Englund

Borgarna vann kampen mot socialismen Socialdemokraterna vann kampen för välfärdsstaten Ställningen är 1-1. Game Over? The End of History ? Det som återstår är frågan om Sverige skall bestå som en självständig nation eller bli en delstat inom den stat som nu bildas under namnet Europeiska Unionen , Gott Nytt År?

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Source   The US fiscal cliff - BBC The most likely outcome, in my view, is a minute-to-midnight fiscal cliff compromise, with lawmakers loudly claiming victory along partisan lines, while covertly agreeing to delay any fundamental decisions about how to tackle America’s perilous fiscal future. I would also predict, though, that investor angst over the cliff is rapidly replaced by concern about the US “debt ceiling” and that the current dispute turns out to be just a dress rehearsal for a much more serious row – one that really could destabilise global markets.  The inconvenient truth is that the US will also hit its federal borrowing limit on the first day of 2013 – leaving just a few weeks of “extraordinary measures” before an agreement on that is also required.  The Republicans may try to use the debt ceiling to force more spending cuts, as they did during a lengthy stand-off in early 2012.  Liam Halligan, Teleg...

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EU Summit Reveals a Paralyzed Continent - SPIEGEL ONLINE

Rebellkoalitionen, som kallas Seleka, rapporteras ha intagit Kaga-Bandoro och kommer allt närmare huvudstaden Bangui i söder, nära gränsen till Kongo-Kinshasa. Kago-Bandoro är dem femte staden som rebellerna intagit. Armén i Centralafrikanska republiken är dåligt utrustad, underbetald och dåligt organiserad. Den tidigare franska kolonin har en av de fattigaste befolkningarna i världen trots rikedom på mineraler, bland annat guld- och diamantfyndigheter. Ekot 26 december 2012 http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralafrikanska_republiken

For as the chart below clearly shows, the Fed actions have removed an enormous amount of interest income from the economy. In fact, it has removed over $100 bln more in interest income than the total net gain in private wages and salaries since it began undertaking these extraordinary measures. Followers of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) know why this is true: Quantitative easing is nothing more than an asset swap. The Fed removes one asset - a Treasury, for example - and replaces it with a cash balance (reserves) in the banking system. The result is that the private sector is stripped of the interest it would have earned on that Treasury, which is more than the zero-percent it earns on cash balances.  Ja, och bankerna får låna till nästan noll i riksbanken och kan öka sina vinster och bonusarna är säkrade. Läs mer här Read more: http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2012/12/what-stimulus-fed-actions-completely.html#ixzz2G6dcqJdM

Ekot 25 december 2012

Det är en seriös, faktarik och tänkvärd artikel som sammanfattar mycket av det som sagts om Palme i böcker, artiklar och teaterpjäser. Det var problematiskt att Sverige, när det hettade till mellan supermakterna i början av 80-talet, kom att inta positioner som aldrig någonsin tidigare legat så nära de sovjetiska. - Palme blev antiantikommunist, skrev Claes Arvidsson i SvD Under Strecket den 23 december 2012 Läs mer här Det påminner mig om den gamla historien om svensken som försökte lugna en upprörd Texas-bo, inte Bush, som var av den bestämda uppfattningen att Palme var kommunist. - Palme är inte kommunist. Palme är anti-kommunist. - I don´t care what sort of communist he is.

Löfven förklarar SD:s marsch till positionen som Sveriges tredje största parti med regeringens ekonomiska politik. – Jag vill vara väldigt tydlig med det. Om man skapar ett samhälle med ökade klyftor och större social otrygghet, då lägger man grunden för den här typen av partier. De allra flesta människor som säger sig sympatisera med SD är inte främlingsfientliga i grunden, men många av dem är rädda och oroliga när det gäller jobben. Han anser också att Miljöpartiet bidragit till situationen genom att skapa en migrationspolitisk uppgörelse med regeringen som ökat arbetskraftsinvandringen från länder utanför EU med cirka 10.000 personer per år. – Det underlättar inte problemet. Löfven: Ökade klyftor grund för SD-framgång - DN.SE

Svenskar terroranklagade i USA - Ekot

David Rosenberg 2013 Investment Outlook - Business Insider

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Inflation rocks, but it could spur a bond market crash - Telegraph

This paper is just the latest to come from Henshilwood and his teams' research on African archaeology that revolutionised the idea that modern human behaviour originated in Europe after about 40,000 years ago. There is increasing evidence for an African origin for behavioural and technological modernity more than 70,000 years ago and that the earliest origin of all Homo sapiens lies in Africa with a special focus in southern Africa. Africa's Homo sapiens were the first techies

FT 14 December 2012   For 20 years now, central bankers have targeted inflation alone. A quiet revolution is sweeping over central banks.   The past five years have led central banks to a revolutionary situation.  Fed said it would keep interest rates close to zero until the US unemployment rate falls below 6.5 per cent.    A day earlier, Mark Carney, soon-to-be governor of the Bank of England, became the most senior central banker to praise an even more radical policy: targeting the level of nominal gross domestic product. People have been known to bet on when Samuel Brittan would write his next column on nominal GDP targeting Did inflation targeting fail?  Central banks have mostly escaped blame for the crisis.  How can it have gone so wrong?   Martin Wolf, Financial Times, May 5 2009 Read all about it - here

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För svensk smak är idéerna alltför långtgående. De skulle leda till minskad nationell makt över budget- och finanspolitiken och på lång sikt ett slags gemensamt finansdepartement och gemensam budget för euroländerna. - Det görs utan att vara vare sig färdigdiskuterat eller förankrat, sade statsminister Fredrik Reinfeldt efter ett samråd med riksdagens EU-nämnd. Finansminister Anders Borg upprepade där att Sverige inte under överskådlig tid tänker gå med i den kommande unionen och varnar för att den kompromiss som mötet hoppas nå inte kommer att leda till en bra union. - Vi kommer förmodligen fram till en lösning på bankunionen i dag och det är en tråkig dag för Europa. Det betyder att Europa är mer delat än vad vi var i går, sade Borg. SvD Näringsliv 12-12-12 Full text Reinfeldt Anders Borg Bankunion Federalism  

De Facto Loss of Sovereignty Cyprus Makes Big Concessions for Bailout "With the goal of minimizing the cost to taxpayers, bank shareholders and junior debt holders will take losses before state-aid measures are granted," In return for billions of euros for the debt-ridden country from the European bailout fund, the "troika," made up of the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), will essentialy take control of the Mediterranean island. The negotiations produced the draft version of a 30-page Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), in which the troika dictates to Cyprus what steps it will have to take in the coming years, down to the smallest detail. President Christofias left no doubt as to who he blames for the disaster, saying: "It's true that the decisions of bank executives and the miserable control by the Cypriot central bank have cost Cyprus billions of euros." The amoun...

Does this have something to do with the debt ceiling? http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/21/fiscal-cliff-for-dummies-bush-tax-cuts-sequester-more-explained.html

The nation is richer than Germany in per capita terms, with some €9 trillion of private wealth. It has the biggest primary budget surplus in the G7 bloc. Its combined public and private debt is 265pc of GDP, lower than in France, Holland, the UK, the US or Japan. Italy has only one serious economic problem. It is in the wrong currency Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, 10 Dec 2012

Europe must stay the austerity course Structural reforms are helping rebalance the economy The eurozone is living through lean times, but there is light at the end of the tunnel Olli Rehn, Financial Times December 10, 2012 The strategy of triple-barrelled contraction across a string of inter-linked countries has been the greatest policy debacle since the early 1930s Like the generals of the First World War, Europe’s leaders seem determined to send wave after wave of their youth into the barbed wire of tight money, bank deleveraging, and fiscal austerity a l’outrance. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, 9 Dec 2012

 Romarrikets medborgare­ kunde röra sig fritt och utnyttja den blomstrande, penningbaserade handeln på städernas torg, medan det krävdes särskilt tillstånd (och ibland övervakning av beväpnade vakter) för barbarer utifrån som ville korsa gränsen för att sälja sina varor på de romerska marknaderna – en bild som man nästan känner igen från vår tids fria handel inom EU.   Romarna byggde murar för att hålla barbarerna ute | National Geographic

At the end of this month, the so-called Transaction Account Guarantee programme, which the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation introduced as a supposedly “temporary” measure during the height of the 2008 financial panic, is finally scheduled to end. Watch out for the second US cliffhanger - FT.com

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Föreställningen att riktiga statsmän ritar om kartan är en av orsakerna till att EEC via EG och EU är på väg att bli Europas Förensta Stater, ett nytt romerskt rike där tidigare självständiga stater blir provinser. Här ett exempel ur historien Läs mer här EU och Rom Rom-fördraget, heter det ju.

"Spain requests €39.5bn bank bail-out, but no state rescue"  Pengarna skall gå till den spanska bankstödsnämnden, typ. EU och Spanien låtsas att denna spanska myndighet inte ingår i staten, ha, ha, ha och att Spanien därför inte har begärt statsstöd som Irland, Grekland och Portugal. Skall man skratta, gråta eller bara sucka? http://www.nejtillemu.com/spanien.htm#1212badbank   

EU's receiving the Nobel Peace prize  Nigel Farage summarizes his surprise This brief clip succinctly reminds us of all that is wrong with the European Union and its ineptocracy as they assemble the EUSSR. zerohedge Tyler Durden 11/30/2012 You thought the whole 'EUSSR' thing was over the top?  Have a look at this poster   Daniel Hannan, October 19th, 2012

European Court to Rule Over ECB’s Secret Greek File A court will decide tomorrow whether the European Central Bank should release files on how Greece used derivatives to hide its debt Bloomberg, Nov 28, 2012 Bloomberg News sued the ECB in December 2010 to obtain the documents under European Union freedom-of-information rules. The papers may illuminate the role the central bank played as Greece covered up its deficit for almost a decade before seeking a 240 billion-euro ($311 billion) bailout and the biggest debt restructuring in history. Full text Han som då var chef för Greklands motsvarighet rill Riksgälden, var den som talade hos SNS och förklarade att allt var på rätt väg, och som jag då skrattade åt helt ostentativt. om uttrycket tillåts.  Papanicolaou and his predecessor, Christoforos Sardelis, revealing details for the first time of a contract that helped Greece mask its growing sovereign debt to meet European Union requirements Bloomberg, 6 March 2012 ...

Masters of Money is a three part BBC Documentary (2012). Stephanie begins by looking at John Maynard Keynes. Many argue only Winston Churchill had a greater impact on British life than Keynes over the last century.  Even today his ideas remain crucial to one of the most important debates of our time: how can we escape from the economic crisis? Should governments borrow and spend their way out of trouble or slash spending and reduce the national debt? With contributions from some of the world's leading economic thinkers including a Nobel laureate and the governor of the Bank of England, Stephanie Flanders argues Keynes has never been more relevant or controversial than now.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7WDzL1hjqQ

Vi har glömt det nu – och då det begav sig försvann alltsammans i allmän segeryra och Europaretorik. Men Mitterrand fick Helmut Kohl att ge upp den tyska D-marken i utbyte mot den europeiska euron.   Det skriver Richard Swartz i en kolumn i DN i dag den  24 november 2012 Richard Swartz utelämnar dock något som är viktigt om det är sant, vilket det förmodligen är. In Strasbourg on Dec. 9, 1989, after the Berlin Wall fell, Germany agreed to monetary union in order to get President Mitterand to agree to German reunification , Den franske presidenten Mitterrand ställde då ett ultimatum: för att acceptera ett tyskt enande var landet tvunget att ge upp sin D-mark och gå med på ett stärkt EU-samarbete.    Tyskland ville egentligen inte ha en gemensam valuta, men accepterade samarbetet på villkor att det inte fick drag av en traditionell valutaunion. Peter Wolodarski, Signerat DN 21 augusti 2011

Jeremy Warner, Telegraph 22 Nov 2012: Last year, Hewlett-Packard, the world’s largest PC manufacturer, coughed up a humongous $11.1 billion to buy the British software company Autonomy. Even at the time, HP was widely thought to have wildly overpaid, but by how much only became apparent this week, when the firm wrote off more than three quarters of the purchase price. In the process, HP claimed that it had been deliberately sold a pup – the books had been wilfully cooked, it alleged, to make profits seem higher than they really were. On one level, this is just another case of caveat emptor. But it was not as simple as this. One of the most shocking aspects of Autonomy’s alleged heist was the extraordinary array of top-drawer investment bankers, accountants, lawyers and general hangers-on who managed to extract a fee from it. In total, these advisory fees amounted to close on $100 million – this for the Autonomy buy-out which, whether frau...

Vem räddar Europas räddare? | Cervenkas pengar SvD Näringsliv 21 november 2012 EFSF, PCRM, ESM och Näst Högsta Domstolen    http://englundmacro.blogspot.se/2010/12/efsf-pcrm-esm-och-nast-hogsta-domstolen.html

Plan utan strategi - DN.SE

El Pais has the report on a speech by Josep Borrell, former President of the European Parliament, in which he said Europe was in a "general breakdown process" and much of the rationale for European integration has been lost. He said the five drivers for European integration were WW II, the reconciliation of France and Germany, the Soviet threat, the fall of the Berlin wall and globalization. Only the latter remains. He said it is less clear that the EU still brings the hoped-for economic benefits. He said worst of all, the crisis has led to an “everyone to himself” mentality, including in Spain. Eurointellience 22 November 2012

di.se - Göran Persson: Sverige mer skuldsatt än Italien

 Mr. Juncker told a post-meeting press conference the target would be moved to 2022, prompting Ms Lagarde to insist the IMF was sticking to the original timeline. When Mr Juncker again insisted it would be moved – “I’m not joking,” he said – Ms Lagarde appeared exasperated, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. EU-IMF Feud Erupts Over Greek Debt - Europe Business News - CNBC “We clearly have different views,” she said. Daily Telegraph och Financial Times 13 November 2012 Very nice pic

Financial Times could be sold by Pearson for £1bn - Telegraph

The Bailout Of Russian “Black Money” In Cyprus zerohedge 11/04/2012 Timing couldn’t have been worse. Or more opportune. A “secret” report by the German version of the CIA, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), bubbled to the surface, asserting that the pending bailout of Cyprus would use the money of taxpayers in other countries, particularly in Germany, to bail out mostly rich Russians who have over the years deposited their “black money” in Cypriot banks that are now collapsing. Wolf Richter   www.testosteronepit.com    www.amazon.com/author/wolfrichter Zypern verhandelt mit den Euro-Partnern über ein Milliarden-Rettungspaket - doch von der Hilfe könnten ausgerechnet Banken profitieren, die auf der Insel große Summen russischen Schwarzgelds verwalten. In Deutschland formiert sich Widerstand. Euro-Krise: Zypern will ESM-Milliarden trotz Schwarzgeld aus Russland - SPIEGEL ONLINE Mer om Cypern

Eurozone policy makers destroying prosperity | Bill Mitchell – billy blog

Why the Economic Outlook for Spain Is Positively Dismal | TIME.com

A man with the vision to lead the Bank of England forward - Telegraph

Last week I asked how it could be, that somebody who was pessimistic about the eurozone six months ago could be optimistic today? If you always thought it was just a liquidity crisis, you should not have been worried then, and you would be right to be optimistic now. If you thought of it as a solvency crisis, as I did, you should still be worried now. Why I remain a pessimist on Europe’s solvency - FT.com

BBC News - Debt and the crisis: How did governments get it so wrong?

ECB investigating if loans made to Spanish banks contravened rules - Telegraph

Zerohedge http://www.internetional.se/houseprices.htm  

The Irish have two trying years behind them. Since November 2010, when Ireland requested and received financial assistance from the European Financial Stability Facility, it has enacted each of the reforms that the Eureopan Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund required as conditions for the 85-billion-euro bailout ($109 billion). The country is being hailed as a "model student" for having fulfilled every condition of the international lenders. As of this past summer, Ireland has once more been able to take on debt through public bond auctions, and by the end of next year the country should be on track for full reintegration into capital markets. "We should never forget the sacrifices made by the citizens of countries that push through such reforms," Merkel said. "That's why I'd simply like to say thank you to Ireland for taking that path. It makes all of us stronger." Still, Ireland has a sluggish economic...

Euron | Nya Moderaterna torsdag, juni 28, 2012 http://www.nejtillemu.com/moderatmeny.htm

 The European debt crisis and related austerity measures continue to drive up unemployment across the euro zone. In September, according to statistics released on Wednesday, fully 18.5 million people were without work in the common currency area, more than ever before. Euro-Zone Unemployment Rises in September to Highest Level Ever - SPIEGEL ONLINE

T he Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and Kin – The 5-Star Admirals Who Won the War at Sea , by Walter Borneman, Little, Brown, RRP$29.99/£23, 560 pages   The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today , by Thomas Ricks, Penguin, RRP$32.95/£25, 576 pages Tales of war - FT.com

 Under de senaste tjugo åren har Italiens BNP vuxit med ynka 1 procent om året. Italien - på gränsen till ekonomiskt sammanbrott - Opinion - Sydsvenskan-Nyheter Dygnet Runt Italien

THE current financial crisis is merely a severe example of the panics and crashes that have dotted economic history. Lenders and borrowers have regularly overestimated the latter’s ability to repay their debts; when the truth becomes clear, banks collapse and confidence in the financial system deteriorates. As Scott Reynolds Nelson shows in his history of American financial crises, there have been many parallels with recent events. The subprime loans that sparked the current crisis were modern versions of the promissory notes, bills of exchange and bankers’ acceptances that were used in the past; all are “promises to repay”. Such promises are easy to make in a boom but harder to keep when times change. Economic history: A dance to the music of debt | The Economist

In the euro area as a whole, the amount of credit outstanding has fallen to levels lower than they were a year ago, according to figures released last week by the European Central Bank. In some countries within the euro zone, including Italy and Spain, credit is falling at a faster rate now than it did during the first crisis. In Europe, a Repeat of the Credit Crisis - NYTimes.com

U.S. employers added 171,000 jobs in October and hiring was stronger over the previous two months than first thought. The unemployment rate inched up to 7.9 percent from 7.8 percent in September because the work force grew. The rate ticked up because more people without jobs started looking for work. The government only counts people as unemployed if they are actively searching. Unemployment Report: Final Fodder for Election - U.S. Election 2012 - CNBC

There was a time, not that long ago, when it was the economy that drove asset prices such as equity and real estate valuations. Today, the causation is viewed, even in policy circles, as running in the opposite direction. It is asset prices that now drive the economy. When markets drive the economy, cash flow is king - FT.com A stock market bubble exists when the value of stocks has more impact on the economy than the economy has on the value of stocks. John H. Makin AEI, Economic Outlook, November, 2000-11-09  

Skattepolitik och samhällsfilosofi: Kreditexpansionen ökade penningmängden med 6 procent årligen under 30 år i USA

The old system of free-floating sovereign exchange rates wouldn’t have prevented austerity, all other things being equal. But what it would have done is allowed the periphery to mitigate the damage through quantitative easing and through the very rapid restoration of competitiveness that devaluation would have brought about. Devaluation would also have greatly reduced external indebtedness. The creditor would have been made to take the bad debt writedown through the exchange rate. The euro is heading for a permanent state of depression - Telegraph

Banking may lose its allure for the best and brightest - FT.com

  För mycket åtstramning och för lite fokus på möjligheterna att växa ur krisen. Så lyder den hårda dom som kritiker riktar mot EU:s krishantering. I stället efterlyses ekonomiska stimulansåtgärder i form av mer pengar, mer tid och mindre svångrem. Om EU ska återvinna förtroendet för euron finns dock knappast någon genväg förbi sanering av statsfinanser och strukturreformer i krisländerna. Detta utgör inte heller något hinder för EU att sätta ekonomisk tillväxt i fokus. Det behövs en ny långsiktig inriktning bort från jordbruks- och regionalstöd till forskning och framtid. EU:s beslutmaskineri håller på att braka ihop på grund av fartblindhet och överbelastning. Krisen är inte över på många år. Hög tid för EU att göra ingenting i krispolitiken | SvD Kommentar av Rolf Englund: Hur kan någon tro att krisländernas folk kommer att acceptera att ha det så här i ytterligare "många år"?

Sverige tillhör nettobetalarna i EU. Avgiften till EU:s budget uppgår till drygt 30 miljarder kronor per år. Utslaget på 10 miljoner svenskar blir det 3000 kronor per person och år. Sverige har dessutom en rabatt på 15 miljarder kronor som ska räknas av. I det perspektivet finns det betydligt värre saker att h Plöj inte ner miljarder euro i gamla fåror | SvD

New debt forecasts dash Greece hopes The magnitude of Greece’s fiscal challenge was painted in sharp relief yesterday as Athens unveiled new budget projections exceeding the worst-case scenarios envisioned by international lenders when they agreed an €174bn rescue eight months ago. Financial Times, October 31st, 2012 The German bloc will have to take its bitter medicine in Greece Ambrose,  October 31st, 2012 Every detail of the Greek economy is worse than officially forecast just weeks ago. The budget unveiled this morning estimates that public debt will reach 189pc of GDP next year (not 179pc). The budget deficit will be 5.2pc (not 4.2pc). The economy will shrink 4.5pc next year (not 3.8pc). Unemployment is already 25.1pc and 55.6pc for youth. Just for the record: The EU-IMF Troika originally said that the economy would contract by just 2.6pc in 2010, before growing by 1.1pc in 2011, and 2.1pc in 2012. In fact Greek GDP contracted by 4.5pc in 2010, 6.9pc i...

EU budget: who pays what and how it is spent - Telegraph

Självklar rätt till asyl - DN.SE Ingen borde vara förvånad över att människor flyr från Syrien, skriver DN. Men att dom flyr till Sverige, som inte alls gränsar till Syrien, är det som bör förklaras.

Frankenstorm Poses ‘Worst Case Scenario’ - US Business News - CNBC See also Cataclysm

Jag har länge trott att eurons skulle bryta samman i Spanien . Alla talar om Spanien och Grekland och Italien. Ingen verkar bry sig om det lilla Portugal. Landet hade en textilindustri som har flyttat till Asien. Vad har dom nu och i framtiden? “There are signs aplenty of adjustment fatigue,”IMF said. “With unemployment high and real disposable incomes falling for several quarters in a row already, the announcement of further austerity measures to underpin the 2013 budget is testing the broad-based political and social consensus that has buttressed the program to date.”  Bloomberg, Oct 25, 2012 Observera att jag skriver "utlöser" eurons sammanbrott, inte förorsakar således. Euron kommer att kollapsa därför att det var en felaktig tanke.

Johan Schück är intressant, i en viss mening. Jag skrev om honom tidigare på denna blog 2012-02-04 Johan Schück är en kompetent ekonom och en kompetent journalist. Han är också för en svensk anslutning till EMU, som sig bör för en folkpartist, och har varit det länge och dragit sig strå till Ja-sägarnas stack. Johan Schück är ovanligt lämplig som studieobjekt för den framtida forskningen inom flera vetenskapsområden, ekonomi, statskunskap, psykologi och sociologi för att nämna några. Forskarna kommer att ha till uppgift att förklara hur det kom sig att så många i det ledande skiktet i Europas länder kom att vara för det redan nu misslyckade fullskaleexperiment, eller rättare sagt vågspel, som EMU och euron innebar. Kronkrigarna från valutafronten firar. Poltavaföreningen höll möte, skrev Carl A Hamilton i en legendarisk artikel i Aftonbladet 22/11 2002 . Nu tio år senare var det dags igen för Poltavaföreningen att fira sin seger hösten 1992. Poltavaföreningens hovreport...

Ja-sägarna vägrar dra den uppenbara slutsatsen av vad de själva säger.  EMU var ingen bra idé. – De spanska fackföreningarna känner en oerhörd frustration över att det inte finns någon som kan visa vägen hur de ska komma ur den här jättedjupa krisen, säger LO:s nye ordförande Karl-Petter Thorwaldsson, som är i Bryssel med anledning av Europafackets styrelsemöte som äger rum i samband med EU-toppmötet. – Vi måste hitta egna förslag på hur man ska förbättra konkurrenskraften och få nya jobb i Europa och driva dem.   Det känns ju inte som att vi är nära det i dag, säger Karl-Petter Thorwaldsson.   Europaportalen 18 oktober 2012 Anders Borg tror att Grekland kan komma att tvingas lämna eurozonen – Skulle man lämna eurosamarbetet är det troligt att man får tillbaka sin konkurrenskraft och då kanske Grekland kan komma på fötter vart efter.   – Det är en smärtsam och komplicerad väg men det är svårt att se en alternativ väg som skulle kunna fungera.   Ekot 1...

Lenders have welcomed the financial regulator’s new “common sense” rules on mortgages that will require the industry to check borrowers can afford to repay their debt. New mortgage rules will affect as many as one million borrowers - Telegraph Se även http://www.internetional.se/banks.htm

The banking union and its various cousins constitute the biggest act of political integration in Europe since the creation of the European Economic Community 55 years ago. I believe that they will be even bigger than the euro itself because they are a significant encroachment on national sovereignty on several levels. While the combination of banking, fiscal and economic union, if done properly, would create a minimally sufficient institutional set-up for a sustainable monetary union, there is a big snag: the monetary union might blow up well before the new mechanisms kick in. The banking union, as currently constructed, will not help us in the current crisis. Wolfgang Münchau Banking union will not end Europe’s crisis - FT.com

Summers Says Euro Crisis Approach Evokes U.S. in Vietnam War Marines guard the evacuation of civilians at Tan Son Nhut airbase in Vietnam while  under Viet Cong fire, during the fall of Saigon, on April 15, 1975.  Källa:  Bloomberg Oct 20, 2012   Det var en bra dag för Klas Eklund och andra som gladde sig åt att socialismen var införd i ännu ett land. Och segern var nära även i Sverige trodde många och fruktade andra. "Den 27 augusti 1975 slog nyheten ned som en bomb i den svenska debatten" "Revolution i Sverige" stod det på DN:s löpsedlar. Boken "Löntagarfonder" hade kommit ut. - Huvudförfattare var den då 61-årige LO-ekonomen /Rudolf Meidner/ Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said European leaders’ handling of the sovereign debt crisis evokes comparisons with U.S. strategy during the Vietnam War until helicopters pulled out of Saigon. “An observer such as mys...

Norge kan vara på väg att bygga upp en farlig fastighetsbubbla precis som Irland och Spanien tidigare har gjort rapporterar CNBC. Huspriserna i Norge har stigit med nästan 30 procent sedan 2006.   Den norska uppgången följer exakt det mönster som tidigare bubblor har gjort i andra länder som Japan, USA och Irland.  Det skriver Bank of New York i en färsk rapport.   Dagens Industri 19 oktober 2012 Norway's house price rise has been so dramatic that the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco wrote a paper on the subject in June that made parallels between the lead up to the U.S. housing crisis and the “irrationally exuberant bubble” of Norway’s present boom. Written by an advisor to Norway’s central bank (Norges Bank) Marius Jurgilas and San Francisco Fed’s senior economist Kevin Lansing, the paper stated that Norwegian property prices are currently 125 percent of the historic price-to-income ratio and around 170 percent of the historic price-to-rent ratio — a full 5...

Även om eurokrisen kräver kraftfulla åtgärder så har EU slagit in på en farlig väg med den snabba rörelsen mot överstatlighet i en tid när Europaprojektet genomlever sin hittills största förtroendekris.  Priset för att utan folkligt stöd förvandla EU till en regelrätt federation kan inom sinom tid bli högt.   Därför behövs nu ett mått av försiktighet och eftertanke. Expressen-ledare, 20 oktober 2012 Det är målsättningen om ett ständigt fastare förbund - "ever closer union" - som är själva grundbultsfelet med EU. Kunde vi rulla tillbaka Sovjetunionen skall vi väl kunna rulla tillbaka Europeiska Unionen. Rolf Englund Barometerns website 7/6 2005

As yet, I can see no clear proposal on the table in any EMU country  –  from any major movement, party, or political leader  –  that offers a way out of the current impasse. Somebody will fill the vacuum. Ambrose, October 19th, 2012  

Reformer som stärker ekonomin är vad som till slut avgör, i Grekland och Spanien likaväl som i Sverige. Det finns ingen enklare utväg, inte heller för länder som låter sin valuta flyta Johan Schück, DN 8 september 2012 Kronkrigarna från valutafronten firar  Poltavaföreningen höll möte. Carl A Hamilton Aftonbladet 22/11 2002

Info om Bankunion  http://www.nejtillemu.com/englundcloser0506.htm#zcbankunion

Fredrik Reinfeldt upprepade de svenska villkoret om att svenska banker och skattebetalare inte ska kunna få betala för förluster i andra länders banksystem. DN/TT 17 oktober 2012 Men det är väl det som hela idén med en bankunion, att man gemensamt skall dela risken för bankförluster?

http://www.internetional.se/emufldt.html

The "fiscal multiplier" is not the hallowed 0.5 assumed by every finance ministry in Europe. The awful evidence since the global bubble burst in 2008-2009 is that the multiplier is between 0.9 and 1.7, or even higher for EMU's crucifixion belt. The model constructed over the long boom years -- and largely drawn from isolated cases, each able to export its way out of trouble -- is dangerously wrong in a 1930s-style excess savings crisis with much of the world is slump. Steen Jakobsen from Saxo Bank says the IMF's mea culpa is the "biggest financial story of the year". Indeed it is. The authorities have repeated the blunders of the Great Depression, but with fewer excuses. The IMF has now called for a change of course. The Greco-Latins should be given more time to cut their deficits. The AAA creditor bloc should stop cutting altogether until the eurozone is off the reefs. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, 14 Oct 2012 It...

Förslaget om en bankunion, med en överstatlig finanstillsyn som ett första steg kommer upp för diskussion på toppmötet nästa vecka Rolf Gustavsson, kolumn SvD 13 oktober 2012   Denna kris erbjuder Europa en enorm chans. Den har lagt fast dagordningen för åratal framåt: bankunion, finanspolitisk union och politisk union. finanskrisen har inte bara skakat Europa i dess grundvalar utan antagit livshotande proportioner Just nu står eurozonen på tröskeln till en bankunion, och en finanspolitisk union följer. Men om så bara med en bankunion kommer trycket i riktning mot en politisk union att tillta. Joschka Fischer, Kolumn DN, 2 Oktober 2012

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Fredspriset till EU - Den union som är den starkaste och viktigaste fredskraften i vår del av världen i vår tid, säger utrikesminister Carl Bildt.   Att ge EU priset nu är inte alls fel eller otajmat, enligt honom. SvD 12 oktober 2012 - For those, in particular, who see the European Commission as an undemocratic, bureaucratic, even corrupt institution, this will do more than raise eyebrows. - Remember, also, that it was awarded in Norway, a country that has steadfastly refused to join the Union, preferring to maintain its own sovereignty. Matthew Price,  BBC News, Brussels, 12 October 2012

In an apparent reference to the IMF’s u-turn this week on government austerity programmes, Lord Turner mocked the body’s “confident assertion” before the crisis that innovation in the financial system had “helped make the banking and overall financial system more resilient”.  “That assumption turned out to be profoundly wrong and dangerous, a major intellectual failure,” he said. Lord Turner also had harsh words for the FSA’s own conduct in the years leading up to the crisis and said the regulator had “made huge mistakes” “The rules on bank capital and liquidity were woefully deficient - an entire global banking system allowed to run with equity capital resources and liquidity buffers which we now believe were a small fraction of safe levels,” he said.    Harry Wilson, Banking Correspondent, Telegraph 11 Oct 2012 Basel -  Economic theory discredited

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From the formation of the euro in 1999 to now, German unit labour costs have hardly risen. During the euro's existence Germany´s average growth rate has been only 1.4pc, below the UK's – and below Spain's and Ireland's.   Whereas consumer spending has grown by about 30pc in America and the UK, in Germany it has grown by only 10pc.   The reason is that over the last 13 years, German workers' average real incomes have fallen by 4pc.   If, one way or another, the link between Germany and the southern euro member countries is broken, a return to the days of the deutschemark.   By reducing the domestic price of exports and imports, a stronger currency would transfer income from producers to consumers.   The result would be increased consumption.   If Germany left the euro, not only would the peripheral countries be better off, but so also would Germany.   Roger Bootle, Telegraph 7 October 2012 Det enda man kan tillägga är: Simsalabim! Och man fr...

Snipers, Commandos to Welcome Merkel in Greece CNBC, 8 October 2012 To fend off potential attacks, at least 7,000 plainclothes police and hundreds more undercover agents have been mobilized from across the country to lock down the capital and erect steel fences around parliament. Snipers were already visibly stationed on the roof tops of government buildings in Athens;  Commando Seals and Frogmen were also ordered on standby as helicopters began patrolling the Athenian skyline from Monday.   Inte heller som fredsprojekt verkar euron vara någon framgång.

Helmut Kohl, huvudpersonen som offrade D-marken på Europas altare   Tjugo år efter Maastricht, har alla dessa försummelser och brister kommit tillbaka på Europas dagordning Rolf Gustavsson, Kolumn, SvD 6 oktober 2012 Kohl skulle i Maastricht försöka förverkliga sin stora dröm, ett Europa förenat i en politisk union.   Under tidspress blev resultatet haltande och med ofullbordade kompromisser. Först i dessa yttersta dagar, tjugo år efter Maastricht, har alla dessa försummelser och brister kommit tillbaka på Europas dagordning.   Nu visar det sig om dagens generation politiska ledare vill och kan förvalta arvet – eller om de hellre lättjefullt förskingrar det.   I sin nyutkomna monumentala biografi om Helmut Kohl påminner historikern Hans-Peter Schwarz om hur läget var efter Tysklands återförening. Helmut Kohl, 82, är i dag hårt drabbad av ett dramatiskt slaganfall som berövat honom nästan all förmåga att tala och röra sig. Han lever isolerad i hemmet i Oggershe...

Fear of escalating demands by Germany, Finland and Holland is a key reason why Spanish premier Mariano Rajoy continues to drag his feet on a full sovereign bail-out.  Spain's refusal to act has frozen the eurozone rescue machinery and begun to rattle markets. The European Central Bank will not buy Spanish bonds until the country requests aid from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and signs a "Memorandum" giving up fiscal sovereignty. Finance minister Luis de Guindos told Spain's parliament Wednesday that there will be no bail-out until the terms are clear. "The government will take the best decision for Spain and its European allies when it knows all the details," he said. Finland has become the greatest worry. "Rajoy is terrified that the Finns will say `No' after he has requested a rescue," said a Spanish economist with close ties to the Rajoy team. Miapetra Kumpula-Natri, head of the Grand ...

The Teuto-Calvinists believe that the fiscal multiplier is around 0.5 The entire EU austerity plan is based on a false premise. This disastrous error is now clear beyond any reasonable doubt.   The Teuto-Calvinists believe – or profess to believe, since much of their dogma is national self-interest dressed up as theory – that the fiscal multiplier is around 0.5. That is to say, fiscal retrenchment worth 1pc of GDP will cut output by half as much, or around 0.5pc over two years. There is pain, but at least there is gain. This is based on the IMF's analysis of fiscal crises over the decades. Well, it has not worked out like that. Ireland has contracted at nearly seven times the speed, Spain four times, and Greece three times. Here is a table put together by Jean-Michel Six from S&P using IMF data. The multiplier is nearer 2.0 for part of the Club Med bloc. So what went wrong? It is blindingly obvious. The IMF data – and indeed the more extr...

If the troika does not approve the plan and agree that Greece is making sufficient progress reforming its finances, it means no more eurozone bailout funds. And without bailout funds the country faces likely bankruptcy, ejection from the euro and social chaos. The IMF is reportedly worried about becoming stuck as a long-term funder of the country, when its primary remit is to provide short-term, emergency funding.  So in Washington on Monday, IMF head Christine Lagarde suggested that eurozone countries may have to take a haircut on loans they have made to Greece, agreeing to write off part of what they are owed. In addition, the ECB might also have to take losses on the estimated 40bn-euro worth of Greek bonds it owns. Dr Vassilis Monastiriotis, senior lecturer at the European Institute of the London School of Economics, told the BBC: "If Greece convinces the authorities it is on track with its debt reduction measures, the decision to allow the two-year extens...

The recent standoff in Athens between Poul Thomsen, chief envoy of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras was, by all accounts, rather heated.  Stournaras even threatened to resign rather than implement the cuts Thomsen was calling for, reported the New York Times. "It doesn't matter to me," the IMF envoy allegedly replied, and then left. On Friday, Sept. 21, it was time for the "Men in Black," as the Greeks call them, to depart once again -- without having accomplished anything.  The troika, consisting of representatives of the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB), had had enough. Der Spiegel, 1 October 2012  

He said the political and economic fall-out from Greek ejection from the euro would be devastating and must be avoided. The plea came amid reports that Berlin is so worried that a Greek crisis would spin out of control that it is ready to back the next €31bn payment to Athens under its EU-IMF Troika rescue, despite failure to comply with the terms.  Ambrose, 30 September  2012 Tyskland Grekland Spricker  

America Really Is Exceptional - The Daily Beast

The Greek government's budget deficit is bigger than expected and currently amounts to some €20 billion ($26 billion), according to preliminary estimates by the so-called troika made up of the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, SPIEGEL has learned. The figure is almost double previous estimates. The next tranche of EU aid can only be paid out to Greece when that budget gap has been closed.  Meanwhile a row has erupted between the German government and the European Commission over when the decision will be taken on whether Greece will get any fresh money at all. The Commission wants a decision to be reached at the next EU summit on Oct. 18-19. But Berlin says there won't be reliable figures available until November at the earliest. Greece, which is almost bankrupt, needs the troika's approval on the spending cuts to ensure the release of the next tranche of aid. Without that money, it will have to default and may ...

Vi vill gärna tro att rättssäkerheten är stark i Sverige. Men ett antal uppmärksammade fall på sistone visar att den saken inte kan tas för given. Våren 2003 utnämnde tidskriften Affärsvärlden finansmannen Johan Björkman till den mäktigaste personen i svenskt näringsliv. Han hamnade strax före statsminister Göran Persson som tilldelades silvermedalj i maktligan.  I motiveringen hette det att Björkman hade ”ett grundmurat förtroende inom svenskt näringsliv, politisk koppling via sitt uppdrag i landets mest offensiva AP-fond, den Tredje, och ett nätverk som slår det mesta”. Några månader senare var maktpositionen historia. Björkman hade blivit gripen av polis utanför sitt kontor i Stockholm och tagen till förhör, misstänkt för ekonomisk brottslighet. ”Björkmans berättelse kan mycket väl vara riktig”, skrev Ekobrottsmyndigheten i ett pressmeddelande, men den reservationen hjälpte föga. Dan Olofsson skildrar utförligt vad Riksgäldens hårdhänta övertagande fi...

Av och till stöter jag på artiklar som knivskarpt formulerar mina egna dimmiga tankar bättre än jag själv kunnat göra. Här ett exempel som jag låtit Google översätta till svenska. Först kommer dock texten på engelska av Telegraphs Jeremy Warner, 27 September 2012: Political and economic developments are once more threatening to combine into an uncontrollable firestorm.  To understand why, it is first necessary to explode some myths about the nature of the eurozone debt crisis.  This is not at root either an isolated banking crisis or indeed a fiscal one, though that’s how public policy in Europe attempts to define it. As many of us have long argued, both these phenomena are but symptoms of what in essence is just a good old fashioned balance-of-payments crisis.  This has been greatly exaggerated by monetary union, which is also preventing the application of time-honoured solutions.  Utopian pursuit of the single currency is da...