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Posts Tagged ‘ecb’

Mario Draghi and ECB Begin Quantitative Easing

March 7th, 2015 Comments off

Following the prescription of the U.S. Federal Reserve begun under Ben Bernanke, the president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, is about to unleash the monetary torrent that is referred to as quantitative easing. With the Eurozone remaining mired in a sea of economic stagnation, fiscal debt crises and enduring deflation, Draghi  is gearing up the printing presses, boasting that the ECB will succeed where the Eurozone politicians failed.

With a 1.1 trillion euro quantitative easing program about to be launched, which is roughly equivalent to $1.250 billion USD, many in the markets are hoping that the  perceived improvement in American economic metrics  attributed the Fed’s quantitative easing will come to Europe soon.  The massive debts that will never be repaid and the unprecedented distortions created in the U.S. market by those loose monetary policies are at present out of sight. There is such desperation in the Eurozone, amplified by the impotence of the political class, that the ECB is, just as with the Fed in the U.S., the last hope for the European economy.

 

If Hillary Clinton runs for President of the United States  in 2016, see the video about the book that warned back in 2008 what a second Clinton presidency would mean for the USA:

 

CLICK ON IMAGE TO VIEW VIDEO

Hillary Clinton Nude

Hillary Clinton Nude

European Central Bank Buying Up Eurozone Debt

October 2nd, 2014 Comments off

The Eurozone economy is dead in the water, the ill winds of economic recession are blowing and the politicians are dumfounded. Once again, the European Central Bank must step in with radical monetary fixes to cope with the lack of coherent economic and fiscal policy by the sovereigns. With ECB interest rates already at a nominal 0.05 percent–essentially zero interest rate– a  desperate ploy has just been announced.

Mario Draghi, president of the ECB, has made it known that he will now be buying up troubled assets and collateralized debt. The hope is that this will cool off the heat of threatening deflation, while kick-starting the Eurozone economy. If that fails, he will no doubt then resort to quantitative easing.  Stay tuned.

 

If Hillary Clinton runs for President of the United States  in 2016, see the video about the book that warned back in 2008 what a second Clinton presidency would mean for the USA:

 

CLICK ON IMAGE TO VIEW VIDEO

Hillary Clinton Nude

Hillary Clinton Nude

France Has Credit Rating Downgraded By Standard and Poor’s as ECB Reduces Interest Rate

November 9th, 2013 Comments off

Continuing a two year trend that has seen the once AAA rating of French sovereign debt reduced, the ratings agency S & P announced it is cutting its rating on government debt from Paris to AA.  This decision flows from the moribund state of the second largest economy in the Eurozone, which is suffering from high unemployment, large public deficits and a failure to engineer strong economic growth.

The government of French President Hollande came to office on a pledge to create new jobs by defying the austerity trends of other Eurozone partners, in part to be financed by higher taxes. The populist message of Hollande, once translated into public policy, has failed to lift the French economy, and notwithstanding the boasts of politicians in Hollande’s administration, S & P clearly sees sovereign debt issued by France as being less credit worthy in the wake of current fiscal and economic policies.

In the meantime, the European Central Bank, which under its president, Mario Draghi, has followed in lockstep with the Fed’s Ben Bernanke in implementing a near zero interest rate policy (ZIRP), has just cuts its interest rate from half a percent to a quarter of a percent. The most recent rate reduction by the ECB, in conjunction with S & P’s lowering of France’s credit rating, demonstrates that the fiscal and economic woes in the Eurozone are far from over. The Eurozone crisis continues.

If Hillary Clinton runs for President of the United States  in 2016, see the video about the book that warned back in 2008 what a second Clinton presidency would mean for the USA:

Hillary Clinton Nude

HILLARY CLINTON NUDE

Hillary Clinton Nude

WALL STREET KILLS--A CHILLING NOVEL ABOUT WALL STREET GREED GONE MAD

To view the official trailer YouTube video for “Wall Street Kills,” click image below:

In a world dominated by high finance, how far would Wall Street go in search of profits? In Sheldon Filger’s terrifying novel about money, sex and murder, Wall Street has no limits. “Wall Street Kills” is the ultimate thriller about greed gone mad. Read “Wall Street Kills” and blow your mind.

Eurozone Unemployment Crisis: Continued Rise in Joblessness

June 1st, 2013 Comments off

According to Eurostat, the agency compiling data for the 17-member  European Monetary Union,  unemployment throughout the Eurozone continued to rise, reaching 12.2 percent in April. In the worst afflicted Eurozone economies, the overall unemployment rate is well above 20 percent, with youth unemployment in some cases exceeding 40 percent, such as in Italy.

Even if the Eurozone were to magically transition to high rates of economic growth, it would take years to reduce the level of joblessness to levels that existed prior to the onset of the global economic crisis. However, such a miracle is not in the works. All the leading prognosticators, including the IMF, project tepid  growth at best, with several major economies in the Eurozone remaining in recession. While pressure grows on the ECB (European Central Bank) to engage in more quantitative  easing, the politicians remain impotent in the face of continued economic malaise and stagnation.

If Hillary Clinton runs for President of the United States  in 2016, see the video about the book that warned back in 2008 what a second Clinton presidency would mean for the USA:

Hillary Clinton Nude

HILLARY CLINTON NUDE

Hillary Clinton Nude

WALL STREET KILLS--A CHILLING NOVEL ABOUT WALL STREET GREED GONE MAD

To view the official trailer YouTube video for “Wall Street Kills,” click image below:

In a world dominated by high finance, how far would Wall Streetgo in search of profits? In Sheldon Filger’s terrifying novel about money, sex and murder, Wall Street has no limits. “Wall Street Kills” is the ultimate thriller about greed gone mad. Read “Wall Street Kills” and blow your mind.
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European Central Bank To Buy Sovereign Bonds Without Limits

September 6th, 2012 Comments off

To the delight of equity markets, ECB president  Mario Draghi has announced  officially that the European Central Bank will purchase Eurozone bonds in the secondary market, with three-year maturities, theoretically without any limits. In effect, Draghi has told the world that the ECB will run its printing presses at warp speed, and conjure out of thin air whatever quantities of euros are required to combat what Draghi calls “market distortions.”

The Bundesbank opposes the move, and Germany’s traditional fear of inflationary policies by central bankers will no doubt be awakened. Draghi’s position is that he has no choice, if the euro is to be saved. His policy measure reminds me of what a U.S. Army officer once said, after his unit destroyed a village during the Vietnam War: “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.” Draghi may have unleashed a desperate policy measure which, in attempting to save the euro, will ultimately bring about its demise.

                 

 

 

 

WALL STREET KILLS--A CHILLING NOVEL ABOUT WALL STREET GREED GONE MAD

 To view the official trailer YouTube video for “Wall Street Kills,” click image below:

In a world dominated by high finance, how far would Wall Street go in search of profits? In Sheldon Filger’s terrifying novel about money, sex and murder, Wall Street has no limits. “Wall Street Kills” is the ultimate thriller about greed gone mad. Read “Wall Street Kills” and blow your mind.

 

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European Central Bank And Mario Draghi

August 5th, 2012 Comments off

Increasingly, amidst the worsening Eurozone debt crisis. the European Central Bank is becoming the center of gravity for not just insolvent sovereigns within the Eurozone; the bulk of the global economy is facing towards the ECB president, Mario Draghi, in much the same way as the pious do towards Mecca. With the bulk of Europe, including not only the Eurozone countries but also the UK mired in recession and unending economic crises, the bond vigilantes and investors have largely given up on the politicians.

Will Mario Draghi follow the pattern of the U.S. Federal Reserve and its chairman, Ben Bernanke, in dropping loads of cash from his virtual helicopter, freshly conjured out of thin air through the magic of the central bank’s printing press? It is a sign of the times, and the incessant global economic crisis, that supposedly sophisticated investors are desperately hoping for the unleashing of a torrent of legal counterfeiting by the central bankers as the final chance to ward off fiscal calamity.

 

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WALL STREET KILLS--A CHILLING NOVEL ABOUT WALL STREET GREED GONE MAD

 To view and listen to the YouTube video audio excerpt  “Wall Street Kills,” click image below:

 

 

Sex, murder, financial power and pathological greed come together in the explosive suspense thriller by Sheldon Filger, WALL STREET KILLS: A NOVEL ABOUT FINANCIAL POWER, VIOLENT SEX AND THE ULTIMATE SNUFF MOVIE.
This video provides a free audio reading from chapter one of “Wall Street Kills.” The scene depicted involves two characters from “Wall Street Kills” having a business conversation in a Los Angeles suburb. One character is Peter Hoffman, director of new business development for a secretive Wall Street hedge fund and private equity group. The other character is Daniel Iachino, president of a major independent film company specializing in “adult entertainment” for niche markets. Hoffman is on a mission to investigate if portraying unsimulated violent death in the form of entertainment would be a lucrative business investment. The conversation between the two men quickly focuses on the phenomenon of snuff movies.

 

 

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European Central Bank Scrambles As Eurozone Debt Crisis Rages

June 3rd, 2012 Comments off

ECB President Mario Draghi, it is rumored, will cut interest rates, in a frantic effort to retard the rampaging Eurozone Debt Crisis. Since assuming the ECB presidency, Draghi has engaged in stealth quantitative easing, buying up sovereign bonds, and engaging in other monetary gimmicks. But nothing seems to be working. With ECB rates already very low, there is not much left to be cut.

The schism is over supposed austerity measures in the vulnerable Eurozone countries with large sovereign debts neutralizing any impact  from ECB monetary policies. However, the real issue involves the bond markets; will they open up their coffers and offer more loans to countries that already have an unsustainable debt to GDP ratio? In the Eurozone, both economic /fiscal and monetary policies are totally detached from the harsh realities of the marketplace.

 

                 

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European Central Bank Begins Monetization To Stem Eurozone Debt And Banking Crisis

December 22nd, 2011 Comments off

It appears that the ECB is abandoning its policy of monetary prudence, and imitating U.S. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke in running its printing press wildly. Mario Draghi, ECB boss, has made available cheap loans to European banks experiencing liquidity problems. In response, more than 500 European banks stampeded to the ECB discount window, and have borrowed nearly 490 billion euros, equivalent to $643 billion USD at current exchange rates. Clearly, the European banks had desperate need for new capital, while the Eurozone politicos hope the banks will use the newly minted euros to buy European sovereign debt.

Nouriel Roubini I think described this rather nicely as in essence quantitative easing and stealth debt monetization. As with Ben Bernanke’s repeated bouts of money printing, I don’t think this new loose monetary policy by Mario Draghi will avail itself of any meaningful results. Since the global financial and economic crisis was unleashed in 2008, money printing by central banks has been a symptom of the problem, not its solution.

 

 

 

                 

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Officer Larry of the NYPD is on his way to Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan to arrest peaceful protesters involved with the Occupy Wall Street movement. Being a public spirited member of the New York Police Department, Officer Larry does remind us that there is a global economic crisis underway that rivals the Great Depression of the 1930s.

European Central Bank And The Sovereign Debt Crisis

November 22nd, 2011 Comments off

As all but the most gullible no longer have faith in the European politicians to resolve the increasingly deadly sovereign debt crisis among the PIIGS nations in the Eurozone, the last ditch hope is now resting with the European Central Bank. The new president of the ECB, Mario Draghi, is under increasing pressure to abandon the bank’s defined mandate to maintain price stability, and to instead become the Eurozone’s lender of last resort. It can only do that by firing up its printing press, and conjuring new euros out of thin air.

Only Germany, with a long historic memory dating back to the massive monetary inflation of Weimar Germany in the early 1920s, remains in opposition to the ECB unleashing its printing press. Otherwise, politicians, hedge fund managers and investors are demanding that the ECB flood the world with euros. In their eyes, inflation is preferable to a deflationary recession, and the inevitable devaluation of the euro resulting from monetary creation would cheapen European exports. All a good thing, so they claim. No wonder Mario Draghi is being cajoled into becoming the savior of the European monetary union, and possibly the global economy.

My take on the ECB becoming the lender of last resort? I think we have the evidence of what would likely occur right in front of us. In the U.S., the Federal Reserve under the direction of its chairman, Ben Bernanke, has been in the money printing business since the onset of the current global financial and economic crisis in 2008. The Fed has been in many cases the lender of last resort in America, buying everything from U.S. Treasuries to toxic assets from banks and companies, while flooding the land with instantly manufactured liquidity and maintaining a zero interest policy at its discount window. We have all seen how effective such a policy measure has been in the United States. Bernanke’s record includes unprecedented fiscal deficits, many state and local authorities in the U.S. tottering on the brink of bankruptcy, unemployment levels not witnessed since the Great Depression of the 1930s and an economy functioning at stall speed and about to enter a double-dip recession, despite unprecedented levels of monetary, not to mention fiscal stimulus.

 If the European Central Bank follows in the footsteps of Bernanke, I don’t see how the results will be any different for the Europeans. Printing money may sound attractive to the desperate, but it is at best a short-term panacea, which solves nothing in the long run, and creates its own set of complications and economic distortions. Ultimately, a printing press cannot correct the flawed concept of a single currency for a multitude of different political cultures and economies.

                 

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Officer Larry of the NYPD is on his way to Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan to arrest peaceful protesters involved with the Occupy Wall Street movement. Being a public spirited member of the New York Police Department, Officer Larry does remind us that there is a global economic crisis underway that rivals the Great Depression of the 1930s.
 

Eurozone Trillion Dollar Bailout is Doomed to Failure

May 12th, 2010 Comments off

The political masters of the Eurozone delivered their promised “shock and awe” just before Monday’s Asian financial markets opened. If the intention was to create a 24 hour surge in equity prices across the globe, the politicians’ desperate bid to “defend the euro at any price” achieved their transitory objective, at the cost of nearly $1 trillion. However, it is already becoming clear to  investors and analysts globally that this trillion dollar joint Eurozone-IMF boondoggle will utterly fail. Already, the euro has given up almost all of its 24 hour euphoric gains, and is resuming its downward descent.

It is also increasingly clear that key decision makers within the Eurozone played fast and loose with the EMU constitution,  by invoking the “exceptional circumstances” clause of Article 122 of the Lisbon Treaty governing the European Monetary Union. More problematic, it is becoming undeniably obvious that the supposedly independent European Central Bank took orders from the politicians, especially President Sarkozy of France. The ECB president, Jean-Claude Trichet, protests that there was no political interference in the ECB’s decision to start purchasing worthless government bonds from Greece, Portugal and the other insolvent nations that make up the so-called PIIGS. No one believes Jean-Claude Trichet, and Germany in particular will become increasingly alienated from the Eurozone as the ECB engages in the once forbidden monetary sin of quantitative easing.

At the price of one trillion dollars, the Eurozone has just paid the first instalment in what may prove to be the most costly funeral for a currency in modern financial history.