Spain Watch, and Catalan independance

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 23 Jul 2012, 10:39

7.55%...

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 23 Jul 2012, 11:33

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-2 ... faces.html

Bond Payment

Greece is due to make a 3.1 billion-euro bond payment, mostly to the ECB, in August, a challenge that euro-area officials have said won’t be an issue, while so far declining to specify how they’ll ensure the bond redemption gets paid.

Once taboo, the possibility that Greece could exit the 17- member monetary union has been voiced this year by European officials who consider the fallout from such a scenario would be the lesser evil against a seemingly perpetual crisis.

Roesler, who is Germany’s economy minister as well as the chairman of Merkel’s Free Democratic coalition partner, told ARD that a curtailment of aid to Greece would lead to a sovereign default, which would in turn lead to “Greeks coming to the conclusion that it is probably wiser to leave the euro area.”

Spiegel reported that German officials were holding off on such a decision until the permanent bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism, comes into operation in September. The 500 billion-euro ESM is on hold pending a decision by Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court, set for Sept. 12.

“For Greece, it’s long been five past midnight,” political columnist Hugo Mueller-Vogg said in Germany’s best- selling Bild newspaper today. The IMF, “by stepping on the brakes, makes it easier for creditor nations like Germany and the EU as a whole to also say: adieu Acropolis, it’s time to go.”

This is pretty clear. The US, the IMF and the Germans have had their fill of Greece. They are desperate to stop Spain being forced out of the eurozone, but they cannot do so while Greece sits there also primed to explode.

Looks like the endgame to me, but I've said that before...

SleeperService · Post by **SleeperService** » 23 Jul 2012, 15:48

I think you're right this time UE

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18950896

This has been done before but rarely for three months with a market so fragile. It's generally seen as a very risky move. Traders tend to go bear market as they can't lay off riskier speculations. I really thought we'd get to the end of the Olympics....

Post by **adam2** » 23 Jul 2012, 16:15

SleeperService wrote:I think you're right this time UE

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18950896

This has been done before but rarely for three months with a market so fragile. It's generally seen as a very risky move. Traders tend to go bear market as they can't lay off riskier speculations. I really thought we'd get to the end of the Olympics....

I think it might last until the end of the games.
These things allways take longer than expected.
Remember those who expected a sudden crash in 2008 ? after lehmans bust ?
Remember those who thought BAU would end as soon as oil production peaked ? well it probably has peaked. Doom is almost certainly approaching, but is not here just yet.

Remember all the forecasts, going back some years, that a large war in the ME was due any day, leading to TEOTWAWKI ? Well it has not happened yet, though I expect it within a few years.

For months there has "been only a week to save the euro", and it is still there.

So IMHO doom has got a bit closer, but probably wont arrive until after the games, and maybe not even this year.
The can will be kicked a little furthur down the road.

Aurora · Post by **Aurora** » 23 Jul 2012, 16:23

Until the 21st December 2012?

Post by **adam2** » 23 Jul 2012, 16:48

Aurora wrote:Until the 21st December 2012?

I do not believe in such superstitous nonsense, but it would be exceedingly ironic if BAU DID end on the date forecast !
To a certain extent such prophecies can be self fulfiling.
If all was well with the wider world, then such ideas could be treated with contempt. But with the financial disasters unfolding around us, then if enough people BELIEVE that the world will end on a certain date, it just might.
If enough people withdraw their savings for a final party ? or decide not to invest in property, material goods, plant and equipment etc because they think that the world will end, then such actions could be the tipping point.

BTW I thought that the world was due to end on December 12 , not 21st as you suggest.

Tarrel · Post by **Tarrel** » 23 Jul 2012, 16:51

No, it's 21st. Multiple planetary conjunction combining with winter solstice, etc.

Seriously though, it is sad to see these once fine nations throwing away their dignity in order to dance to the Euro-tune. I'm not sure if I am witnessing a perverse version of "it's a knockout", or a scene from "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?".

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 23 Jul 2012, 17:19

Yes, it's the 21st. I wasn't aware of any planetary conjunctions. The importance of the specific day is that it is the winter solstice, and the importance of the year is that the sun will be in the middle of the "dark rift", which is an area of the sky that looks like a dark path through the middle of the disk of the milky way, as viewed from Earth. It takes 22,000 years (or something like that) for the sun on the solstice to do a full 360 degree trip around the sky and back to the dark rift. The dark rift is a "cosmic birth canal" from maya cosmogenesis. That's why the world is predicted to be reborn.

Regarding this sort of "superstitious" belief in general, it is too simplistic to think of the only options as "it's all total nonsense" (because there's no such thing as supernatural causality) and "the prophecy made by the Mayans many centuries ago is coming true" (as if the future was already fixed when the prophecy was made and everything that has happened since then was always destined to happen.) There are possibilities in between. It is possible that there really is some "non-natural" causality involved in the 2012 phenomenon, but that its mechanisms are not those of the simplistic interpretation described above. In other words, it is possible that there is much more to this than meets the eye.

Aurora · Post by **Aurora** » 23 Jul 2012, 17:49

Pesto on the Beeb - 23/07/12

Spain moves nearer to full-scale rescue

Article continues ...

In other words, there is no temporary refuge for Spain in borrowing for shorter periods.

Its day of reckoning, in the sense of a decision on whether to become the first really big eurozone economy to subject itself to the humiliation of being run from Brussels and Washington, by the European Commission and IMF, looms.

Aurora · Post by **Aurora** » 24 Jul 2012, 19:18

BBC News - 24/07/12

Spain's financial situation continues to worry investors, with borrowing costs rising and the Catalonia region saying it will need government funds.

Spain's implied cost of borrowing over ten years hit a fresh euro-era high of 7.57% on Tuesday.

As fears grow that it will be unable to avoid a full bailout, leaders called for the immediate implementation of measures agreed last month.

These include aid directed at Spain's banks without adding to national debt.

Article continues ...

Aurora · Post by **Aurora** » 27 Jul 2012, 09:02

The Economist - 28/07/12

The flight from Spain

Spain can be shored up for a while; but its woes contain an alarming lesson for the entire euro zone.

Article continues ...

Aurora · Post by **Aurora** » 27 Jul 2012, 14:59

BBC News - 27/07/12

Some 5.7 million Spaniards, equivalent to almost one in four, are now seeking work, according to official figures.

The country's unemployment rate rose to 24.6% during the April to June quarter, up from 24.4% during the previous quarter.

That's the highest level since 1976, soon after the death of the right-wing dictator Francisco Franco, and before the country returned to democracy.

Separately, Spain's third largest bank reported an 80% fall in net profits.

CaixaBank said net profits fell to 166m euros ($203m; £129m) during the January to June period.

CaixaBank also set aside 2.7bn euros against its property assets, in accordance with reform requirements stipulated by the government in May.

On Thursday, Spain's biggest bank, Santander, reported that its profits halved during the period.

Article continues ...

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 07 Sep 2012, 09:56

Excellent article about why it really is crunch time for Spain:

http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2012/09/spain ... t-load-of/

You see I think the financial world and our rather wealthy and privileged leaders take so little notice of the lives of ordinary people that they think that ‘people will manage’ without ever wondering ‘how?’ If people have ‘managed’ so far, our leaders cease to think about them – it’s a strain to think about people you never meet, and frankly don’t care to meet – and assume they will continue to ‘manage’ for as long as they are required to. Much like grass is green and will continue to be green so ‘The People’ in the minds of those who rule over us, are just another part of the natural world to be taken for granted and used for profit.

But people cannot ‘manage’ indefinitely. At some point, like over fished seas, polluted rivers and melting ice-caps there comes a point where something gives. I wonder if we are now at that point in Spain. I think an increasing number of people in Spain, but elsewhere across Europe as well, are simply beginning to run out of the savings with which they have been keeping their families afloat. Don’t forget money taken from saving to pay for mortgages won’t re-appear back on the bank’s books because the banks did not hold the mortgages. They were securitized and sold on.

If I’m right then capital will leave the banks not just from capital flight but simply as accounts run dry. Is this not inevitable when unemployment runs at 20%+ for year after year? Regardless of my speculation, what is not speculation is that the Spanish Banks are running our of money. And this has rather profound knock on effects for the government. To wit, Spanish banks, which the Spanish government has relied upon to buy Spanish debt/bonds are now not buying but actually selling Spanish sovereign debt/bonds.

Spain’s official ‘plan’, I use the word very lightly indeed, is to sell €6 billion a month every month. €3 billion of which will be old debt re-issued/rolled over and €3 billion of new, extra debt. (These figure are from a UBS note published over at Zerohedge.) Then, in 2013, if all goes according to that famous plan, Spain will, when you add in Regional debts that are crashing and burning, need to issue up to and possibly in excess of €120 billion.

YEAH…RIGHT! Phone call for Mr Draghi!

So what will our lords and masters do about this riot of failure and incompetent neglect? Will they think that possibly they should draw a line under ‘saving’ insolvent banks and corrupt developers? Will they close the banks, sell their assets and recapitalize some clean banks? No of course not. Will they make those who made the stupid loans and who own the losses take them? Never. Will any of those who have ruined a nation ever be made to face a court? No of course not. Don’t be silly.

What they are planning is what they have done so far. Pump more and more money in to failed banks, create new bad banks so they too can be given public money that disappears when they too fail, and then turn around and tell the tax payer that the nation has spent too much and the government will, with crocodile tears in their eyes, have to close some hospitals, cut wages, ‘liberalize’ the work place, fire thousands of lazy, good for nothing public service workers, and then wonder why tax revenues are going down and banks are seeing money leave.

They will pump money in to the one sector of the economy which is NOT going to help any sort of recovery, and absolutely refuse to spend money on any sector that might, and then when all fails they will proceed to sell off the sovereign assets of the nation that are not theirs to sell.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 07 Sep 2012, 10:02

UndercoverElephant wrote:Yes, it's the 21st. I wasn't aware of any planetary conjunctions. The importance of the specific day is that it is the winter solstice, and the importance of the year is that the sun will be in the middle of the "dark rift", which is an area of the sky that looks like a dark path through the middle of the disk of the milky way, as viewed from Earth. It takes 22,000 years (or something like that) for the sun on the solstice to do a full 360 degree trip around the sky and back to the dark rift. The dark rift is a "cosmic birth canal" from maya cosmogenesis. That's why the world is predicted to be reborn.

Regarding this sort of "superstitious" belief in general, it is too simplistic to think of the only options as "it's all total nonsense" (because there's no such thing as supernatural causality) and "the prophecy made by the Mayans many centuries ago is coming true" (as if the future was already fixed when the prophecy was made and everything that has happened since then was always destined to happen.) There are possibilities in between. It is possible that there really is some "non-natural" causality involved in the 2012 phenomenon, but that its mechanisms are not those of the simplistic interpretation described above. In other words, it is possible that there is much more to this than meets the eye.

What!

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 07 Sep 2012, 11:56

then turn around and tell the tax payer that the nation has spent too much and the government will, with crocodile tears in their eyes, have to close some hospitals, cut wages, ‘liberalize’ the work place, fire thousands of lazy, good for nothing public service workers, and then wonder why tax revenues are going down and banks are seeing money leave.

They will pump money in to the one sector of the economy which is NOT going to help any sort of recovery, and absolutely refuse to spend money on any sector that might, and then when all fails they will proceed to sell off the sovereign assets of the nation that are not theirs to sell.

Neatly put. And oh, so accurate.