- Euro Chiefs Push Back Debt Crisis Summit Amid Tension Over Greek Writedown

By James G. Neuger
European leaders pushed back a debt- crisis summit amid tensions between Germany, France and the European Central Bank over possible deeper-than-planned writedowns of Greek bonds.
The planned Oct. 18 meeting was postponed to Oct. 23 as Europe gropes toward dealing with Greece’s oversized debt, insulating the Spanish and Italian markets, and shielding banks from the fallout.
“Further elements are needed to address the situation in Greece, the bank recapitalization and the enhanced efficiency of stabilization tools,” European Union President Herman Van Rompuy said in an e-mailed statement in Brussels today. “This timing will allow to finalize our comprehensive strategy.”
Germany and France yesterday set an end-of-month deadline for a breakthrough in handling the crisis, which has pushed Greece to the brink of default, roiled global markets and spurred speculation that the 17-nation euro region might not survive in its current form.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy put recapitalization of Europe’s banks at the top of the priority list in a joint declaration in Berlin yesterday. Sarkozy said they would deliver a plan by the Nov. 3 Group of 20 meeting.
Crisis Management
Finance ministers will hold an unscheduled meeting in the run-up to the euro summit, slated for a Sunday when the U.S. and European markets are closed. Europe has traditionally chosen weekends for market-sensitive crisis management, as when the euro area created the 440 billion-euro ($600 billion) rescue fund in May 2010.
Merkel and Sarkozy each called for a “lasting” solution to the 19-month crisis, echoing language the EU used in March when it unwrapped what it called a “comprehensive” package to restore economic order.
The new approach may scuttle a July 21 deal -- termed the “final package” by Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker at the time -- that foresees a 21 percent “voluntary” write-off of Greek bond values.
“It is looking as if the July 21 agreement just isn’t sufficient and that’s been increasingly recognized in Greece and the rest of Europe,” Julian Callow, chief European economist at Barclays Capital in London, said today on Bloomberg Television’s On the Move with Francine Lacqua.


- L’Europe, telle que nous la connaissons, a vécu


▪ Côté sportif, les nouvelles du week-end sont plutôt bonnes. L’équipe de France de foot a glorieusement triomphé de l’ogre albanais, un adversaire presque aussi redoutable que le Brésil. Côté rugby, le XV de France a battu une équipe d’Angleterre aux abonnés absents ; de plus, le score en fin de match n’a été réduit que grâce à un essai accordé après 25 minutes de délibérations.
Côté sommet de Berlin, les communiqués triomphateurs de dimanche soir nécessitent également un travail de relecture qui pourrait nous faire passer pour des rabat-joie ; mais vu la météo pourrie du week-end, nous assumons notre mauvaise humeur.
La France et l’Allemagne sont d’accord pour recapitaliser les banques. En d’autres termes, nos dirigeants reconnaissent que nombre d’entre elles sont au bord du gouffre. Dexia pourrait ne constituer qu’un hors-d’oeuvre si rien n’est fait de toute urgence.
Nicolas Sarkozy promet une décision à ce sujet d’ici la fin du mois. Ouf, ce sont trois semaines de gagnées ! Et il faudra bien ça avant de se mettre d’accord sur les procédures de modification du FESF et déterminer qui en contrôlera la mise en oeuvre.
La France et l’Allemagne proposeront des modifications importantes des textes communautaires afin de favoriser une plus grande intégration de la Zone euro. Cela revient à dire que l’Europe, telle que nous la connaissons, a vécu.
Tout le monde l’a compris, les anciens traités (Maastricht, Lisbonne) — qui nous ont conduits droit dans l’impasse politique et économique — sont caducs ; d’ailleurs la BCE fut la première à oser les contourner afin que l’euro survive : partant de ce constat, tout est à refaire.
Mais “faire” l’Europe, c’était déjà difficile à douze à la fin des années 90… alors la “refaire” à 27, cela s’annonce mission impossible !
Quoi qu’il en soit, il se pourrait que les marchés passent outre ce genre de considérations. Un des grands enseignements de la semaine passée, c’est que les mauvaises nouvelles perdent de leur impact au fil des jours.
▪ La dégradation de trois crans de la dette italienne n’a pas empêché les marchés de prendre 3,5% jeudi. Quant aux opérateurs, ils ne s’inquiètent guère de la dégradation par Moody’s de la notation de 12 banques britanniques, telles que Lloyds ou RBS ainsi que des neuf principales banques portugaises.
Paris clôture la semaine sur un gain global de 3,8% après avoir réalisé la plus mauvaise entame de trimestre de la décennie. Les valeurs françaises ont repris jusqu’à 11,5% en ligne droite (en trois séances).
Le CAC 40 en terminait vendredi sur une troisième hausse consécutive (de 0,66%) à 3 095 points, exactement à mi-chemin entre les extrêmes du jour (3 052/3 126), un peu en retrait par rapport à l’Euro-Stoxx 50 (0,9%) qui reprend 4,1% sur la semaine.
▪ Wall Street n’est pas parvenu à rester calé jusqu’au bout dans le sillage des places européennes : les indices US sont de nouveau “partis dans tous les sens” vendredi soir.
La journée avait débuté sur une note positive grâce aux chiffres de l’emploi. La consolidation l’a ensuite emporté lorsque les opérateurs se sont avisés que +103 000 jobs, ce n’était pas un chiffre très impressionnant compte tenu de la reprise d’activité de salariés au chômage technique au mois d’août.
Peu après l’heure du déjeuner, les acheteurs ont repris la main sur l’espoir que la rencontre de Berlin débouche sur une avancée significative dans le règlement de la crise grecque — et la consolidation des fonds propres des banques européennes.
L’optimisme semblait triompher à 20 minutes de la clôture. Tous les indices américains évoluaient dans le vert, le Dow Jones gagnait 0,8%. Mais la tendance a brusquement rebasculé à la baisse lorsque Wall Street a appris que l’agence Fitch dégradait la notation de l’Italie mais aussi celle de l’Espagne de deux crans. La raison évoquée est que le pays affiche une faible croissance et que les finances régionales sont en très mauvaise posture.
Les trois grands indices américains ont plongé de 1,3% — de façon totalement linéaire — en moins d’une demi-heure. Le Dow Jones quant à lui reculait au final de 0,18%.
Le Nasdaq chutait de 1,10% et le Standard & Poor’s de 0,82% à 1 155,5 points dans le sillage des valeurs bancaires. Il faudra d’ailleurs surveiller de près le comportement de ce secteur aujourd’hui.
Les opérateurs se sont massivement allégés sur Genworth Financial, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America (ces titres affichaient des pertes comprises entre 6 et 8%). Quant aux valeurs Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan ou Citigroup, elles ont lâché plus 5%.
Il ne serait donc pas étonnant que le scénario (gris foncé) des cinq précédents lundi se répète mais avec une nuance : le danger venait jusqu’à présent des valeurs financières. Il va falloir désormais surveiller toutes les autres, notamment les cycliques, dès demain soir avec la publication des trimestriels d’Alcoa.
Et nous doutons que les sidérurgistes affichent une santé de fer et un moral d’acier pour les 12 prochains mois !


- Banks Brace for Fallout on Earnings

By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ and ERIC DASH

The protesters who have gathered for weeks near Wall Street and the highly paid investors and analysts in the buildings that surround them don’t agree on much.
But when it comes to the nation’s biggest banks, they have a lot more in common than you would think. Both are deeply frustrated with financial institutions in general and have little faith in the message coming from bank executives.
Earnings season is about to upset one of those groups even more. Never popular to begin with, the nation’s biggest banks are rapidly becoming a focus of public dissatisfaction with the economy, uniting opponents including consumers upset about new fees, protesters who blame the banks for the nation’s economic woes, and lately, Wall Street types who have dumped their bank shares en masse.
For banks, the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better. They are due to begin reporting earnings this week, and the numbers are likely to leave investors as frustrated as ever, making the banks even more desperate to impose new charges on consumers’ accounts and rack up bigger trading profits. Over all, revenue is expected to fall 4 percent in the third quarter, slipping back to 2005 levels, according to data from Trepp. The industry’s earnings are expected to be about what they were in late 2002.
The biggest banks are expected to be hit hard by a sharp slowdown in their Wall Street-related businesses because of the chaotic third quarter in the markets. But the growth prospects for traditional banking are not great either. Tough new federal regulations restricting overdraft charges and other penalties are already taking a big bite out of profits. And then there are the government-mandated cuts in once-lucrative debit-card swipe fees, which have prompted banks to try to recoup billions of dollars in lost revenue with increases like Bank of America’s controversial new $5 monthly debit card fee.
Besides leaving consumers infuriated, the debit card fees have also drawn the wrath of the White House, with President Obama warning last week that customers should not be “mistreated” in pursuit of profit, while Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. characterized moves to hit consumers with new charges “incredibly tone deaf.” Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, took the unusual step of denouncing Bank of America on the Senate floor, urging customers to “vote with your feet, get the heck out of that bank.”
Investors certainly have. Bank stocks are at lows not seen since the wake of the financial crisis, and shares of Bank of America, the nation’s biggest bank, are down more than 50 percent since the start of the year, while Citigroup is down more than 40 percent.
David H. Ellison, a mutual fund manager for FBR who invests in financial companies, likens owning bank stocks these days to holding airline stocks in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. “Nobody wants to own the group,” he said. “Everybody thinks it is not the place to be.”
And in a kind of unusual convergence, protesters and bank analysts alike have had it with bank management.
For the protesters, financial institutions, among other things, symbolize growing economic inequality in the United States, with bank executives enjoying huge pay packages even as their companies benefit from government support. Investors distrust them because they have disappointed the Street in quarter after quarter, and seem unable to grow.
“There is a huge skepticism, that goes way beyond normal healthy doubt, about how reliable their numbers and guidance are,” said Chris Kotowski, an analyst with Oppenheimer. “People who were bullish are frustrated and beaten down.”
Michael Mayo, a longtime financial services analyst, has been traveling around the world over the last year, calling attention to what he calls his “Japan lite” thesis — the view that the United States and its banks are in for a prolonged period of very slow growth, not unlike Japan’s so-called lost decade in the 1990s.
A year ago, he said, about four in five clients brushed off his investment thesis. Today, he said, most agree.


- Greece activates rescue fund to save Proton Bank

A man walks in front of a branch of Proton Bank in central Athens October 10, 2011. Greece's central bank said on Monday it activated a bank rescue fund to save Proton Bank, effectively nationalising the small lender that is under investigation for possible violation of the country's money-laundering laws. REUTERS/Yiorgos Karahalis
By George Georgiopoulos and Harry Papachristou
ATHENS | Mon Oct 10, 2011 7:17am EDT
(Reuters) - Greece's central bank said on Monday it activated a bank rescue fund to save Proton Bank, effectively nationalizing the small lender that is under investigation for possible violation of the country's money-laundering laws.
It is the first lender to be nationalized under the Financial Stability Fund (FSF), a safety net set up by Greece and its international lenders for banks that need to recapitalize but cannot raise funds in the market.
Analysts said the move had to do with Proton's own business problems and not with the country's severe debt crisis.
"After recommendation by the Bank of Greece, the Finance Ministry proceeded to apply to Proton Bank a new law about the restoration of banks," the Bank of Greece said in a statement.
The Bank of Greece said Proton was split into a "good bank" where all of its private sector, government deposits and sound assets were transferred. The good bank will have the FSF backstop as its sole shareholder and retain the trade name Proton.
"The 'good bank' is well capitalized, with a capital adequacy ratio that is well above the regulatory threshold. It has access to euro-system liquidity through the Bank of Greece," the central bank said.
According to the finance ministry, the new Proton Bank has a capital adequacy ratio of 10.6 percent. The Bank of Greece has told the country's lenders they will have to maintain a Core Tier 1 ratio of 10 percent from January 2012.
Proton, with a network of 31 branches and a current market value of about 11 million euros, had total assets of 3.8 billion at the end of the first quarter.
The central bank said the license of the old Proton Bank was withdrawn and it was put into liquidation. The proceeds of the liquidation will be used to cover the claims of third parties. Proton shareholders will rank as last claimants.
"The new bank, free of the deficiencies of the previous bank, is financially sound and will continue normally its operations," the Bank of Greece said.
CENTRAL BANK PROBE
Proton's woes erupted this summer after it disclosed it was being probed by the central bank on money laundering violations related to transactions by its main shareholder.
"The activation of the Financial Stability Fund for Proton Bank has nothing to do with its exposure to Greek sovereign bonds but it has to do with its bad loans' portfolio," said a Greek-based bank analyst who declined to be named.
A senior banker who requested anonymity also said Proton's woes were the result of its own business issues and was not a result of the debt crisis.
Shares in Proton will be suspended from trade, a senior bourse official said.
Proton's major shareholder was businessman Lavrentis Lavrentiadis, who reduced his stake from a little over 20 percent to about 15 percent in March.
Greek banks, troubled with rising provisions for impaired loans, shut out of wholesale fundingmarkets and hurt by their Greek government bond holdings, have also seen their deposits drop sharply since the start of the country's debt crisis.
Greece's FSF already has 10 billion euros to recapitalize the Greek banking system.
That amount should grow to 30 billion once euro zone parliaments ratify the EU's EFSF safety net created to prevent the Greek crisis from spilling over into other countries like Spain or Italy and triggering a new global economic downturn.


- [Bloomberg
Max Bank Tests Danish Consolidation Bill as Bail-In Shelved->http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-10/max-bank-tests-danish-consolidation-bill-as-bail-in-shelved.html]


By Christian Wienberg and Frances Schwartzkopff
(Updates with analyst comment on impact to banking sector in fifth paragraph.)
Oct. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Max Bank A/S became Denmark’s first insolvent lender to test a bank package designed to sidestep the country’s bail-in laws after the state was able to find a buyer and avert senior creditor losses.
Sparekassen Sjaelland A/S will take over parts of Max Bank after it was declared insolvent by the Financial Supervisory Authority, the government said late yesterday. The bank package under which the takeover will be engineered allows Sparekassen Sjaelland to tap Denmark’s guarantee fund to subsidize the purchase, while the state will take on some bad loans. Senior creditors will be spared, while shareholders will lose their investments.
“I’m pleased that the new consolidation initiatives, which are backed by a broad majority in parliament, have proven workable,” Economy and Growth Minister Ole Sohn said in a statement on the ministry’s website. “This solution means that no depositors or other simple creditors in Max Bank will lose money.”
The maneuver allows Max Bank to avoid Europe’s toughest bank resolution laws, which had led to senior bondholder losses twice since February. Those credit events had left international funding markets closed to most of Denmark’s roughly 120 banks. Lawmakers last month passed the consolidation bill in an effort to avoid triggering more senior creditor losses and to help banks return to bond markets and generate funds needed to avoid a credit crunch.
Bank Profits
Max Bank’s resolution will hit bank industry profits as lenders are forced to cover losses through the Deposit Guarantee Fund, Simon Christensen, a senior analyst at Nordea Markets, said in a note.
“We estimate the loss that the Danish banking sector should cover through the Depositor Guarantee Fund to range between 3 percent and 5 percent of consensus profit before tax in 2011,” Christensen said in the note.
There’s no guarantee that the consolidation bill can be deployed successfully again in future, Joergen A. Horwitz, the director of the Danish Bankers Association, said in a note.
Max Bank was declared insolvent after the FSA told it to raise writedowns and said its solvency ratio didn’t meet the new requirement, it said in a statement over the weekend. Neither Max Bank nor the regulator published details of the demands.
‘Regrettable Situation’
“Max Bank had fallen into a regrettable situation,” Sohn said. “The FSA’s inspection showed that the bank no longer lived up to its solvency requirements primarily because of its engagements within real estate.”
Sparekassen Sjaelland will take over all private and corporate clients at Max Bank with engagements of less than 5 million kroner ($900,000) a piece, the government said. The remaining commitments will be transferred to a unit of The Financial Stability Company, the state’s winding-down arm, it said.
Max Bank wrote down 79.2 million kroner of bad loans in the first six months of the year in addition to 218 million kroner combined for the years 2009 and 2010. In its annual report published Feb. 28, Max Bank said 34 percent of its loans were related to the building and real estate industries, identified by the FSA as among Denmark’s riskiest.
The bank had a solvency ratio of 13.8 percent at the end of June, exceeding its own calculated requirement of 11.3 percent, it said in August.
Max Bank Bonds
Max Bank has bonds out worth 3 billion kroner, according to Bloomberg data. The bank’s stock market value was 59.5 million kroner as of the Oct. 7 closing price, after the shares lost 72 percent this year.
The bank had assets of 9.39 billion kroner at the end of June, according to its first-half earnings report. It was the third-riskiest of 99 Danish banks graded by researcher Niro Invest ApS in a June survey.
Max Bank said Oct. 8 the OMX Copenhagen stock exchange had agreed to suspend trading of its shares and bonds.
Henrik Bjerre-Nielsen, chief executive officer of Financial Stability, didn’t answer calls seeking details. Max Bank CEO Henrik Lund didn’t respond to a message left on his voice mail.



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- Fannie and Freddie debt fuels anxiety

By Henny Sender in Hong Kong and Michael MacKenzie in New York
fannie Mae
Asian and Middle Eastern central banks and sovereign wealth funds are increasingly anxious about the safety of their investments in the debt of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac , despite the assurances of US government officials.
Spooked by US political wrangling, major investors including the National Pension Service of Korea and the Kuwait Investment Authority have sold out of their holdings of the debt of the US Treasury-backed housing agencies since the 2008 global financial crisis. Officials from central banks, including the Bank of Japan, say they will be far more cautious in future.

“The GSEs [government sponsored enterprises] are not safe,” said one senior official at an Asian central bank, who added that his institution was reluctant to sell its existing holdings because of fears of spooking the market.
Fannie and Freddie – which own or guarantee most US mortgages – were made wards of the Treasury just before the failure of Lehman Brothers in 2008. They have since been dependent on its financial support.
Many foreign investors are not reassured by the increasingly explicit US government guarantee, and are wary of the debt that the two housing agencies issue. The political fallout over the US debt ceiling this summer and the consequent Standard & Poor’s downgrade of US sovereign debt intensified fears that politics might derail the US government promise to guarantee the debt.
“We have become hostage to the irresponsible behaviour of politicians,” said Bader al-Saad, head of the KIA, in a New York speech last month. “What happened during the debt negotiations will make many countries think twice about the investment environment of the US.”
Investors are also worried that if the Federal Reserve keeps printing money, the value of the debt will fall in terms of their own currency, a calculation that dollar-based investors do not have to make.
The Council on Foreign Relations think-tank released a study in July showing that purchases of Fannie and Freddie debt by the central banks of Brazil, Russia, India and China had declined.
“At the peak, Asian central banks accounted for 40-50 per cent of the purchases,” said a senior analyst at one major Wall Street firm, referring to the period before the global financial crisis hit in 2008. “Today, it is between 10 and 20 per cent.”
Since its peak in mid 2008, foreign central banks holdings of GSE debt have fallen 26.4 per cent to $724bn today, according to Bloomberg research.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency which regulates Fannie and Freddie, has tried to reassure investors saying they would have recourse to the Treasury in the case of any default.
But data from Credit Suisse shows a material change in the appetite, which dropped markedly from July. For example, Asia took only 3 per cent of $4bn of 5-year Fannie debt issued in August at a spread of 35.5 basis points over Treasuries, a relatively wide level, compared to earlier this year.
Even though Asian and Middle Eastern investors are buying less Fannie and Freddie debt, the price of the bonds does not reflect their fears of the risk. Fannie and Freddie debt trades at a very narrow spread to Treasuries. But analysts said market prices have been skewed because of Fed involvement. During the first round of quantitative easing in 2009, for example, the Fed bought more than $175bn of GSE debt in the secondary market. Former Fannie Mae officials and other people familiar with the situation said the sellers of that debt were mostly Asian central banks.
One former Fannie official said the Fed buying “had a huge impact”, adding that spreads would have “widened substantially” otherwise.




- The Uncredible Dog and Pony Show: Merkel and Sarkozy (October 10, 2011)

Does anyone take the Merkel-Sarkozy dog and pony show seriously any more? Perception management is not a solution.
For the past 18 months, every time reality threatens to intrude in Europe, Merkel and Sarkozy rush onto the global stage for a repeat performance of their dog-and-pony show. The global media declares it an artistic triumph and the "solution" to Europe's insolvency.
The fact that we've seen the exact same performance repeated again and again appears to be lost on the financial media, which never tires of declaring "this is the solution that will end the European bank crisis."
A few days or weeks later, reality once again intrudes, the ugly truth of systemic insolvency rears its frightening head once again, and the Dynamic Duo of Eurozone political theater rush onto stage for another tiresome performance of their cliche-ridden dog-and-pony show.
Few in the corporate media stop to even ask if the dog and the pony even have the power to summarily re-capitalize banks and all the rest of their grandiose pronouncements. Few dare observe that Merkel and Sarkozy might as well demand the seas divide; the situation is out of their control, and their theatrics are all in service of percepotion management, i.e. to foster the illusion they still grasp some meaningful control over the situation (they don't) and the the situatioin is controllable by manipulation of perception (it isn't).
Merkel and Sarkozy's dog and pony show is perception management ripped right from the Federal Reserve's playbook. The ontological foundation of the Fed's playbook is this: the problem is all perception. If the great unwashed populace of debt-serfs perceives that all is well and secure, and the Mommy State has tucked them safely into bed, then they will once again start borrowing and spending without a care for either reality or the future.
This is a fundamental ontological error. The problems of the global economy are not based in perception, but in the reality of prices, balance sheets and income statements, vast concentrations of wealth and power, precarious systemic imbalances, ruthless exploitation, and command economies mismanaged by Central State/Bank policy and manipulation.
Sarkozy and Markel's absurdist theatrics--"we have a secret plan right here in our pockets"--are not just incredible, they are uncredible. How many more times will the global financial media fawn over the same idiotic comedy staged by haggard amateurs?
The day the global audience finally tires of the bumbling act of the Merkel and Sarkozy dog-and-pony troupe, then real solutions--writing off trillions of euros of uncollectable debt and illusory assets, breaking up the dysfunctional Eurozone, etc.--can proceed.



- [How Wall Street scammed Mom and Pop — again
Commentary: Investors in this year’s fund IPOs should be protesting->http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-wall-street-scammed-mom-and-pop-again-2011-10-10]

By Brett Arends, MarketWatch
BOSTON (MarketWatch) — The question isn’t why some people are “occupying Wall Street” in protest right now.
It’s why so many others aren’t.
Among those missing? How about all those investors who got suckered by Wall Street this year in the disastrous initial public offerings of closed-end mutual funds. Their investments have been absolutely massacred by fees and poor performance.
Their total losses — hard to believe — total about $1 billion. Many of these investors are regular Moms and Pops.
Thomas Herzfeld, who’s been following closed-end funds for decades, says the losses are the worst he can ever remember.
Think of all those who got hustled by their brokers into the BlackRock Resources & Commodity Strategy Trust BCX +3.05% back in March. So far they’ve lost $260 million — nearly a third of their entire investment. In six months.
Or those who got conned into buying the ING Emerging Markets High Dividend Equity Fund IHD +2.04% in April. So far in just five months they’ve lost $143 million – or 36% of their stake.
Or what about those who were talked into the Brookfield Global Listed Infrastructure Income Fund INF +0.67% ? They only cut the checks at the end of August, and they already down 25%. In six weeks.
Don’t worry about the water cannon. These people already got hosed.
“These are the largest losses I’ve seen in new issues of closed-end funds I could ever remember,” says Herzfeld, chairman of Thomas J. Herzfeld Advisors.
In total, the Closed-End Fund Association lists 13 fund IPOs between January and August. The total raised was more than $5 billion. And so far investors have lost an average of 22% of their money.
To be sure, many investments have fallen in the last six months or so. But investors in closed-ends have been hit much harder than most. And this was no accident.
To understand just how Wall Street took these people for a ride, you need to understand closed-end funds.


- OECD indicators paint dark picture of global economy

By Vicky Buffery

(Reuters) - The outlook for the world's major economies is continuing to darken according to the latest data from the OECD published on Monday, which showed sharp falls in leading indicators for all countries except Japan.
The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said its composite leading indicator (CLI) for its 33 member countries dropped for a fifth straight month in August, hitting 100.8 after 101.4 in July and signaling a slowdown in economic activity.
Individual country readings fell across the board, including for non-OECD member countries, with most seeing their CLIs drop below their long-term average of 100.
Only Germany, Russia and the United States kept readings above 100. Japan, meanwhile, stood out as the only country not yet headed for a clear slowdown, registering a modest 1-point decline in its CLI to 102.5 from 102.6.
"For all other major economies, except Japan, the CLIs are now pointing strongly to a slowdown in economic activity below long-term trend," the OECD said.
The OECD CLIs are designed to anticipate turning points in economic activity relative to trend - a turnaround in an indicator tends to precede turning points in economic activity by around six months.
The consensus at the moment is that many major western economies are teetering on the brink of recession, as they struggle to repay inflated levels of debt.
The OECD's reading for the Group of Seven major economies -- France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States -- slumped to 101.1 in August from 101.7 in July, while the reading for the euro area fell 9 points, to 99.8 from 100.7.




- Démantèlement de Dexia : la Belgique roulée dans la farine ?

A l'issue des négociations pour régler le démantèlement de la banque Dexia, Bruxelles va nationaliser les activités belges de l'établissement. Mais le reste de l'accord signé avec la France semble loin d'être à son avantage...
Par Sébastian SEIBT (texte)
L’heure des comptes a sonné. Alors que le processus de démantèlement de la banque franco-belge Dexia s’accélère, des voix commencent à se demander en Belgique si le pays ne s’est pas fait avoir par la France lors des négociations qui ont eu lieu pendant une bonne partie de la nuit de dimanche à lundi.
Un plan en trois parties
Ces âpres discussions entre autorités françaises, belges, luxembourgeoises et les dirigeants de Dexia ont débouché sur un plan en trois volets. Il prévoit que la Belgique nationalise les activités de banque de détail sur son sol de Dexia Belgique pour 4 milliards d'euros ; que la France cède à la Caisse des dépôts les activités de financement des collectivités qui représentent le coeur de métier de Dexia dans l'Hexagone ; et que Paris, Bruxelles et Luxembourg créent une banque poubelle (“bad bank”) pour gérer les quelque 100 milliards d’euros d’actifs toxiques qui plombaient les comptes de l'établissement. Une feuille de route claire en apparence et qui a plu aux agences de notation. Standard’s & Poor's a ainsi confirmé les notes de la France (AAA) et de la Belgique (AA+).
Côté belge en revanche, certains commencent à se demander si la France n'aurait pas berné le Royaume, en agissant avec la défense de ses intérêts comme seule préoccupation. La France, qui voit se profiler une élection présidentielle, aurait tout fait "pour garder à tout prix son rating AAA”, soulignait ainsi ce lundi le quotidien belge L’Écho.
Accord gagnant-perdant ?
Selon plusieurs journaux belges, la France aurait en fait lâché du lest sur le volet de la nationalisation de Dexia Belgique pour mieux obliger Bruxelles à accroître sa part dans le financement de la “bad bank”. Comme le rappelle La Libre Belgique, Paris a fini par concéder à Bruxelles le rachat de Dexia Belgique pour 4 milliards d'euros, après avoir estimé dans un premier temps que l'opération en valait 8 milliards.
En contrepartie, laisse entendre pour sa part le quotidien Le Soir, la Belgique aurait été contrainte d'assurer, à hauteur de 60,5%, la garantie de 90 milliards d’euros apportée à la “bad bank” - contre 36,5% seulement pour la France et 3% pour le Luxembourg. Autrement dit, si la banque poubelle n’arrive pas à se débarrasser de ses actifs toxiques, la Belgique devra payer 54 milliards d’euros, soit près de 15% de son PIB - ou encore 5 000 euros par habitant -, là où la France n’aurait à engager que 2% à peine de son PIB (soit 32 milliards d’euros).
Pour l'heure, s'il ne s'agit certes que de garanties, “il ne s'agit pas d'un bon accord pour la Belgique car une ‘bad bank’ engendre toujours des pertes pour les actionnaires”, rappelle à France 24 Pascal de Lima, professeur d’économie à Sciences Po-Paris et économiste en chef chez Altran, une société de conseils en finance.
La menace qui plane sur la Belgique
Pour le Royaume, cet accord est d'autant plus risqué que les agences de notation ont ce genre d’actifs toxiques en horreur. “Puisqu’avec cette garantie on augmente le risque financier pour l’État belge, la note générale du pays s'en trouve menacée”, analyse Pierre-Henri Thomas, spécialiste du secteur financier du quotidien belge Le Soir.
Une menace dont la Belgique, déjà malmenée sur les marchés, n'a vraiment pas besoin, rappelle Pascal de Lima. "Les taux d’intérêt que Bruxelles doit payer sur sa dette ont déjà beaucoup augmenté depuis le début de la crise de la zone euro. Une dégradation de sa note accentuerait cette hausse et risquerait de faire du pays le premier du nord de l’Europe à succomber à l’effet de contagion de la crise de la dette grecque”.




- The Top 100 Statistics About The Collapse Of The Economy That Every American Voter Should Know

The U.S. economy is dying and most American voters have no idea why it is happening. Unfortunately, the mainstream media and most of our politicians are not telling the truth about the collapse of the economy. This generation was handed the keys to the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen, and we have completely wrecked it. Decades of incredibly foolish decisions have left us drowning in an ocean of corruption, greed and bad debt. Thousands of businesses and millions of jobs have left the country and poverty is exploding from coast to coast. We are literally becoming a joke to the rest of the world. It is absolutely imperative that we educate America about what is happening. Until the American people truly understand the problems that we are facing, they will not be willing to implement the solutions that are necessary.
The following are the top 100 statistics about the collapse of the economy that every American voter should know....
#100 A staggering 48.5% of all Americans live in a household that receives some form of government benefits. Back in 1983, that number was below 30 percent.
#99 During the Obama administration, the U.S. government has accumulated more debt than it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that Bill Clinton took office.
#98 Since Barack Obama was sworn in, the share of the national debt per household has increased by $35,835.
#97 The U.S. national debt has been increasing by an average of more than 4 billion dollars per day since the beginning of the Obama administration.
#96 It is being projected that the U.S. national debt will hit 344% of GDP by the year 2050 if we continue on our current course.
#95 The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that U.S. government debt held by the public will reach a staggering 716 percent of GDP by the year 2080.
#94 In 2010, the U.S. government paid $413 billion in interest on the national debt. That is projected to at least double over the next decade.
#93 According to one new survey, one out of every three Americanswould not be able to make a mortgage or rent payment next month if they suddenly lost their current job.
#92 State and local government debt has reached an all-time high of 22 percent of U.S. GDP.
#91 In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for just 11.7% of all income. Today, government transfer payments account for 18.4% of all income.
#90 U.S. households are now receiving more income from the U.S. governmentthan they are paying to the government in taxes.
#89 According to a new study conducted by the BlackRock Investment Institute, the ratio of household debt to personal income in the United States is now 154 percent.
#88 If you can believe it, one out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards.
#87 According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, health care costs accounted for just 9.5% of all personal consumption back in 1980. Today they account for approximately 16.3%.
#86 The cost of a health insurance policy for the average American family rose by a whopping 9 percent last year, and according to a report put out by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust, the average family health insurance policy now costs over $15,000 a year.
#85 One study found that approximately 41 percent of working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.
#84 An all-time record 49.9 million Americans do not have any health insurance at all at this point, and the percentage of Americans covered by employer-based health plans has fallen for 11 years in a row.
#83 According to a report published in The American Journal of Medicine, medical bills are a major factor in more than 60 percent of the personal bankruptcies in the United States. Of those bankruptcies that were caused by medical bills, approximately 75 percent of them involved individuals that actually did have health insurance.
#82 Average yearly tuition at U.S. private universities is now up to $27,293.
#81 The cost of college tuition in the United States has gone up by over 900 percent since 1978.
#80 In America today, approximately two-thirds of all college students graduate with student loans.
#79 In 2010, the average college graduate had accumulated approximately $25,000 in student loan debt by graduation day.
#78 The total amount of student loan debt in the United States now exceedsthe total amount of credit card debt in the United States.
#77 One-third of all college graduates end up taking jobs that don't even require college degrees.
#76 In the United States today, there are more than 100,000 janitors that have college degrees.
#75 In the United States today, 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees.
#74 In the United States today, approximately 365,000 cashiers have college degrees.
#73 It is being projected that for the first time ever, the OPEC nations are going to bring in over a trillion dollars from exporting oil this year. Their biggest customer is the United States.
#72 U.S. oil companies will bring in about $200 billion in pre-tax profits this year. They will also receive about $4.4 billion in specialized tax breaks from the U.S. government.
#71 The United States has had a negative trade balance every single yearsince 1976, and since that time the United States has run a total trade deficit of more than 7.5 trillion dollars with the rest of the world.
#70 The United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobs per month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.
#69 The U.S. trade deficit with China is now 27 times larger than it was back in 1990.
#68 Today, the United States spends more than 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that China spends on goods and services from the United States.
#67 China has surpassed the United States and is now the largest PC market in the entire world.
#66 In 2002, the United States had a trade deficit in "advanced technology products" of $16 billion with the rest of the world. In 2010, that number skyrocketed to $82 billion.
#65 In 2010, the number one U.S. export to China was "scrap and trash".
#64 Do you remember when the United States was the dominant manufacturer of automobiles and trucks on the globe? Well, in 2010 the U.S. ran a trade deficit in automobiles, trucks and parts of $110 billion.
#63 The United States has lost a staggering 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
#62 If you can believe it, more than 42,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have been closed down since 2001.
#61 Between December 2000 and December 2010, 38 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Ohio were lost, 42 percent of the manufacturing jobs in North Carolina were lost and 48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Michigan were lost.
#60 Back in 1970, 25 percent of all jobs in the United States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only 9 percent of the jobs in the United States are manufacturing jobs.
#59 According to Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton University, 40 millionmore U.S. jobs could be sent offshore over the next two decades.
#58 If you gathered together all of the workers that are "officially" unemployed in the United States today, they would constitute the 68th largest country in the world.
#57 There are fewer payroll jobs in the United States right now than there were back in 2000 even though we have added 30 million extra people to the population since then.
#56 Back in 1969, 95 percent of all men between the ages of 25 and 54 had a job. In July, only 81.2 percent of men in that age group had a job.
#55 Only 55.3% of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 were employed last year. That was the lowest level that we have seen since World War II.
#54 Today, there are 5.9 million Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 that are living with their parents.
#53 The economic downturn has been particularly tough on men. According to Census data, men are twice as likely to live with their parents as women are.
#52 According to one recent survey, only 14 percent of all Americans that are 28 or 29 years old are optimistic about their financial futures.
#51 Incredibly, less than 30 percent of all U.S. teens had a job this summer.
#50 According to one study, between 1969 and 2009 the median wages earned by American men between the ages of 30 and 50 dropped by 27 percent after you account for inflation.
#49 Since the year 2000, we have lost approximately 10% of our middle class jobs. In the year 2000 there were about 72 million middle class jobs in the United States but today there are only about 65 million middle class jobs.
#48 In 1980, 52 percent of all jobs in the United States were middle income jobs. Today, only 42 percent of all jobs are middle income jobs.
#47 Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs. Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs.
#46 According to Paul Osterman, a professor of economics at MIT, approximately 20 percent of all employed Americans are making $10.65 an hour or less.
#45 Half of all American workers now earn $505 or less per week.
#44 Since December 2007, median household income in the United States has declined by a total of 6.8% once you account for inflation.
#43 New home sales in the United States are now down 80% from the peak in July 2005.
#42 The all-time record for fewest number of new homes sold in the United States was broken in 2009. Then it was broken again in 2010. It is on pace to be broken once again in 2011.
#41 At one point this year, U.S. home prices had fallen a whopping 33% from where they were at during the peak of the housing bubble.
#40 U.S. home values have fallen approximately 6 trillion dollars since the housing crisis first began.
#39 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 18 percent of all homes in the state of Florida are sitting vacant. That figure is 63 percent larger than it was just ten years ago.
#38 Historically, the percentage of residential mortgages in foreclosure in the United States has tended to hover between 1 and 1.5 percent. Today, it is up around 4.5 percent.
#37 According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, at least 8 million Americans are currently at least one month behind on their mortgage payments.
#36 According to a Harris Interactive survey taken near the end of last year, 77 percent of all Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck. In 2007, the same survey found that only 43 percent of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck.
#35 Starting on January 1st, 2011 the Baby Boomers began to hit retirement age. From now on, every single day more than 10,000 Baby Boomers willreach the age of 65. That is going to keep happening every single day for the next 19 years.
#34 According to a new poll by Americans for Secure Retirement, 88 percentof all Americans are worried about "maintaining a comfortable standard of living in retirement". Last year, that figure was at 73 percent.
#33 One out of every six elderly Americans now lives below the federal poverty line.
#32 In 1950, each retiree's Social Security benefit was paid for by 16U.S. workers. According to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are now only 1.75 full-time private sector workers for each person that is receiving Social Security benefits in the United States.
#31 According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Social Security systempaid out more in benefits than it received in payroll taxes in 2010. That was not supposed to happen until at least 2016.
#30 The U.S. government now says that the Medicare trust fund will run outfive years faster than they were projecting just last year.
#29 According to one study, the 50 U.S. state governments are collectively 3.2 trillion dollars short of what they need to meet their pension obligations.
#28 A different study has shown that individual Americans are $6.6 trillion short of what they need to retire comfortably.
#27 Between 1991 and 2007 the number of Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 that filed for bankruptcy rose by a staggering 178 percent.
#26 According to a shocking AARP survey of Baby Boomers that are still in the workforce, 40 percent of them plan to work "until they drop".
#25 Last year, 2.6 million more Americans dropped into poverty. That was the largest increase that we have seen since the U.S. government began keeping statistics on this back in 1959.
#24 Back in the year 2000, 11.3% of all Americans were living in poverty. Today, 15.1% of all Americans are living in poverty.
#23 More than 50 million Americans are now on Medicaid. Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid. Today, approximately one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.
#22 More than 45 million Americans are now on food stamps.
#21 The number of Americans on food stamps has increased 74% since 2007.
#20 Approximately one-third of the entire population of the state of Alabama is now on food stamps.
#19 Right now, one out of every four American children is on food stamps.
#18 It is being projected that approximately 50 percent of all U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point in their lives before they reach the age of 18.
#17 The poverty rate for children living in the United States increased to 22%in 2010.
#16 There are 314 counties in the United States where at least 30% of the children are facing food insecurity.
#15 In Washington D.C., the "child food insecurity rate" is 32.3%.
#14 More than 20 million U.S. children rely on school meal programs to keep from going hungry.
#13 It is estimated that up to half a million children may currently be homeless in the United States.
#12 The number of Americans that are going to food pantries and soup kitchens has increased by 46% since 2006.
#11 According to a recent report from the AFL-CIO, the average CEO made343 times more money than the average American did last year.
#10 The wealthiest 1% of all Americans now own more than a third of all the wealth in the United States.
#9 The poorest 50% of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.
#8 The percentage of millionaires in Congress is more than 50 times higherthan the percentage of millionaires in the general population.
#7 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 16.6 million Americans were self-employed back in December 2006. Today, that number has shrunk to 14.5 million.
#6 According to one recent poll, 90 percent of the American people believe that economic conditions in the United States are "poor". To put this in perspective, only 11 percent of Americans rated economic conditions in the U.S. as "poor" back in January of 1999.
#5 According to another recent poll, 80 percent of the American people believe that we are actually in a recession right now.
#4 Our dollar is being systematically destroyed by the Federal Reserve. An item that cost $20.00 in 1970 will cost you $116.78 today. An item that cost $20.00 in 1913 will cost you $457.67 today.
#3 The Federal Reserve made $16.1 trillion in secret loans to their friends during the last financial crisis.
#2 The Federal Reserve is a perpetual debt machine. Today, the U.S. national debt is more than 4700 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was created back in 1913.
#1 According to a new CNN/ORC International Poll, 27 percent of all Americans have never even heard of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
We need to educate America.
Please share this with as many people as you can. Time is running out for America, and 2012 is going to be an absolutely pivotal year in the history of this nation.
We are in the midst of a long-term economic decline that is rapidly accelerating. If dramatic changes are not made very quickly, we will soon witness a full-blown collapse of the economy.
Wake up as many people as you can.
We are running out of time.



- Bad Financial News Keeps Pouring In: 14 Facts That Just Might Scare The Living Daylights Out Of You

Will the bad financial news ever stop? A lot of people in the financial world were hoping for a much better fourth quarter after an absolutely disastrous third quarter. Well, if Monday was any indication, October could end up being a really rough month for global financial markets. So much bad financial news keeps pouring in that it really is a challenge to try to keep track of it all. Greece seems to get closer to defaulting on their debts with each passing day, and it appears that Germany is not going to contribute any more bailout money beyond what they have already committed to. Major banks on both sides of the Atlantic are on the verge of collapse, and investors all over the world are afraid that we may have another "Lehman Brothers moment" soon. Shares of American Airlines dropped a staggering 33 percent on Monday as rumors that they will soon be entering bankruptcy swirled. Yes, things certainly are getting interesting. Back in 2008, the governments of the western world saved the financial system with gigantic bailouts that were absolutely unprecedented. If the financial system crashes again at some point in the coming weeks or months, will the political will for more bank bailouts be there? If not, what is going to happen to the banking system?
On both sides of the Atlantic, the big banks are highly leveraged, they have taken on a ton of risk and they are very deeply exposed to derivatives. It is as if virtually nobody learned any lessons during the financial crisis of 2008. Once again we are facing a situation where if a couple of financial dominoes fall it could send dozens of others tumbling to the ground.
Some very significant things happened on Monday. But the media has gotten so used to reporting on tremendous financial instability that Monday's events mostly got brushed to the side. Instead, Amanda Knox captured most of the headlines.
But the reality is that some really, really monumental stuff has been going down.
The following are 14 facts that just might scare the living daylights out of you....
#1 On Monday (October 3) , the Dow was down 258 points. Lately it seems as though the Dow has been going up or down by several hundred points almost every single day, and that much volatility is not a good sign for the health of the financial system.
#2 Shares of Wall Street banking giant Morgan Stanley fell by another 8 percent on Monday. Overall, shares of Morgan Stanley have declined by more than 50 percent since February.
#3 Bank of America stock dropped down to $5.53 a share on Monday. Just a few years ago, it was trading for more than $50 a share.
#4 There are reports that Goldman Sachs may actually show a loss for the third quarter of 2011 and that yearly bonuses for employees may be slashed to next to nothing. Yes, not too many people are going to have sympathy for Goldman Sachs, but this just shows how bad things are getting out there for the big Wall Street banks.
#5 Normally Goldman Sachs is quite upbeat, but lately they have been coming out with some really frightening reports. For example, a new report from Goldman Sachs declares that there is a 40 percent chance that we are entering a "Great Stagnation".
#6 Shares of European banking giant Dexia plunged by about 10 percent on Monday on rumors that it will soon need a significant bailout. The stocks of major banks all across Europe have been getting absolutely hammered for weeks.
#7 Shares of American Airlines fell by 33 percent on Monday on rumors that the airline is about to enter bankruptcy. Amazingly, trading in the stock was stopped 7 different times on Monday.
#8 It is being reported that approximately 240 pilots for American Airlines have retired in the last two months alone. All of those pilots are retiring so that they can shield their pensions from the upcoming bankruptcy filing.
#9 Nearly the entire airline industry got hit really hard on Monday. Shares of United Continental, U.S. Airways and Delta were all down more than 10 percent.
#10 Overall, U.S. stocks fell by 14 percent during the third quarter of 2011, and now the fourth quarter is off to a very rocky start.
#11 The incoming head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, has publicly admitted that major European banks are having "funding problems". Just like back in 2008, we are rapidly heading for a giant "credit crunch".
#12 A shocking new Bloomberg survey has found that approximately one out of every three international investors expects a "global economic meltdown" within the next 12 months, and 70 percent of them believe that the global economy is "deteriorating". Perhaps they have been reading The Economic Collapse Blog too much.
#13 Financial markets in Europe were rocked on Monday when it was revealed that Greece is not going to hit the deficit reduction targets set for it either this year or next year despite all of the severe austerity measures that have already been implemented. Needless to say, a lot of financial authorities in Europe were very displeased by this news.
#14 German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble is publicly declaring that Germany will not contribute any more money to the European bailout fund.
The truth is that the political will for more bailouts has totally dried up in Germany.
The recent vote by the Bundestag to approve money for the European rescue fund should not be misinterpreted.
That vote simply approved money that was part of a deal that was agreed to over two months ago.
What is more important is what many major German politicians said after the vote. Essentially, the overwhelming consensus is that Germany is done contributing money. Once the money is gone from the current bailout pool (which is not anywhere close to what is really needed), there will be no more money from Germany.
That means that the era of the bailouts in Europe is drawing to a close.
In a recent editorial, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard described the situation in Germany in this manner....
The furious debate over the erosion of German fiscal sovereignty and democracy – as well as the escalating costs of the EU rescue machinery – has made it absolutely clear that the Bundestag will not prop up the ruins of monetary union for much longer.
Horst Seehofer, the leader of Bavaria’s Social Christians, said his party would go "this far, and no further".
Let that last phrase sink in.
Basically, what politicians all over Germany are saying is that Germany has now done all that it is going to do.
The implications of this are huge.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard recognized this in his editorial. In fact, the usually reserved journalist actually used all caps for six straight sentences and broke out some very strong language that is very uncharacteristic for him....
Repeat after me:
THERE WILL BE NO FISCAL UNION.
THERE WILL BE NO EUROBONDS.
THERE WILL BE NO DEBT POOL.
THERE WILL BE NO EU TREASURY.
THERE WILL BE NO FISCAL TRANSFERS IN PERPETUITY.
THERE WILL BE A STABILITY UNION – OR NO MONETARY UNION.
Get used to it. This is the political reality of Europe, since nothing of importance can be done without Germany. All else is wishful thinking, clutching at straws, and evasion. If this means the euro will shed some members or blow apart – as it almost certainly does – then the rest of the world must prepare for the day.
Basically, this is his way of saying that "the sky is falling" and that the financial system of Europe is doomed.
If you have followed the writing of Ambrose Evans-Pritchard for any length of time, then you know that he is one of the most respected financial journalists in the world and that he is not prone to indulge in much "doom and gloom". For him to say what he did is very significant.
But even if there were no financial problems in Europe, the United States would probably be slipping into another recession anyway.
Right now our economy is a total mess, and all kinds of people are coming out of the woodwork and are trying to take credit for "calling" the upcoming recession.
Some of the pronouncements are so bold that you would think that some half-crazed blogger wrote them. For example, just check out the following quote from a report recently put out by the Economic Cycle Research Institute....
"Here's what ECRI's recession call really says: If you think this is a bad economy, you haven't seen anything yet."
But do the American people really need some experts to tell them that we are going into another recession?
The American people know what is going on.
According to one recent poll, 90 percent of the American people believe that economic conditions in the United States are "poor". According to another recent poll, 80 percent of the American people believe that we are actually in a recession right now.
So perhaps the American people are actually ahead of most of the so-called "experts".
In any event, economic conditions in the United States continue to get worse. The average American family is having a harder and harder time getting to the end of each month. According to a Harris Interactive survey taken near the end of last year, 77 percent of all Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck. In 2007, the same survey found that only 43 percent of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck.
At least Barack Obama is not talking so much about an "economic recovery" these days. When asked recently if Americans are better off today than they were four years ago, Obama said the following....
"Well, I don't think they're better off than they were four years ago."
Finally, something that we can all agree with Barack Obama about.
Sadly, things are about to get even worse.
Pay close attention to all of the bad financial news that keeps pouring in.
Just like in 2008, something really big is happening.
When the current bailout fund in Europe runs out in a few months, things could really start to unravel.
If Greece (or any other eurozone nation for that matter) defaults, it could set off a chain of financial events so catastrophic that it just might scare the living daylights out of all of us.
Let us hope for the best, but let us also prepare for the worst.
Tremendous fear and panic has gripped the financial world, and the underlying problems causing this crisis are not going to be solved any time soon.
We are about to enter unprecedented territory.
Hold on tight.





- A Fantastic Overview Of Where The Economy And Markets Stand Right Now