulus, but then again bailing out the Postal runs also in the billions. I am going to check on that one. Now, taking into consideration that no more money can be printed out I wonder from where all that money is coming from.

Got it, the 5.5 billion will be submitted as a blue print to be considered in congress, independant from the stimulus.

Thanks for correcting me.

reply to post by marg6043


And of course the upcoming Bank Of America bailouts...

Senate Attempt To Block Debt Ceiling Increase Fails: Debt Target Is Now $15.2 Trillion, Or Over 100% Of GDP

Earlier today we observed that absent immediate action by the House and Senate to enact the critical $500 billion debt ceiling expansion, the US would run out of Keynesian dry powder as soon as Monday. There is no longer a need to worry. According to the Hill, an attempt to sabotage the bankruptcy of America has failed after a Senate resolution to disapprove the $500 billion debt ceiling increase proposed by Mitch McConnell was voted down 45 to 52. As a reminder, "Under the debt-ceiling agreement reached in early August, the Obama administration was authorized to immediately raise the debt ceiling by $400 billion. Another $500 billion increase was authorized this month, although that could have been blocked if both the House and Senate approved resolutions expressing disapproval."

Surprise surprise... NOT.

I wouldn't be surprised if China slams into the saloon and bails out Greece and... hm... whomever she wants
My, my, that would be a grip.

As for outsourcing - foreign nation building is always high treason (paid by donator's tax payers). But who cares. They built Soviet Union (like in faked Cuban crisis and Cold War, and Berlin Schauspiel before that). Now they are almost finished building China and India as new world powers. Americans, and probably Europeans, will soon be forgotten nations.

We might be forced to worry about possible imminent Chino/Indian nuclear showdown (did I mention Schauspiel already?).

When the plowing is finished, possibly new nations in North Africa and Middle East.

Beware, when they start moving factories on the Moon...

Bank Of America is thinking about firing 40 000 people.

Not a big loss.

It is me or our government is actually out of control how much more increase in the debt can be done in one year.

reply to post by Vitchilo


It would not be a big lost if the ones been fired where the fat rats CEOs but sadly regular joes are the ones that will lose their jobs, I guess more welfare recipients to fall for government help.

Senate Attempt To Block Debt Ceiling Increase Fails: Debt Target Is Now $15.2 Trillion, Or Over 100% Of GDP

Earlier today we observed that absent immediate action by the House and Senate to enact the critical $500 billion debt ceiling expansion, the US would run out of Keynesian dry powder as soon as Monday. There is no longer a need to worry. According to the Hill, an attempt to sabotage the bankruptcy of America has failed after a Senate resolution to disapprove the $500 billion debt ceiling increase proposed by Mitch McConnell was voted down 45 to 52. As a reminder, "Under the debt-ceiling agreement reached in early August, the Obama administration was authorized to immediately raise the debt ceiling by $400 billion. Another $500 billion increase was authorized this month, although that could have been blocked if both the House and Senate approved resolutions expressing disapproval." The opportunity cost of passing the bill would have been an additional 10 hours of work tomorrow for the Senatorial millionaires for whom insider trading is legal: "Earlier in the day Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) threatened to hold the Senate open for up to ten hours on Friday to "dispose" of the resolution if it moved forward." As a result of this vote, a parallel bill in Congress is now moot even though it has not been voted on. This effectively greenlights the increase of the US debt ceiling from the current $14.694 to $15.194 trillion, or roughly 101% of GDP.

Congratulation,America...

Wow! Gold just dropped $40 in a couple minutes! Is this blatant manipulation?

reply to post by pause4thought


Greece is going to default. It's inevitable. They should just do it already to get it over with.