Bundesbank chief: Eurozone crisis could last 10 years

BERLIN - Germany’s central bank chief Jens Weidmann has said the eurozone crisis may take ten years to overcome, just as top euro officials claimed their response to the crisis is working.

“Overcoming the crisis and the crisis effects will remain a challenge over the next decade,” Weidmann told Wall Street Journal in an interview published on Wednesday (17 April).

Germany Snatches Gold from Cyprus

Just when it appeared the news cycle had moved on from Cyprus, the island nation came splashing back yesterday with news from the European Commission: Nicosia will be made to sell around three quarters, or €400 million (US$5.2 million), of its excess gold reserves. (“Excess?” Who has too much gold?)

What’s the big deal? ask some. When a person or nation is in a financial pinch, assets have to be liquidated.

True. But with Cyprus it’s not that simple. From the outset of this crisis, Cyprus has not been in control of its own destiny. Sure, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades was in on most, though apparently not all, of the discussions. Cyprus’s parliament voted on this and that, and ultimately “agreed” to the bailout agreement. But it was all smoke and mirrors. In the end, Cyprus was compelled to agree to a ruinous bailout package created and prescribed by Germany in consort with the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund. Now we learn from the Trioka that as part of the bailout agreement, Cyprus will have to sell the majority of its gold.

The important point to note is that this decision was effectively made by Germany and its ECB/EC/IMF allies, AND NOT CYPRUS.

Gerald Warner: Cyprus caught in proxy war between old enemies

When Angela Merkel – to cut out the middlemen – feels entitled to arrest the bank accounts of individuals and institutions in another country and help herself to 10 per cent of their deposits, then the rule of law has become a folk memory in German-occupied Europe. Is this what was meant by negative interest rates? The sheer irresponsibility of risking a bank run, not just in Cyprus but ­potentially in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and everywhere else the dominoes might ­topple, betrays the stupidity of those ­shoring-up the deluded euro project.

Cyprus secures bailout, avoids bankruptcy

BRUSSELS (AP) — Cyprus secured a package of rescue loans in tense, last-ditch negotiations early Monday, two EU diplomats said, saving the country from a banking system collapse and bankruptcy.

Cyprus—the Russian Angle

Creating a foundation to project power through the Mediterranean and into the Middle East by wrestling Cyprus out of Russian hands is the goal.

Sometimes a non-mainstream observer of the world scene comes up with real food for thought. Such was the case this week when British blogger Alexander Boot reflected on the actions of Russia and Germany in regard to the Cyprus situation.

Boot asks an obvious question, “The question is why the ECB and IMF, which is to say Germany, made this raid a precondition for the bailout of Cyprus? After all, they were more lenient when bailing out Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain. Why single out Cyprus for rough treatment?” (March 19).

Attending to his own question, Boot retorts, “The answer is obvious: Cyprus is a floating refuge and laundromat for dirty Russian money.”

Putin’s KGB/FSB Converging with New IMF Banking FSB

The veterans of Russia’s KGB/FSB were chuckling to themselves, no doubt, as Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) announced his pleasure at Russia’s assumption of the presidency of the Group of Twenty (G20)* nations for 2013. Putin’s “strategic agenda proposed by Russia for the G20 in 2013” is loaded with favorable references to the FSB. The FSB acronym in Putin’s “strategic agenda” is not a reference to the dreaded Russian secret police (successor to the Soviet KGB and its earlier incarnations as the NKVD and the Cheka), however; it is a reference to the Financial Stability Board, a new institution created by the G20 leaders in 2009, ostensibly to deal with the economic crisis.

Nevertheless, the “coincidence” of choosing a name for this new, secretive global financial police with the same acronym as the Putin’s feared agency is oddly apropos. The G20’s FSB is a shadowy financial power that is headquartered inside another even more secretive, shadowy global financial powerbase, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland.Despite repeated appeals to accountability and transparency in the FSB Charter, the FSB — like the BIS and the Central Banks whose heads compose the Plenary that governs the FSB — operates in murky opaqueness, outside the controls of the U.S. Congress, national parliaments, or any constitutional constraints.

The great Portuguese sell-off

First Greece was subjugated and forced to yield (still is) national sovereignty, now comes Portugal. One country at a time, the European continent is being captured via economic warfare. Be it the Troika  or the EU itself, all roads lead back to Europe’s powerhouse, Berlin, and it’s Fourth Reich making the capture. With the Vatican undergoing a leadership transition and possible candidate elected this St. Patrick’s Day, we could likely soon see the revived Holy Roman Empire.

Little by little, the Portuguese state is going down in defeat. In April 2011, when the country got a loan of €78bn from the troika (EC, ECB and IMF) to avoid bankruptcy, it committed itself to privatisation. But under the leadership of Passos Coelho, a model student of the fiscal discipline demanded by the troika, the sell-off of the “crown jewels” – what’s left of them, that is – has sped up.

…

Losing control of their destiny

For the 80,000 or so inhabitants of Viana, like for the rest of the country, the powerful wave of privatisation is causing a lot of worry. “Some of these state enterprises are gems, others are junk buckets, but they’re all strategic assets. And we’re losing them forever,” worries Bernardo S Barbosa, head of the local weekly Aurora do Lima. The Socialist mayor, José Maria Costa, shares a growing national concern: the feeling that the country is losing its sovereignty. In a vast room at City Hall, this engineer by training reacts very angrily to the policy of the executive: “By taking away our public assets, which are so vital, to the benefit of foreign companies, and private interests at that, we’re losing control of our own destiny. I even fear that in the end it will affect our freedom and democracy.”

WARNING: the EU Crisis is BACK and Will Be Worsening in the Coming Weeks

As the article hits out, the only thing propping up the European financial system are politicians — likely the same for the U.S., South American and Asian economies as well. This means they are the last line of defense, armed with nothing more than half-truths and artificial propping of the economies via central banks to keep the citizens nice, happy, calm and in the dark. If this is the case, it shouldn’t be long before a collapse comes. One could say a litmus test for the article would be to watch the reaction of the markets when another scandal breaks out among the said politicians, at home or abroad.

I want to issue a major warning to investors: the EU Crisis is going to get worse in the coming months.

I realize that most investors and analysts believe that the EU Crisis is over. Then think that because the S&P 500 is closing in on its all-time highs that things are fine in the system.
They are wrong.

The only item that held Europe together in 2012 was the credibility of EU politicians and ECB President Mario Draghi. Please note that nothing fundamental improved for the EU’s financial system: EU GDP has since re-entered a recession and EU unemployment has a hit a new record.

Indeed, the only reason things even looked better was because various Government engaged in massive interventions. In the case of Spain, this included raiding 90% of their social security fund to buy Spanish bonds so that yields would fall.

Why Worst Not Over for Europe: Canada Bank Official

Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney warned on Saturday against an emerging consensus among delegates at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the worst of the euro zone debt crisis was over.

Carney said that tail risks — an unlikely event which could prompt a market sell off — are “still out there.”

Germany to Cyprus: Terms of Surrender Not Good Enough

Cyprus is nearly conquered land, but as said, it’s part of a larger picture. It gives strategic access to project power into the Middle East. The Greek islands Germany has shown interest in the last five years or more also serve the same principal.

The German Parliament and European Union officials are refusing to support Cyprus’s bailout unless the country submits to further conditions. They’re accusing Cypriot banks of making dodgy deals with shady Russian businessmen, and they want this to stop.

Shortly before the end of last year, Cypriot President Demetris Christofias announced, with “heartfelt pain,” that Cyprus would seek a bailout from the EU. He said that terms had been agreed “in principle.” Spiegel Online wrote that the deal means that Cyprus “will effectively lose its sovereignty.” The “troika”—the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)—“will essentially take control of the Mediterranean island,” it wrote.

Now we’re seeing that in action. Germany’s parliament is refusing to give Cyprus the money unless it changes its banking system and cracks down on money laundering.

A report by Germany’s intelligence service, the BND, that was leaked last November accused Cyprus of creating the perfect conditions for money laundering. It also said the country was giving Russian oligarchs Cypriot passports that allow them to live anywhere in the EU.

Money for Nothin’ Writing Checks for Free

When coming from PIMCO, alarm bells should be going off.

Mr. Bernanke never provided additional clarity as to what he meant by “no cost.” Perhaps he was referring to zero-bound interest rates, although at the time in 2002, 10-year Treasuries were at 4%. Or perhaps he knew something that American citizens, their political representatives, and almost all investors still don’t know: that quantitative easing – the purchase of Treasury and Agency mortgage obligations from the private sector – IS essentially costless in a number of ways. That might strike almost all of us as rather incredible – writing checks for free – but that in effect is what a central bank does. Yet if ordinary citizens and corporations can’t overdraft their accounts without criminal liability, how can the Fed or the European Central Bank or any central bank get away with printing “electronic money” and distributing it via helicopter flyovers in the trillions and trillions of dollars?

Well, the answer is sort of complicated but then it’s sort of simple: They just make it up. When the Fed now writes $85 billion of checks to buy Treasuries and mortgages every month, they really have nothing in the “bank” to back them. Supposedly they own a few billion dollars of “gold certificates” that represent a fairy-tale claim on Ft. Knox’s secret stash, but there’s essentially nothing there but trust. When a primary dealer such as J.P. Morgan or Bank of America sells its Treasuries to the Fed, it gets a “credit” in its account with the Fed, known as “reserves.” It can spend those reserves for something else, but then another bank gets a credit for its reserves and so on and so on. The Fed has told its member banks “Trust me, we will always honor your reserves,” and so the banks do, and corporations and ordinary citizens trust the banks, and “the beat goes on,” as Sonny and Cher sang. $54 trillion of credit in the U.S. financial system based upon trusting a central bank with nothing in the vault to back it up. Amazing!

Spain Plunders 90% Of Social Security Fund To Buy Its Own Debt

With Spanish 10Y yields hovering at a ‘relatively’ healthy 5%, having been driven inexorably lower on the promise of ECB assistance at some time in the future, the market has become increasingly unsure of just who it is that keeps bidding for this stuff. Well, wonder no longer. As the WSJ notes, Spain has been quietly tapping the country’s richest piggy bank, the Social Security Reserve Fund, as a buyer of last resort for Spanish government bonds - with at least 90% of the €65 billion ($85.7 billion) fund has been invested in increasingly risky Spanish debt. Of course, this is nothing new, the US (and the Irish) have been using quasi-government entities to fund themselves in a mutually-destructive circle-jerk for years – the only difference being there are other buyers in the Treasury market, whereas in Spain the marginal buyer is critical to support the sinking ship. The Spanish defend the use of pension funds to buy bonds as sustainable as long as it can issue bonds – and yet the only way it can actually get the bonds off in the public markets is through using the pension fund assets. The pensioners sum it up perfectly “We are very worried about this, we just don’t know who’s going to pay for the pensions of those who are younger now,” or those who are older we would add.

Via Wall Street Journal: Spain Drains Pension Fund In Borrowing Spree

Spain has been quietly tapping the country’s richest piggy bank, the Social Security Reserve Fund, as a buyer of last resort for Spanish government bonds, raising questions about the fund’s role as guarantor of future pension payouts.