Greek Prime Minister Vows to Keep Greece in the Euro Zone

Greek PM George Papandreou said Saturday he was determined to keep the country in the euro zone and will do whatever it takes to meet commitments agreed with international lenders.

 

The Summer Vacation Is Over - As Papandreou Briefs Greece On Its Sorry State, The Riot Police Returns

Just as Greece's G-Pap, who has proven he has more political lives than a cat, is about to speak at the Thessaloniki trade fair with an update on the economy (which is now contracting at more than 5% compared to the -3.8% forecast in May), the country reminds us that summer vacation is over, and that millions of Greeks have returned from their month long vacations only to find that they still are not getting the socialist benefits they thought may, just may, sneak their way back into their paychecks and early retirement plans. To wit, as AP reports, "Riot police fired tear gas Saturday to disperse anti-austerity protesters armed with flare guns, stones and sticks as clashes broke out in Greece's second-largest city. From taxi drivers to sports fans, thousands of angry citizens were protesting in the northern port of Thessaloniki before the prime minister's annual speech on the economy. The protests came in waves Saturday. Several thousand taxi drivers angry over new licensing reforms chanted anti-government slogans as they marched, many throwing plastic water bottles at riot police guarding the trade fair where Papandreou was to speak later. An estimated 1,500 students and anarchists followed on their heels, while other crowds gathered for separate protests by the barely-solvent country's two biggest labor unions. Even fans of Thessaloniki's soccer club Iraklis turned out to protest." Of course, now that even Italy, after one aborted attempt to paint over the issue, is forced to impose some austerity, Europe has a long, long autumn and winter of protesting to look forward to, which coupled with the logical impact on GDP courtesy of everyone's complete lack of interest in working any more (think of the horror at retiring at 65), means that all European economies will soon grind to a halt... Just as has been predited on these pages over a year ago.






US May End Taxes On Some Overseas Profits: Report

The U.S. Treasury is weighing a proposal to eliminate some, but not all, of the taxes on overseas profits of U.S.-based companies, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing two people familiar with the deliberations.

  Thessaloniki Riot Web Cam

Everybody, yeeeeeah, Rock your body right, Greece is back, alright

Sean Corrigan On The Tenth Anniversary

It is at times like these that we in the financial sector are humbled in the presumption of our own importance and of the meaning of our works. Daily, we chase the ebb and flow of symbols and numbers across the screens and ticker tapes of the world, seeking to distill from them a fleeting pattern, or to recognize within them some more enduring form. Rarely, if ever, amid the hubbub of the trading room or the raw intensity of the Pit, do we reflect on the power of such symbols. We crane for each flickering change in a terse alphanumeric—USZ1, DELL, CPI +0.2%, DAX +150—each of us striving uselessly, but compulsively, to see it before our peers do, or, with a little more purpose, to interpret it more quickly than they. These electronic lights represent a stock, a bond, a currency; of that much we remain aware. But the stocks or bonds themselves are but symbols: a claim to the ownership of a minuscule fraction of some sprawling enterprise, or a right to receive payment from it in days to come. Again, that payment—in dollars, or euros, or yen—is another symbol: a sign that men have "laboured the earth," in Jefferson’s trenchant phrase, and that they seek to exchange the fruits of those labours for our own. This is where the chain of ciphers and sigils leads us at last, then—to the efforts of ordinary men and women going about their daily lives, working at one thing, the thing at which they are most competent, in order to swap their efforts for other things, for a whole diversity of things, made, in turn, by countless, faceless others doing what they are good at, too. This is the majesty of the free market, of capitalism, this self-organizing scheme that most fully utilizes our jewelled planet’s greatest resource—humanity itself—so that the masses of today live better than all the fearsome khans and haughty emperors of old. But on Tuesday, out of a clear autumnal sky, all this was put at deadly hazard by earnest men, albeit men whose earnestness had been twisted into suicidal hatred by the potent brew of fanaticism and despair. By their intricate assault on the good people of the U.S., these men showed that they were versed in the power of symbols all too well.

Bank Of Countrywide Asbestos

Ten days ago Zero Hedge presented the idea of applying an Asbestos-type settlement to the neverending lawsuits against Bank of America which if continue at the current rate will result in the swift and brutal end of the massively undercapitalized bank by a thousand Rep and Warranty litigation cuts. Yesterday, we were happy to see that the idea has received far broader billing, and is being taken up by non other than Reuters: "When some look at all of the litigation arising from Bank of America's big role in the U.S. mortgage mess, they start thinking of asbestos and how thousands of lawsuits arising from that cancer-causing product brought down many manufacturers more than a decade ago. The solution back then to dealing with claims filed by more than 750,000 workers exposed to asbestos was the creation of dozens of "asbestos settlement trusts," which have paid out tens of billions dollars in damages. Some of them are still going strong today. The asbestos trusts were seen as an innovative approach to deal with seemingly endless litigation and provide a measure of compensation to sick workers and their families. The system for dealing with claims also allowed some of the hobbled manufacturers to emerge from bankruptcy largely free of the crushing weight of lawsuits." In other words, the choices for Bank of America are now two: either it prepares for a slow, painful, insolvency as all of its cash is bled out in litigation fees and "one-time" lawsuit charges, or, almost just as bad, it funds a massive trust, ringfencing all past, current, and future claims, and which is funded...by nearly all of Bank of America's equity. Yes, the end result will be a near wipe out of the existing Bank of America stock, but it will not be bankruptcy! In essence, what BAC will do is a bankruptcy remote "prepackaged bankruptcy" in which it spins off its contingent liabilities, with an equity buffer of whatever the litigants choose (most likely up to about 95% of the firm's current equity value), and proceeds to grow as a simple bank (with or without Merrill) and fund itself through retained earnings, in the process shedding off the "cancer" that are $1.2 trillion in toxic mortgages. The result of this would be a BAC share price of under $1 but that is inevitable. The alternative: freefall chapter 11 and technically 7 (which will never be allowed by the administration, sorry Chris Whalen), means BAC trades to $0.00, and the status quo system of crony communism is finished.

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Trader Dan on King World News Weekly Metals Wrap

Trader Dan at Trader Dan's Market Views - 33 minutes ago

Please click here to tune in to my regular weekly interview with Eric King on the King World News Weekly Metals Wrap. *http://tinyurl.com/3mm6srv* ** ** 

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Congress: Just Say "NO" To Obama

Dave in Denver at The Golden Truth - 1 hour ago

Please read thru this next-step description of the busted solar energy company that essentially is about to steal over $500 million of Taxpayer money. Solyndra is controlled by one of Obama's big financial supporters - Tulsa hick George Kaiser. I know quite a bit about finance and at the very least the Taxpayer "green" investment money should be made on a senior secured basis. This deal was set up to enable Kaiser to take a shot on the business for free and now steal $850 million of book assets for less than $100 million. Here's the account of this fraud in process as presented... more » 

 

Gold Shares Climbing the Wall of Worry

Eric De Groot at Eric De Groot - 2 hours ago

Has anyone noticed the rotation into the gold stocks since July 2011? My guess is that media-dependent thinkers have missed it. Gold Miners Index to S&P 500 ratio: [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

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