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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