MADRID (AP) — Europe is to offer Spain a bailout package of up to €100 billion ($125 billion) to help rescue the country’s banks and keep the 17-country eurozone from breaking apart.
After months of fierce denials, Spain admitted it would tap the fund as it moved faster than expected to stem the economic crisis that has ravaged Europe for two years.
Spain becomes the fourth - and largest - European economy to ask for help and its admission of help comes after months of market concern about its ability to pay its way. In recent weeks investors have demanded higher and higher costs to lend to Spain, and it became clear it would be just too expensive for the country to borrow the money necessary for a bank rescue from the markets.
The three countries that have received rescues thus far — Greece,Ireland and Portugal — are fairly small, and many have worried that bailing out much-larger Spain could call the entire euro project into question. Cyprus, also a small economy, could also be forced to seek a bailout soon.
Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said Saturday the aid will go to the banking sector only and so would not come with new austerity conditions attached for the economy in general — conditions that have been an integral part of previous bailouts to Portugal, Ireland and Greece.
Why would anyone keep money in a Spanish bank when you could put the money in a German bank? It would seem to me that shoring up the Spanish banking system with €100 billion of borrowed money indicates the problem is far worse than thought and even this “fix" will be insufficient. It is not yet clear to me where the cash to help Spain would come from but you can bet the farm that this move will embolden Greek voters to demand their €100 billion plus share as well.
ReplyDeleteHow many more €100 billion bundles are there?
ReplyDeletePatience, once France gets it's house in order, they can handle anything that comes up over there.
ReplyDeleteThey've already lowered the age of retirement from 62 to 60,
since the new guy came in, so it won't be long and they'll
be ready to rumble with the Krauts.
Surprise Knockout
ReplyDeleteHuge Centipede Fighting a Snake
Nobody left a comment on that first link, which is awesome, so in case you missed it before...
The second one is so somebody can watch it and tell me what happened.
...I want to sleep tonight.
Bar Shootout
Girls and guys in an Ohio bar don't seem overly concerned about large quantities of flying lead.
Bus Center Punch
Just child-folk having a little fun. Had some white cop pulled over the car carrying some of the shooters and arrested them for illegal possession, prior to them getting to the bar, the media and Congressional Soul Train would have been screaming “profiling”. Obama would have been reflective that the youths could have been his own. Al Sharpton would have been raising up the pitch-a-bitch posse.
ReplyDeleteThe trouble is that the costs of a monetary breakup would in all likelihood be even greater than the costs of a transition to American-style federalism.
ReplyDelete.....
So, after more than two years of procrastination—known universally as “kicking the can down the road”—Europe has reached the moment of truth.
It’s binary. Either German Chancellor Angela Merkel has to bow to the logic of her predecessor but one, Helmut Kohl, who always saw monetary union as a route to federalism, or it’s over—and the process of European disintegration is about to spiral out of control. Put another way: if Europe’s leaders try kicking the can one more time, it will turn out to be packed with explosives.
For the Germans, it’s an agonizing dilemma. The federal route means breaking the news to German voters that they are going to be handing over very large sums of money to Southern Europeans for the foreseeable future—maybe as much as 8 percent of GDP. That’s much more than German reunification cost in the 1990s. But the breakup scenario could also cost Germans hundreds of billions, because the financial shock waves would be immense. Not only would the Germans risk hefty losses on those TARGET2 balances, but the collapse of the peripheral economies would hardly leave German business unscathed, since 42 percent of German exports go to the rest of the euro zone—eight times the amount that goes to China.
.....
My best guess is that all this brinksmanship will ultimately end with the Hamiltonian solution: fiscal federalism and, ultimately, a United States of Euro Zone.
LINK
"If Alexander Hamilton were alive today, he’d advise the creation of a federal system much more like the US Constitution than the unworkable Articles of Confederation.”
DeleteWhen Alexander Hamilton was actually alive his confederates were all speaking English as a native tongue. State borders were in their infancy and malleable. There was a common culture and a common external challenge from a single foreign power. All had large tracts of land that they owned. No City was over 100 years old. There was no entrenched bureaucracy, military, treasury, banking system, international corporations or level upon level of courts supported by lobbyists and lawyers. There was no history of war between the underpopulated states.
Alexander Hamilton would not know what to do. The possibility of forming a lasting European union was lost when the Germans were ousted from Normandy.
Yes, but it is riveting, not to mention cheaper.
DeleteWhich, in itself, is a fascinating twist. Cheaper to stay together than get divorced. (The possibilities are endless.)
DeleteTwo connected factors help explain the court's precipitous plunge.
ReplyDeleteThe first is that this is the most entrenched court in American history.
.....
Which brings us to the second factor responsible for the court's loss of prestige. Over the past decade, the court has stopped doing its job, and the people have noticed.
.....
...But what has happened over the past decade is that rather than protecting the minority, the Supreme Court instead safeguards the interests of the rich and powerful.
.....
...Friday’s poll doesn’t reveal the existence of a new phenomenon, but the fact that people are now noticing an old phenomenon. And what this in turn reveals is simply that the justices are out of touch.
LINK
From Feb 2012:
ReplyDeleteThe tax debate is shifting heavily against the Republicans.
.....
When voters look at the Republicans, they see a party that is not ready to lead. The Republican brand has collapsed over the last year; both Republicans in Congress and the major contenders for the Republican nomination see rising negatives.
and Romney believes that the US is ready for at least two more Middle Eastern wars.
DeleteI bet you didn't even watch my Wayne Allen Root video about this election. Never watch anything that goes against one's hopes.
DeleteBest thing I've seen in a long while. Only group O hasn't pissed off is a few gays.
"Obama's goose is cooked." Sarah Palin
Count on it.
b
And she knows something about cooking geese, a long lost art down here in the lower 48 where many women no longer know how even to cook an egg in some of our raw washed out big cities.
DeleteI find it easier to believe that the general US population will recognize being fat is not good for them and they will reform and get down to a normal weight in the next six months than the Europeans accept that they need a real political union, subservient to Germany, in the next six weeks.
ReplyDeleteYou should read more Daily Beast and watch more MessNBC.
DeleteThen you will be enlightened by the Truth and the Light.
A United Euro. What a Joke.
Only deluded Socialist Dreamers could ignore the REALITY accompanying the borders between those separate COUNTRIES (and cultures).
"the major contenders for the Republican nomination see rising negatives."
ReplyDeleteIs this a history lesson?
Headlines today show rising negatives for The One.
Belmont Stakes 2012 video -
ReplyDeletehttp://philly.sbnation.com/2012/6/9/3075525/2012-belmont-stakes-video-union-rags
Keep your eye on #1, Street life. Look at that terrible slow start. And how difficult it makes things.
Following Rufus, I had 1, 3, 9.
Don't ever listen to Bill Clinton. Dullahan didn't show nothin'. Clinton don't know nothin'.
(spits)
b
49% Favor Public Employee Unions, 46% Oppose
ReplyDeleteThis week’s unsuccessful effort to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is expected to prompt more states to cut the benefits of public employee unions in an effort to reduce sizable budget deficits.
Americans still have mixed feelings about those unions but would much rather reduce their benefits than pay more taxes to fund them.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey, taken since Tuesday’s recall vote, finds that 49% of American Adults at least somewhat favor unions for public employees, including 23% who Strongly Favor them.
Nearly as many (46%) oppose those unions, with 30% who Strongly Oppose them. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
The survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on June 6-7, 2012 by Rasmussen Reports.
Classic Replay:
ReplyDeleteFrom the Bunker following arrival of news of Scot Walker's victory:
"It's not spending, IT'S INVESTING IN OUR CHILDREN'S FUTURE
...there's only one place left to go...
...Sacramento
It's the last bastion of imbeciles.
They'll put free hookers and cocaine on our health plan as
long as we say it's for the children..."
Bob and Quirk:
ReplyDeleteThink we'll be hearing the Encomiums for Spain's massive investments in Green Energy anytime soon from you know who?
(little Greek wordplay there)
Taking bets now on how far in advance of CA's coming bankruptcy he'll stop touting their great foresight.
Solyandra was a success, what else can anyone say? What else can 'he' say?
DeleteSpain may be broke but they have free energy from sources that don't exist. That is a success too.
Concerning California, 'he' will not admit it's an actual bankruptcy, it is a shifting of fiscal responsibility to those more 'able to pay', or somethin'.
b
But after my wipevout on the Belmont Stakes, I am no longer a betting man.
Deleteb
I thot you were just commenting @ BC, not committing serious dollars at Belmont.
DeleteQuestions - State Budgets
ReplyDelete.
DeleteThis is an example of why you always have to look at the actual poll questions before judging the poll results in opinion polls.
The polls give us actual opinions but you can skew the results any way you want by the wording of the questions.
For instance, it should be fairly easy for everyone to answer the question, "Do you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose unions for public employees?"
I suspect it would be harder to answer the question, "To help reduce state spending would you favor or oppose a 10% pay cut for all state employees?" unless you are of the mind that in a zero sum world, anything they get is coming out of your pocket and that they don't deserve it. How many of the 1000 respondents even know what it is the unions are getting?
.
"How many of the 1000 respondents even know what it is the unions are getting?"
DeleteMore than ever before, I'm betting.
(Not having had my wad blown @ Belmont)
Not even the "Obama Girl" will say she will vote for her crush again, this time around.
ReplyDeletehttp://news.yahoo.com/obama-girl-not-excited-2012-won-t-endorse-193610215.html
b
Hey Doug how about this -- Marxine
ReplyDeletePretty good, huh?
b
MOST EXCELLENT!
Delete.
ReplyDeleteMax, I responded to your suggestion on the last post to 'rant away' by...well... ranting away.
.
Standard Operating Procedure
DeleteSOP, as Trish would say.
b
Is this to imply that Marx is in fact Trish returned under the moniker Maxine?
DeleteYes.
DeleteThe fourth reason I stopped reading BC was the incestuous intolerance for dissent, even in the vague 'thinking out loud' form. Highly unpleasant and repulsive but mainly dangerous in a thuggish, rock-star groupy, reverentially cultish let-me-polish-your-podium-massa, we-have-the-answers-and-you-don't Chevy Chase smirky, submit-or-die Borgish sort of hypnotic adulation that brooks no independence of thought.
Claustrophobic and icky.
Yes to Quirk, not to Trish.
Deleteyes indeedy. i remember the first time I posted an article from either the Guardian or Independent, two papers that I have read along with the Telegraph, Guardian and Stars and Stripes since 1965. There was a howl from the bleachers about the unworthiness of reading anything in either paper..
DeleteIn Erasmus's Praise of Barack,
ReplyDeleteBarack composes an encomium to himself.
It is an ironic encomium because being praised by Barack is backwards praise;
therefore, Barack praising himself is an ironic conundrum.
"When you decide it's time for change to happen, change happens."
- BHO
37. mac
ReplyDeleteHere it is: the truth.
EVERY city run by Democrats is headed to cratersville, and if it’s run by black Democrats it’s headed there on the express train.
(From Belmont, not the Belmont Stakes)
36. RWE
ReplyDeleteThe rot in Detroit started early. A friend of mine was hired as a firefighter there when he got home from WWII. He told me that around 1950 there were a series of bank robberies committed by “The Coverall Bandits.” The robbers wore coveralls and masks over their faces.
Finally they found out why they wore coveralls. They had police uniforms underneath. They were cops and in some instances were the first to respond to the report of the bank robbery.
They fired them from the police dept but that was all. It was too embarrassing to the police dept to prosecute them; their identify was never revealed to the public.
As for Chicago – well, the Mobs took over in the 1920′s and never gave up control.
Rumor has it that Chicago was started when some people were standing around New York city and one of them said, “The dirt, the crowding, and the crime here sure is nice but let’s go see if we can find somewhere that is even colder in the winter.”
.
DeleteHell, Doug. You can go back to the Purple Gang and before if you want to talk about Detroit. The current rot (the major problems) started after the 60's.
It's the same problems that infect most major cities. Heck, I've watched Hawaii Five-O.
:)
.
Cookie,
Deletelend me your comb.
Out this way, we had a notorious group of farmers, back in the day when things was really tough, 'the drought years' we called 'em, though it always rained, it was just that wheat was selling twenty five cent/bushel, anyway this group robbed the banks in police uniforms over the coveralls, then after changing in the ally, went right back in and made deposits.
You might think of it today as an 'automatic transfer'.
Never did get caught.
b
(but there were some suspicions when they all showed up around town in new pick-ups)
Oh well, California may be going broke, but at least they will have their $120 billion dollar high speed rail between Bakersfield and Fresno.
ReplyDelete39. Doug Barack composes an encomium to himself.
ReplyDeleteI prefer to look at Condi's lacuna.
3. David: I can’t believe it is much different in Illinois, Athens or Madrid. The people are bamboozled all their lives by some political sweet talk that “this time it’s different!”. “Hope and Change” that this time it’s different.
It doesn't matter when the money actually runs out. Can't push a rope. Can't squeeze blood from a turnip. When something's not there, it's not there.
"The fourth reason I stopped reading BC was the incestuous intolerance for dissent, even in the vague 'thinking out loud' form. Highly unpleasant and repulsive but mainly dangerous in a thuggish, rock-star groupy, reverentially cultish let-me-polish-your-podium-massa, we-have-the-answers-and-you-don't Chevy Chase smirky, submit-or-die Borgish sort of hypnotic adulation that brooks no independence of thought.
ReplyDeleteClaustrophobic and icky."
This deserves some kind of award, but what?
b
As for Hillary, depending upon whether or not the snitch decides to haggle with the terrorist group, as it stands right now the price for the Secretary of State comes to about $71 USD for "10 hens and 10 cocks" which, at the going South African price, is approximately R30 or $3.57 a piece.
ReplyDeleteNot for nothing, but offering a pint of camel's milk and a chicken's egg as incentive to hand over Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would have more than sufficed.
The offer made by the al-Shabaab-sponsored Somali Livestock for U.S. Officials Compensation Program proves that despite the militants' uncanny ability to creatively hide bombs in various and sundry body cavities, offering 10 whole camels and 20 fat, healthy chickens for two useless liberal politicians indicates the militants grossly underestimate the value of camels and chickens.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/06/ten_camels_for_barry.html#ixzz1xPVwK8Eb
Creating awarding, or making do, you decide.
b
A hit may have been taken out on 'God's Banker' and not for a camel and a chicken either, I'd bet.
ReplyDeletePlot thickens, but Paolito is free......
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/10/vatican-banker-running-scared-gotti-tedeschi-could-turn-whistleblower.htm
This man obviously needs to seek a safe haven in Detroit.
Become a barber in Quirk's favorite hair joint.
b
German news magazine Der Spiegel reported on Saturday that leaders of European institutions are working on a comprehensive plan to rescue the euro that would include the issuance of joint Eurobonds—a move Germany has repeatedly rejected.
ReplyDeleteThe news magazine said European Union Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, Eurogroup head Jean-Claude Juncker and European Central Bank [cnbc explains] President Mario Draghi are working on plans for a "genuine fiscal union" in which individual member states would no longer be able to independently take on new borrowing.
LINK
Just might be a there there.
I'm pulling for them.
Is this good or bad?
ReplyDeleteU.S. President Barack Obama currently has the support of 64% of Jewish registered voters, according to the Gallup polling agency. This is 10% less than the percentage of Jews who voted for Obama in 2008, and is similar to the percentage of Jews who voted for Michael Dukakis when he contended for the presidency against George Bush in 1988. Republican Mitt Romney enjoys 29% support among Jews.
Be careful what you wish for
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Everyone knows America has too much debt. What they don’t know is that things are getting better, not worse.
Little by little, our economy is reducing its debt burden, slowly repairing the damage caused by 10, 20 or 30 years of excess.
If you want to know why economic growth has been so tepid, here’s your answer. Four years after the storm hit, the economy is still deleveraging. And it’s very hard for any economy to grow when everyone is focused on increasing their savings.
Total domestic — public and private — debt as a share of the economy has declined for 12 quarters in a row after surging over the previous decade.
The rapid rise in federal debt over the past four years has distracted us from the big picture. The level of public debt is indeed worrisome, but it’s not as big a worry as the economy’s total level of debt — public and private.
Although we have a whole cottage industry devoted to warning us about the dangers of too much public debt, we don’t have any comparable Cassandras telling us about the dangers of too much private debt. Yet the history of the past 30 years (or 300) clearly shows that too much debt, of whatever variety, can pose a systemic risk to the national and global economies.
The strongest credit market is, and has been for awhile, "Student Loans," which seems like a totally logical response to a tightening, and challenging job market.
ReplyDeleteSave Western Wildlife -
ReplyDeletehttp://savewesternwildlife.org/index.html
b
.
ReplyDeleteFacebook flotation may have cost UBS $350m
Swiss bank resubmitted order multiple times after receiving no confirmation and got more shares than it wanted,...
Ever have This Happen To You? [link]
.