Greece default getting closer

It seems Greece is getting every day closer to bankruptcy.
Fitch Ratings has downgraded again Greece's Long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDR) to 'B+' from 'BB+ and the Short-term IDR remains at 'B'. All three ratings have been placed on Rating Watch Negative (RWN).
Norway today realized that supporting a bankrupt country was pointless at this stage and decided to stop providing financial aid which is clearly useless in the current situation.
This is not a major amount of money but certainly it is a clear signal to other countries that time has come to abandon the Titanic.
In the meanwhile Italy which was largely spared by rating agencies has been put in negative watch with possible downgrade. Another clear signal that things are turning very bad in the Eurozone, Italy has largely been ignored by rating agencies despite his stagnant economy and enormous debt due to the size of his economy and its importance in the eurozone, if rating agencies will start targeting Italy in the following months we can expect a major crisis to start immediately after, the big winner in all this mess would be the Dollar which could gain some value back from the demise of the Euro. Let us brace for another Lehman event before US Elections.

Zombie Alert issued by CDC

It sounds as a joke but I swear it is true the United States Government has issued a zombie alert preparadness bulletin, providing tips on how to get prepared should our living deads decide to pay a visit in the future. The full article is available here: http://emergency.cdc.gov/socialmedia/zombies_blog.asp
The article was published by the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Protection), the same CDC that handled so brilliantly the last swine flu pandemia that killed less people than a normal flu and filled the pockets of pharmaceutical corporations.
Not sure when they are serious and when joking but it is a pretty funny article provided that people does not take it seriously and start shooting slow-moving folks.
Well done CDC you desperately needed some ratings boosts after your recent blunders, I would suggest an alien invasion next week.

US President could be granted permanent war-making powers

If you thought a war in Libya without Congressional authorization was bad...

Congress is proposing handing permanent, world-wide war-making powers to the president - including the ability to make war within the United States:

A hugely important provision for Congress to authorize a new worldwide war has been tucked away inside the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The bill was marked up by members of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) last Wednesday that poured into Thursday morning (2:45 a.m. to be exact).

A couple of minutes past midnight, Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) offered an amendment to strike Sec. 1034 — the new authorization for worldwide war provision — from the NDAA. Visibly angry that such a large sweeping provision had not yet had any public hearing whatsoever, he vigorously characterized it as a very broad declaration of war.

Rep. Garamendi was very concerned by the limitless geographic boundaries of the provision. Essentially, it would enable the U.S. to use military force anywhere in the world (including within the U.S.) in search of terrorists.

Best of Ted - Eli Pariser: Beware online "filter bubbles"

If you feel in control when searching on the internet you might want to watch this video and give it a second thought.
As web companies strive to tailor their services (including news and search results) to our personal tastes, there's a dangerous unintended consequence: We get trapped in a "filter bubble" and don't get exposed to information that could challenge or broaden our worldview. Eli Pariser argues powerfully that this will ultimately prove to be bad for us and bad for democracy.

Strauss-Kahn replace Bin Laden on the stage

The arrest of Strauss-Kahn is a very alarming issue not only for the case in itself but for the ramifications it will have on the global scenario. The issue if guilty or not is going to be debated in court, reactions to this incredible event are much more important at this stage, while some have openly suggested it is a trap others are more cautious.

But what appears is that this event could not have come to a better moment for both France and USA and maybe China too if true that a possible high profile replacement could come from either China, Brasil or India.
Sarkozy got rid of his  opponent to the next presidential elections while for United States this is derailing in the medium term any talks or suggestions of replacing the feeble US Dollar with Special Drawing Rights from the IMF as global reserve currency.
At the same time this is putting extreme pressure on the Euro by effectively removing a key player of the Euro crisis bailout talks.
Strauss-Kahn was supposed to attend a major meeting with Merkel this week in order to find a solution to the now inevitable bankruptcy of Greece and maybe in the coming months of Ireland and Portugal as well.
If there is a conspiracy certainly it has been quite timely in  setting the trap and it could risk precipitating a crisis in the following months, if there is not a conspiracy it is certainly a major blow to recovery and a very strange event indeed. What I would watch rather than his trial in the following months is the media background noise, it seems we are going to forget Bin Laden very soon; a new distraction from more serious crimes has been put on stage.

IMF and European crisis outlook

The latest thinking from the IMF on the European situation is available here.

Portugal propaganda video or God save the Eurozone

Not sure if they are trying to snob the Finnish or gain some simpathy for their recent bail-out but certainly we hope that Greece will not try something similar with the Germans.
Worth watching the following bizarre video:

Highest inflation cases in history

In a new paper published by the Cato Institute, economics professor Steve Hanke lists the all-time worst episodes of hyperinflation:

(click for full image).

Note that Hungary's daily inflation rate was ten times greater than that in Weimar Germany, and prices doubled almost six times faster in Hungary than in the Weimar Republic.

Life in Weimar Germany was extremely difficult. But Hungary in 1946 was a lot worse.

Ireland Facing Economic Ruin

A new article from Morgan Kelly published on the Irish Times is describing the series of mistakes the Irish government has perpetrated in the last 3 years and which brought the country on the brink of bankruptcy.
A small excerpt below:
WITH THE Irish Government on track to owe a quarter of a trillion euro by 2014, a prolonged and chaotic national bankruptcy is becoming inevitable. By the time the dust settles, Ireland’s last remaining asset, its reputation as a safe place from which to conduct business, will have been destroyed.
Ireland is facing economic ruin.
While most people would trace our ruin to to the bank guarantee of September 2008, the real error was in sticking with the guarantee long after it had become clear that the bank losses were insupportable. Brian Lenihan’s original decision to guarantee most of the bonds of Irish banks was a mistake, but a mistake so obvious and so ridiculous that it could easily have been reversed. The ideal time to have reversed the bank guarantee was a few months later when Patrick Honohan was appointed governor of the Central Bank and assumed de facto control of Irish economic policy.
If the current prediction can sound bleak the reality is that Ireland is by no way the only European country facing a reality check after decades of unchecked greed and excesses. It is definitely worth a read to find out how both banks and politicians have sold the country to cover the insane gambling of the Irish banks and the losses of foreign investors. Major corrections all over Europe are coming due and we can only hope that other European countries will learn from the Irish disaster when it will come to choose between saving banks or the welfare of the people


Article first published as Ireland Facing Economic Ruin on Technorati.

Osama Bin Laden puzzle

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The world has changed considerably since 2001 and US enemies are no longer terrorists but real countries with governments and armies, Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden have outlived their usefulness as symbolic villains, if the 9/11 events were essential to turn around public opinion on foreign intervention and to obtain enforcement of authocratic laws, the time is approaching for major events to be unleashed in which Al Qaeda and Jihadist from all over the world have no place to be, they could still find their usefulness here and there when some major attack will be staged to rally the population into war but they are no longer the key actors, the conflict is back to the large scale scenario of warring countries and armies and the death of Osama Bin Laden could well be the prelude to the end of the era of terror.

What is surprising of all this story as in a classical slapstick comedy is the return of a long forgotten character  on the scene and the sudden commotion for someone who was forgotten and missing for almost 10 years. Even more interesting is the dumping of his body into the sea, quite an unusual treatment for the biggest villain in American history I would actually have considered to bring him as a trophy in the United States and run him all over for propaganda purpouses well unless the body was for some reason unpresentable to the public.
It has always been surprising how Bin Laden has had the ability to appear always at the eve of a major election or event to provide the american media and their spectators with a convenient scapegoat.
Even more suprising is how many persons talked publicly during this decade of how he was supposed to be dead, I just picked some of the most influential:


- On December 26, 2001, Fox News, citing a Pakistan Observer story, reported that the Afghan Taliban had pronounced Bin Laden dead and buried him in an unmarked grave.

- On January 18, 2002, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announced: “I think now, frankly, he is dead.”
- On July 17, 2002, the then-head of counterterrorism at the FBI, Dale Watson, told a conference of law enforcement officials that “I personally think he [Bin Laden] is probably not with us anymore.”
- In October 2002, Afghan President Hamid Karzai told CNN that “I would come to believe that [Bin Laden] probably is dead.

- On November 2, 2007, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto told Al-Jazeera’s David Frost that Omar Sheikh had killed Osama Bin Laden.

- In May 2009, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari confirmed that his “counterparts in the American intelligence agencies” hadn’t heard anything from Bin Laden in seven years and confirmed “I don’t think he’s alive.”
Musharraf, the President of Pakistan said by accident three months ago that bin Laden was dead. 


On a different note though in 2003, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told Fox News Channel analyst Morton Kondracke she suspected Bush knew the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and was waiting for the most politically expedient moment to announce his capture.
And if former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had the nerve to tell us this on public television well we would better to start figuring out what is the real reason and why now.