The wild selloff in the major capital markets of the world that culminated last Monday, the first working day of the New Year and continued on Wednesday for a fifth day in row was not just an overreaction to the anticipated slowdown of the Chinese economy, as almost all chief analysts assumed in mainstream media. […]Capital markets selloff: The financial moguls send messages to monetary authorities
January 7, 2016 by Leave a Comment
The wild selloff in the major capital markets of the world that culminated last Monday, the first working day of the New Year and continued on Wednesday for a fifth day in row was not just an overreaction to the anticipated slowdown of the Chinese economy, as almost all chief analysts assumed in mainstream media. […]ECB money bonanza not enough to revive euro area, Germany longs to rule with stagnation
December 7, 2015 by Leave a Comment
During the days ahead of last Thursday’s 3 December meeting of the European Central Bank’s Governing Council, financial markets and market oriented media had been pressing for a stronger monetary accommodation (easing), than what President Mario Draghi finally announced in the afternoon of that day. As a result, the euro appreciated markedly with the dollar […]Germany objects to EU Commission’s plan for a Eurozone bank deposits insurance scheme but Berlin could go along
November 26, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Last Tuesday the European Commission aired a groundbreaking proposal, about the creation of a euro-area wide insurance scheme for bank deposits. In this way the European Banking Union will start having a meaning for the average European. It’s a plan for a European Deposit Insurance Scheme (EDIS) which is meant to complete the Banking Union […]Draghi tells the Parliament the ECB to use all its weaponry; euro slides to parity with the dollar
November 20, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Undoubtedly, Mario Draghi’s speeches and comments are being carefully monitored, analyzed and discounted by government decision makers, capital market experts and of course the Press. Invariably, this was the case last week, when the President of the European Central Bank appeared before the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee. ECB’s accountability to the European […]The Commission sees ‘moderate recovery’ but prospects deteriorate
November 9, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The European Commission released last week its “Autumn 2015 Economic Forecast”, advertising ‘moderate recovery’ for the European Union and the euro area. Understandably, the Commission wouldn’t dig deeper in the economy, to highlight the negative aspects of the present status and the subdued prospects for next year. For a number of important reasons the executive […]Draghi rehabs ECB into a tool to support growth and employment; a departure from Teutonic orthodoxy
November 2, 2015 by Leave a Comment
On Thursday 22 October Mario Draghi, the President of the European Central Bank delighted the world capital markets with his comment about the “factors that are currently slowing the return of inflation to levels below, but close to, 2% in the medium term” He added that “In this context, the degree of monetary policy accommodation […]Why the ECB prepares to flood the markets with more and free of charge euro; everybody needs that now
October 26, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Mario Draghi’s statement of last Thursday from Malta that the European Central Bank’s “monetary policy accommodation will need to be re-examined at our December monetary policy meeting”, offered a strong support to all major capital markets, with stocks gaining a lot of ground and the euro receding slightly. Understandably, a generous increase of ECB’s monthly […]A new global financial crisis develops fast; who denies it?
August 31, 2015 by Leave a Comment
During the last two weeks the world’s largest stock markets had a wild time not seen since Lehman Brothers went bust on 15 September 2008. The New York stock exchange in Wall Street lost more than 8% of its capitalization in a few days and then recovered some of the losses to close last Friday […]Greece: Tsipras’ referendum victory does not solve the financial stalemate of the country and its banks
July 6, 2015 by 1 Comment
The imperative economic realities for the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will not be altered noticeably after his crushing win in yesterday’s referendum. His ‘no’ (OXI in Greek) option marked an overwhelming victory meaning that the Greeks rejected the latest offer from the country’s creditors. To be reminded, during the past five months the Greek […]A Monday to watch the final act of a Greek tragedy; will there be catharsis or more fear?
June 22, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Today’s Eurogroup summit of the 19 euro area heads of state and government is convened by Donald Tusk, the President of European Council in order to bluntly present Alexis Tsipras, the Greek PM with a final ultimatum; ‘comply or leave the Eurozone’. Of course this initiative was not Tusk’s, given that his mandate is rather […]Big world banks to pay $ 4.95bn for cheating customers; Is it a punishment or a gentle caress?
May 25, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Last week five of the world largest banks, JPMorgan, Barclays, Citigroup, Royal Bank of Scotland and Union de Banques Suisses were fined by the American magistrates a total of $ 4.7 billion for rigging interest rate benchmarks. The banks had been setting those standards by themselves for five years after 2007. In another case the […]The EU Parliament and the ECB unknowingly or unwillingly fail to protect our financial assets
April 2, 2015 by Leave a Comment
This week the European Parliament and the European Central Bank rather unknowingly or unwillingly failed to protect the European citizens from the attacks of ‘money sharks’. In two different occasions the two most important European institutions secured the bankers reign on peoples’ money. Let us take one thing at a time. When the average hard […]ECB with an iron hand disciplines the smaller Eurozone member states; latest victim: Greece
March 26, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Last Monday the President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi reacted strongly while answering a MEP’s question in the European legislature. He was asked if the ECB is “blackmailing” and financially “suffocating” Greece. As expected, he denied the accusations. Was he right though? Rather not. Only some hours afterwards the central bank ordered the […]ECB’s trillion has to be printed and distributed fast before Armageddon comes
December 15, 2014 by 2 Comments
The latest Eurostat data on employment and industrial production for the Eurozone economy point invariably to stagnation, if not recession, while the long-term tendency of household consumption, as a percentage of GDP, appears falling. In short all the key growth indicators of the economy are quite disappointing, to say the least. The economic problems of […]The financial war touches Frankfurt and Berlin
December 8, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Early next year the world is going to watch the culmination of the battle between Mario Draghi the President of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt am Main and Wolfgang Schäuble, the powerful German Minister of Finance based in Berlin. In this affair Draghi represents the will of the advanced world financial markets, including the […]Bankers don’t go to jail because they are more equal than us all
November 24, 2014 by Leave a Comment
How come and despite the fact that bankers systematically and quite openly cheat hundreds of millions of people, usurping trillions from them, and the only ones of that trade that have been locked up in a penitentiary are the bosses of the three Icelandic banks Glitnir, Kaupthing and Landsbanki, which went bankrupt in 2008? All […]What can stop the ‘too big to fail’ bankers from terrorising the world?
November 13, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Last Monday 10 November the Financial Stability Board, an international non-binding body based in Basel which comprises government and central bank officials from G20 countries had a bright idea for the lenders. They admitted that the 30 “too big to fail” major world banks should retain at least 20% of their risky assets in own […]The banks first to benefit from the new euro trillion ECB plans to print
November 10, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Last week, all the major media reported a deep division in the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, over a Mario Draghi policy proposal to pump more freshly printed money into the struggling Eurozone economy. Nevertheless, the European Sting very early in the morning of Thursday 6 November, before the meeting of the Council, […]Is the ECB ready to flood Eurozone with freshly printed money?
November 6, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The insatiable appetite of the global financial system for more free cash from central banks has now reached the Governing Council of the European Central Bank. After the American central bank, the Fed, announced last month that it discontinues its quantitative easing policy, under which it has supplied the US banks with around $ 4 […]ECB to buy corporate bonds: Will government financing be the next step?
October 23, 2014 by 1 Comment
Last Monday, the European Central Bank initiated its covered bank bonds buying programme. But it wasn’t until the major international news agencies started reporting information early on Tuesday from ECB unidentified sources about its plans for corporate bond purchases too, and only then the central bank policies had an immediate and conspicuous effect on real […]How close is the new financial Armageddon? IMF gives some hints
October 13, 2014 by 1 Comment
Six years after the Western financial system collapsed under its immeasurable greed for easy money expressed as an insatiable thirst for risk, the American and European banks and governments are 30% deeper in debt. Few of them can duly repay without major problems of the most dangerous political kind. It is even more alarming that […]Eurozone: Bankers-politicians rig keeps robbing taxpayers
August 20, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Last week the European Commission ruthlessly wrote the last chapter of the Slovenian financial tragedy. In it, this nation of only two million people was forced by Brussels to save with around €7 billion of taxpayers’ money (a bit less than one tenth of GDP) the overgrown, reckless, aggressive even fraudulent banking system of this […]ECB’s unconventional monetary measures give first tangible results
August 13, 2014 by Leave a Comment
A strong statement was delivered last week by Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank. He ascertained that the monetary measures already taken unanimously by the central bank’s Governing Council, “will enhance our accommodative monetary policy stance”. Those measures have led to an easing of the euro/dollar parity favouring a cheaper single money, a […]Finance for SMEs: Alternative supply mechanisms do exist
July 29, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Indisputably, one of the most crucial barriers to economic growth is the lack of adequate financing for SMEs, across the European Union. Indeed, the problem is more acute in the hardest hit by the financial crisis countries like Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal and Ireland. In some other member states this setback is chronic. The SMEs […]The Peoples are missing from EU’s monetary union
July 14, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The disenchantment of the 28 European Peoples with their Union stems from the special care the EU institutions clearly show for the financial sector aka the banks and not for the unemployed. To put it differently so as the Brussels bureaucrats and the decision makers in Berlin and Paris can understand; the European Economic and […]ECB again to subsidize euro area banks with more than one trillion euro
July 10, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The Governing Council of European Central Bank decided last week to hand out to Eurozone banks additional liquidity of up to €1 trillion at almost zero cost, under its new targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTROs). At the same time it also decided to “intensify preparatory work related to outright purchases in the Asset Backed Securities […]The EU Commission implicates major banks in cartel cases, threatens with devastating fines
May 22, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Three major international banking firms Crédit Agricole, HSBC and JPMorgan Chase came yesterday again under the watchful eye of the European Commission, for their role in financial sector cartels (interest rates and derivatives denominated in euro). It’s about financial products based on the Euribor (euro interbank offered rate), an interest rate benchmark. This interest rate […]Eurozone: The crisis hit countries are again subsidizing the German and French banks
May 19, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the infamous ‘Troika’, officially declared that Portugal has successfully completed the assistance program and now as a financially self-sustainable country she can address herself to the markets, whatever this last term means. Towards the end of April, Portugal sold a €750 million bond […]The EU Commission by serving the banks offers poor support to European mainstream political parties
May 17, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The 2008-2012 financial aka banking crisis and its devastating repercussions on the European Union, with deep recession and skyrocketing unemployment, are the main reasons why the EU political and economic establishment shivers ahead of the 22-25 May elections fearing a possible disastrous result. Eurosceptic extremists, nationalists and harlequins may occupy an increased part of the […]Draghi’s ‘quasi’ announcement of a new era of more and cheaper money
May 12, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Mario Draghi, the ECB President, was more than explicit last week, that the European Central Bank will live up to its duty and do in June whatever it takes to help the Eurozone economy grow again and push inflation a bit upwards, back in line with the institutional target, which is below but close to […]How the EU crisis hit countries saved the German and French mega-banks from bankruptcy and still pay the costs
April 29, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion László Andor, speaking in a Conference on working conditions yesterday in Brussels, revealed that during the past few years the working conditions in the EU have greatly deteriorated, despite the ambitious targets set for the 2020 EU Strategy. According to Eurostat data: *Around 60% of temporary […]The completion of the European Banking Union attracts billions of new capital for Eurozone banks
April 16, 2014 by 1 Comment
The European Parliament adopted yesterday with large majorities three legal texts completing the European Banking Union, two years after the initial decision to create a common system, at least in the euro area, of regular bank supervision and resolution of failing lenders. In two separate votes and an approval at second reading without a new […]ECB: A revolutionary idea to revitalize the European economy with cheap loans to SMEs
April 14, 2014 by Leave a Comment
IMF and World Bank’s spring meetings in Washington DC last weekend gave the opportunity to the European Central Bank (ECB), supported by the Bank of England (BoE), to launch a new monetary policy ‘offensive’ in order to revive the stagnant European economy. Mario Draghi, President of ECB clearly stated that the Eurozone’s central bank will […]
