Europe

The French Government Gets Whacked, Even The Left Is Angry, And Hollande Gets Slapped In The Face

France is mired in a stagnating economy. The private sector is under pressure, auto manufacturing in a depression. Unemployment hit a 13-year high. Over 3 million people are out of work. Youth unemployment of 22.7% belies the catastrophic jobs situation in ghetto-like enclaves. Gasoline and diesel prices are near record highs. So there are a lot of very unhappy campers. And it could turn ugly.

Bankrupt Cyprus And The Russian Connection

The Republic of Cyprus, with its 840,000 people, has been in the Eurozone for less than five years. It and its banks burned through mountains of euros faster than anyone could count. Now they need a bailout whose magnitude balloons every time someone blinks. Yet, Cyprus has something other Eurozone debt-sinners don’t have: Russian money flowing back to Russia!

Merkel and Clinton Go To China: One Makes Deals, The Other Gets Snubbed

Bring home the bacon, or the speck, as it were, was the guiding principle for German Chancellor Angela Merkel when she frolicked in China last week. But her pleas to get the Chinese to buy the crappy bonds of debt-sinner countries in the Eurozone fell on deaf ears. This week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was hobnobbing with the Chinese elite. It turned into a clash fest, and instead of bringing home the bacon, she argued with the Chinese over everything and the South China Sea.

The German Economy Tanks, The ECB Throws Gasoline On The Fire, And Eurozone Bailouts Enter Phantasy Land

Slovenia joined the Eurozone in 2007, went on a borrowing binge that blind bond buyers eagerly made possible, dousing some of its two million people with riches, creating a real estate bubble that has since burst, and driving up its external debt by 110%. And in October, it may go bankrupt, admitted its Prime Minister. Because borrowing binges can last only so long if you can’t print your own money. And in Germany, the debate itself may tear up the Eurozone.

Russia’s Gazprom Tightens Stranglehold On Europe, France Falls: Natural Gas War Gets Dirty

Why would France suddenly prohibit shale gas exploration? Sure, there are environmental issues: flammable drinking water, earth quakes, cows that die, radioactive sludge in sewage treatment plants…. But French governments have had, let’s say, an uneasy relationship with environmentalists. Its spy service DGSE, for example, sank Greenpeace’s flagship, the Rainbow Warrior, in the port of Auckland, New Zealand, killing one person. No, there must have been another reason.

The “Pauperization of Europe”

It started on Monday. “Poverty is returning to Europe,” said Jan Zijderveld, head of Unilever’s European operations. The third largest consumer products company in the world was adjusting its commercial strategy to this new reality, he said, by redeploying to Europe what worked in poor countries of the developing world. Other stars of the industry affirmed it. “The logic of pauperization,” L’Oréal CEO Jean-Paul Agon called it.

Counter Revolt In Germany: Gagging “Hardliners” As the Economy Tanks And Future Exports Drop Into The Red Zone

A hullabaloo has flared up in Germany over squashing democratic discussions on whether or not taxpayers should endlessly pay to keep Greece in the Eurozone and protect bondholders—the ECB and national central banks—from having to recognize reality on the worm-eaten Greek debt in their basements. The tools: political pressure, fake moral outrage, and ridicule. Now politicians have something big to hide behind.

Tax Evasion In Switzerland By The Swiss Is “Officially Silenced To Death”

The arm-wrestling between the US and Switzerland over funds that US citizens have stashed away in Swiss bank accounts has been going on for years. In Germany, a similar fight has broken out, albeit with more consideration for the rich. Other governments, desperate for moolah, are also going after their own with funds in Switzerland. Now it turns out the Swiss themselves, long praised for their tax compliance, also evade taxes. But it’s “officially silenced to death.”

Letting Greece Twist In The Wind

With impeccable timing, it seeped out that a group of experts at the German Finance Ministry is studying ways to deal with a Greek exit from the Eurozone. A spokesperson clarified helpfully on Friday, rather than denying it, that the group has been in existence for over a year. Impeccable timing because it happened as Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras was arriving in Berlin for his begging expedition. German Chancellor Angela Merkel must have smiled. The heat was on.

Central Banks, The Veil Of Secrecy, A Hotbed of Corruption, And Now Another One Got Ensnared

Central banks are designed to be “independent,” and they shroud themselves in secrecy. But they have formidable and, when it comes to money, “unlimited” powers that they harness for the benefit of their clientele, banks. And hiding behind their veil of secrecy are shenanigans that rarely seep to the surface, but when they do, they just get worse and worse. The latest is a sordid bribery and kickback scandal at the Reserve Bank of Australia that appeared to be neatly contained to two subsidiaries, until now.