Friday, November 9, 2012

" Reading Between The Lines " by Mark Grant.......now the US Election is over and we see the news buried for months coming to the surface ( as well as the expectation that fake data no longer will be needed or helpful to achieve the ends sought by both the GOP and DEMS ) , all one can say is get ready .....and let's look beyond the lazy greek stereotype and consider who is being scapegoated there and whose end does it serve ?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-09/most-important-chart-consider-weekend-or-tom-lees-nightmare


The Most Important Chart To Consider For The Weekend (Or Tom Lee's Nightmare)

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Sometimes, it just pays to keep it simple stupid. At some point, the dismal economic reality of our post-credit-creation-miracle boom world will reassert itself in asset prices. The catalyst may not be obvious (like a close-election reminding a nation of sheep just how divided we are as a people and implicitly as a political class - and what that means for our future fiscal probity); but it is coming. 'Cycles' cycle; the Fed has fired its bazooka; and OMT omnipotence is in doubt;and the only way we get 'moar money' from our central planners is if their hand is forced by a reversion to reality...

US economic data may be surprising to the upside (of economist's expectations - weighted by what is clearly now the most bullshit pre-election datasets we have seen)but as we have said before - there is no decoupling, it is lagging and leading behavior (combined with the normal pre-election upward bias of hopium in sentiment). The chart above makes it clear that while some have seen positive moves by US-specific macro data surprises, the rest of the core international economies are doing decidedly badly - and US equities remain ignorant (for now).


and check the thousand yard stare from FN Stournaras .....

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_09/11/2012_469390

 
Coalition plays down loan delay

The coalition attempted on Friday to play down concerns about when Greece will receive its next bailout installment ahead of a vote on Sunday night on the 2013 national budget.
Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras said there was no doubt that Greece would receive its 31.5-billion-euro tranche soon. “We are in discussions with the Eurogroup and there is no reason to worry about the disbursement of the loan because Greece is doing what it needs to and Europe is doing what it needs to,” he told journalists.
Stournaras added that Athens expects “a political statement” from eurozone finance ministers on Monday confirming that Greece will receive the money.
One reason for the government wanting to receive confirmation that the tranche will be forthcoming is that on Tuesday it will have to issue short-term debt to cover 5 billion euros in T-bills which mature on November 16.
In Brussels, a senior European official told journalists there was no way Greece’s lenders would allow Athens to default but that a number of issues needed to be resolved before the loan disbursement could be agreed.
“The decisions that European governments are being asked to make are not straightforward,” he said on condition of anonymity. The official said eurozone ministers would have to study the troika’s report on the Greek program, which they are likely to receive on Monday, and make decisions on the country’s financing gap as well as its debt sustainability. Some eurozone parliaments will have to approve these decisions.
Greece hopes that it will have a positive verdict on its loan tranche before the end of the month. A new Eurogroup meeting in December could give the green light for two further installments, of 5 and 7 billion, to be released.
However, the delay prompted SYRIZA to accuse the government of having been “slapped in the face” by its lenders. “They fooled the Greek people, telling them the austerity package had to be urgently voted through or we would not get the installment on Monday,” said leftist MP Dimitris Papadimoulis.
Despite only gaining 153 votes in Wednesday’s vote on structural and fiscal measures, the government is expected to sail through the budget ballot with up to 167 votes.


and.....

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_09/11/2012_469387

Prosecutors waiting for new 'Lagarde list' to take action

 Grigoris Peponis (l) and Spyros Mouzakitis (r).
Financial prosecutors Grigoris Peponis and Spyros Mouzakitis are due to receive next week the original version of data relating to some 2,000 Greeks with accounts in the Geneva branch of HSBC before deciding whether charges should be pressed against any of those on the list, Kathimerini understands.
The prosecutors are also due to send this week the results of their preliminary probe into the actions of former finance ministers Giorgos Papaconstantinou and Evangelos Venizelos to Parliament so MPs can decide whether the pair should face a House inquiry over their handling of the list, first provided by then French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde in 2010.
Peponis and Mouzakitis will check the list they receive from France against the one provided by Venizelos several weeks ago. They will then be in a position to determine who on the list should face charges of tax evasion or other financial crimes.


and....

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_09/11/2012_469354

PPC strikes to continue till Sunday, perhaps next week too

Public Power Corporation (PPC) workers decided late on Thursday that they will continue until the end of this week their rolling 48-hour strikes, which could stretch into next week.
PPC’s GENOP union held a stormy meeting that stretched late into Thursday night before members decided that the strikes, which are being staged to protest the government’s latest austerity measures, should continue until the 2013 national budget is voted on in Parliament, late Sunday.
The union however did not rule out the possibility of continuing the action, which has not caused any serious power shortages so far, next week.
In its statement, GENOP also attacked the main private sector union, GSEE, for failing to have an impact on preventing the adoption of austerity measures over the last two-and-a-half years.






http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-09/reading-between-lines


Reading Between The Lines

Tyler Durden's picture





Via Mark J. Grant, author of Out of the Box,
Tomorrow the Wizard turns 620. I was out with him last night in a little pre-birthday celebration and I asked him how it felt to have that many years under his belt. He laughed and replied that being a Wizard had it occurred to me that he might not have started at one? No, I admit, I had not thought of that, which opened up a realm of possibilities that the old codger could actually be far older or far younger than was generally presumed. I then asked him if he planned to be around for his 630th birthday day and he replied that the odds were good. He said he had done a whole statistical model and that very few people died between 620 and 630 and so he was likely to make it to the next milestone. At the end of the evening, with a twinkle in his eye, he informed me that he would not be here on Saturday in any event. He said thathe had learned something from the Europeans and that he was going to follow their lead. He informed me that he was going to get on his broomstick, fly across the international dateline and so never have an actual birthday. Then he will return to America and claim that the damn thing never happened. I guess he is still learning a thing or two!
Reading Between the Lines

 
One of the great faults with paying attention to Europe is to take what they tell you as factual. The media trumpets what they are given by the various sources of information in Europe but a quite skeptical eye is what is needed. They claim that they do not have the “Final Troika Report” on Greece because they have not stamped it “Final” yet and so they blame their indecision on the magic trick that they are performing. Everyone on the Continent has the report but since they can agree on almost nothing they have blamed the lack of the rubber stamp as the culprit. They should just come out and say that, “It is the rubber stamp’s fault” and be done with it.
 
Red Lines
 
Every easy trick has now been exhausted when it comes to Greece. You may feel worn out and tired by the length of time this process has taken but that is a remarkably short-sighted viewpoint. You should be happy that you have had the time to carefully consider and plan for what is about to take place because ugly is about to get uglier and you will see retching in the streets; not just in Athens but in Berlin and Madrid. I would say that the odds are about 60/40 that what is happening is that the European Union is trying to force Greece out of the EU by having Greece refuse any more of the austerity measures and not get funded. It is a “Game of Houses” because Germany does not want to take the blame and they want Greece to throw up their hands and leave so Berlin can say, “What can we do?” To actually force Greece out would be a violation of principles that Germany cannot politically afford and so a quite complicated ruse is underway. The severity of the situation is indicated now by the Red Lines that have been drawn by all of the major constituencies so that there is no compromise to be found. As I have stated before we are at the Crossroads, at Breakpoint, because every proposal is met with a hard line drawn in concrete by someone in some corner of the deliberations.

The IMF will not provide any more funds without a 120% debt to GDP ratio by 2020 they claim but what this really means, and what they have come closer to saying recently, is that they will not dish out any more money unless they feel that they will get paid back (Red Line). The IMF has suggested that perhaps the ECB could take the loss and Mr. Draghi has said while they might forego the profits on their Greek Bonds, estimated at about $16 billion, that they will not take a loss as it would violate their charter of not financing individual nations (Red Line). The IMF has suggested that the Stabilization Funds could take a hit which Germany and several other countries have said is impossible because it would probably cause several governments to fall in Europe (Red Line). The Greeks have asked for a two year extension in payments which would require another $40 billion to be handed to Greece as Austria, the Netherlands and Finland have all publically stated “No more money for Greece” and another wall (Red Line). The markets all think that it is just another moment to muddle through but I am telling you, having examined the evidence and considered all of the possibilities, that this is not the case and that my conclusion will very soon prove to be correct. The length of time this process has taken may have numbed some people’s sensitivity to the danger but with $1.5 trillion in total debts that could go into default; the danger is quite real and the shock will be systemic.The ticking time bomb has been loaded and it is about to explode whether you realize it or not.
It is going to be either “debt forgiveness” or “more money” or “brute force” and there are quite serious consequences for many nations and many governments whichever path is chosen. “Debt forgiveness” is a sacred promise broken and “more money” is politically impossible in some countries at this point. Europe may have concluded that it is far better to force Greece out by continual demands and ever increasing austerity measures and that the losses from a Greek Exit, which would be borne by all, are a better alternative to the other two roads as the Germans and others could blame the Greeks and not take the responsibility. Three roads, all ugly, which is why the length of the delay and the hesitation to engage. Any of these three paths will lead to extensive pain and a lot of contagion and so I conclude that the Greeks will get forced out by increasing European demands as that is the least politically damaging alternative for many of the nations in Europe. “Blame it on the Greeks” will be the secret password while the Greeks will call Berlin every name in the book.“The summer day is closed - the sun is set:
Well they have done their office, those bright hours,
The latest of whose train goes softly out
In the red west. The green blade of the ground
Has risen, and herds have cropped it; the young twig
Has spread its plaited tissues to the sun;
Flowers of the garden and the waste have blown
And withered; seeds have fallen upon the soil,
From bursting cells, and in their graves await
Their resurrection. Insects from the pools
Have filled the air awhile with humming wings,
That now are still forever; painted moths
Have wandered the blue sky, and died again”

                   -William Cullen Bryant






http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-09/meet-alex-real-not-lazy-bastard-greek



Meet Alex - The Real 'Not Lazy Bastard' Greek

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While Mr. Panos has often been used as the poster boy for the Greek people, his shortened premise is - we will keep taking the Europeans money until they no longer want to give it to us. In the meantime, the Greek people have suffered due to the previous largesse of their government and need for a 'reversion' to the mean of their relative wealth. The following brief clip offers some insight (or defense) of who the real man-on-the-street is in Greece. Not the media's interpretation of a lazy, cheating, ungrateful, helpless, corrupt, violent, rude, racist, tax-evading, trouble-making thieving vandal - that lives with his mother; but a scapegoat for all that is wrong in Europe and remains shocked, confused, frustrated, and upset. It's someone's fault, right? Why not Alex?




From the Omikron Project:
Greek crisis? Get the whole picture.


We are a group of regular guys and girls living in a crisis-hit country called Greece.

We got sick of watching the rest of the world get fed inaccurate images of life here today, and wanted to do something about it.

So instead of complaining, we built Omikron Project: a place for ideas, discussion... and ACTION.

and......

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