No worries today ! All hands on deck to spin , sell debt , keep the ponzi lurching ahead

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/17/eurozone-crisis-greece-rescue-efsf-downgrade

7.55am: Overnight, China has reported that its economic growth fell to its slowest rate in over two years.

Chinese GDP growth slowed to 8.9% in the fourth quarter of 2011 (on an annualised basis), dragging down growth for the full year to 9.2%, down from 10.3% in 2010.

China's National Bureau of Statistics, which released the data, also warned that 2012 will be challenging:

In terms of the domestic and international situation, 2012 will be a year of complexity and challenges so we should be fully prepared.

The Chinese economy appears to have felt the chill from the eurozone crisis in the last few months. Exports to Europe -- a crucial market -- grew by just 7% year-on-year last month, down from 22% in August.

But rather than causing any alarm, the GDP data sent shares surging on the Shanghai stock market. Two reasons -- economists had expected a bigger drop in GDP growth, and there is speculation that the Chinese government might relax monetary policy to prevent a slowdown.

and....

8.22am: Europe's banks stashed more than half a trillion euros with the European Central Bank last night -- a record figure.

The ECB just announced that its overnight deposit facility took in €501.9bn last night, up from €493bn on Friday evening.

Regular readers will know that overnight deposits at the ECB have been hitting record levels in recent weeks, ever since the ECB pumped almost €500bn of cheap loans into the system in an effort to avoid a new credit crunch.

The ECB has denied that the banks who took these loans are now simply lending the money back to the central bank. However, the data is a sign of unease in the financial system. Banks are clearly happier to leave their excess capital in the ECB's vaults (where it will attract a very low interest rate) rather than either lending to each other or to the wider economy. That suggests a lack of trust in each other, concern that loans to other businesses could turn sour, or simply a fear that they face further writedowns on their own assets.

and....

11.20am: The European Financial Stability Facility has succeeded in selling €1.5bn of short-term debt.

In its first test since being downgraded by S&P last night, the EFSF found buyers for new 6 month bills to fund the bailouts of Portugal and Ireland.
The average yield on the sale came in at 0.2664%, and the EFSF received total bids for €4.6bn of bonds (so the auction was significantly oversubscribed).

8.53am: Klaus Regling, chief executive of the European Financial Stability Facility, has been quizzed about last night's S&P downgrade in the last few minutes.

Regling told reporters in Singapore that the downgrade would not have much impact "so long as Moody's and Fitch don't follow suit".