http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=Bailout Tue, 21 May 2013 10:11:59 -0400 Liveleak http://edge.liveleak.com/80281E/u/u/ll2/logo.gif http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=Bailout Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:46:21 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=09c_1366728254 P90X64 Developing Market Expert Says the Effect of Worldwide Bailout Package Unknown on Emerging Economies. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=09c_1366728254 P90X64 Focus Washington: Alexander Mirtchev on Effect of Worldwide <span class="highlight">Bailout</span> Package Unknown Alexander Mirtchev, Bailout Package, World Economies, Emergine Economies, Economy Market Experts, Bailout Package Thu, 25 Apr 2013 05:54:51 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=740_1366882868 dirkdiggler NASA test pilot's day at work goes belly up. I enjoyed the whole vid but skip to 11.50 for the action. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=740_1366882868 dirkdiggler NASA Spin Tests With <span class="highlight">Bailout</span> NASA test pilot Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:57:52 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e49_1367258062 plokiju The obscene greed-and-arrogance stories emanating from Wall Street are piling up so fast, it's getting hard to keep up. This one is from last week, but I missed it - it's about the foreclosure/robo-signing settlement that was concluded earlier this year. The upshot of this story is that in advance of that notorious settlement, the government ordered banks to hire "independent" consultants to examine their loan files to see just exactly how corrupt they were. Now it comes out that not only were these consultants not so independent, not only did they very likely skew the numbers seriously in favor of the banks, and not only were these few consultants paid over $2 billion (over 20 percent of the entire settlement amount) while the average homeowner only received $300 in the deal - in addition to all of that, it appears that federal regulators will not turn over the evidence of impropriety they discovered during these reviews to homeowners who may want to sue the banks. In other words, the government not only ordered the banks to hire consultants who may have gamed the foreclosure settlement in favor of the banks, but the regulators themselves are hiding the information from the public in order to shield the banks from further lawsuits. Secrets and Lies of the Bailout To recap: in the foreclosure deal, 13 banks agreed to pay a total of $9.3 billion to settle their liability in a number of areas, including robo-signing, which is just a euphemism for mass-perjury - robo-signing is the practice of having low-level bank employees sign documents attesting to full knowledge of case files in court foreclosure actions, when in fact they were signing hundreds of files per day, often having no idea whether the paperwork was correct or not. It was done across the industry and turned housing cases across America into nightmares of jumbled and/or forged paperwork, in which even people who did not deserve to be thrown out of their homes were uprooted thanks to systematic errors by faceless bureaucrats who cut legal corners purely to save money. All the major banks were guilty on a mass scale, but they worked with federal regulators like the Fed and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to secure this wide-ranging, industry-saving settlement, which not only covered the robosigning epidemic but a host of other bad or illegal practices, like the wrongful denial of modifications and the improper levying of (often hidden) fees. Minus this crucial settlement, banks would have faced enormous uncertainty about their legal liability going forward, and getting a deal that not only gave these companies some legal closure but allowed them to pay pennies on the dollar for their illegal activity was a massive coup for the whole finance sector. Only $3.6 billion was earmarked for cash payments to the nearly 4 million homeowners covered in the settlement. Most of the remainder of the deal was in other forms of non-cash relief, i.e. modifications or principal reductions. The article is long and continues here: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/while-wronged-homeowners-got-300-apiece-in-foreclosure-settlement-consultants-who-helped-protect-banks-got-2-billion-20130426 Mortgage Relief Checks Go Out, Only to Bounce When the bank account is running dry and the mortgage payment is coming due, the phrase "insufficient funds" is the last thing you want to hear. Now imagine hearing those two words when trying to cash a long-awaited check from the same bank that foreclosed on you. Many struggling homeowners got exactly that this week when they lined up to take their cut of a $3.6 billion settlement with the nation's largest banks - lenders accused of wrongful evictions and other abuses. Ronnie Edward, whose home was sold in a foreclosure auction, waited three years for his $3,000 check. When it arrived on Tuesday, he raced to his local bank in Tennessee, only to learn that the funds "were not available." Read more: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/victims-of-foreclosure-abuses-face-another-woe-bounced-checks/?ref=business http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e49_1367258062 plokiju Robo-signing: Homeowners Got $300, Consultants Got $2 Billion Robo-signing, Homeowners, Got, $300, Consultants, Got, $2 Billion, bounce, check Sat, 27 Apr 2013 09:23:17 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b75_1367068786 gemini 26 April 2013 http://euobserver.com/economic/119952 Rehn: admitted the Troika should be subject to greater transparency By Benjamin Fox BRUSSELS - EU economic affairs commissioner Olli Rehn faced a sustained verbal shellacking on Thursday (25 April), with MEPs on both the left and the right finding fault with his policy-making. Rehn, who was speaking at a hearing with the economic and monetary affairs committee in Brussels, found himself criticised by the right for going soft on austerity and chastised by the left for not doing enough to promote growth. Jean Paul Gauzes, spokesman for the centre-right EPP group, accused him of "lacking courage and conviction." It would be "a very bad sign if we say we have to move away from austerity," he noted. The committee debate comes towards the end of a week in which EU officials offered conflicting views on the pace of economic reform in the eurozone. For his part, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso indicated in a speech that austerity had "reached its limits," even though the EU executive was quick to maintain that its economic policies remain unchanged. In a nod to efforts made to balance budgets across European capitals, Rehn noted that the pace of deficit reduction would slow to 0.75 percent in 2013 compared with a 1.75 percent fall in 2012. Most countries now "have the room to make fiscal policy with a more medium-term view," he said. But his comment was not enough to pacify the centre-left. Green MEP Philippe Lamberts accused Rehn and the EU's other economic policy chiefs of "collective blindness." Elisa Ferreira, the Portuguese spokesperson for the Socialist group, said her country is heading "straight for disaster" because the EU has provided no alternative to austerity. "Enough is enough," she said. Her fellow-countryman Diogo Feio, a centre-right MEP, called on the commission to offer incentives to Portugal, warning that the "social and political consensus is extremely fragile." "If you have a country that respects its commitments you need to provide more instruments," he said Rehn also conceded on the need for more transparency on decision-making in the Troika - a joint body of commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund officials which control EU bailout conditions. The commissioner himself described the Troika's work as "complex and cumbersome." "You have 20 vetoes and 20 red lines which ... leads to decisions that are not first best, but second best," he said. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b75_1367068786 gemini MEPs slam Rehn over economic policy econimic policy Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:54:30 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=af2_1366915802 gemini 25 April 2013 http://euobserver.com/political/119910 By Honor Mahony BRUSSELS - Upcoming elections, a changed political context, and new powers to change the EU treaty have put wind in the sails of MEPs hoping to persuade governments to drop Strasbourg as a seat for the European Parliament. The topic has been on the fringes of the political agenda for over 20 years, but according to British Liberal MEP Edward McMillan-Scott, a leading single-seat campaigner, the "omerta" on the previously sensitive issue has been broken. But still euro deputies are careful not to couch the discussion in terms of Brussels versus the French city of Strasbourg, to where the entire parliament decamps once a month. Instead, they say it is an issue of necessary self-determination for a parliament that has come of age in terms of its legislative powers. Where the EU institutions sit is fixed by the EU treaties and can only be changed by member states. Deputies have long complained about the difficulty of getting there - transport routes to Strasbourg are notoriously poor - as well as about the estimated EUR180 million a year it costs the taxpayer and the CO2 emissions it entails. "We should talk about the simple right of parliament to take its own decisions, to organise its own work," said German Green deputy Gerald Haefner during a seminar on the issue on Tuesday (23 April). He is co-authoring a report by the constitutional affairs committee, to be ready by the end of the year, on how parliament can put into practise a new power to make proposals to change the EU treaty - necessary for this seat issue. Haefner said he plans to draft a report that will make it difficult for his colleagues to say No, with French MEPs normally keen to maintain the status quo. The report will stress the importance of the parliament deciding its own fate rather than being the "puppet" of other institutions. Haefner wants to keep the emotive and political issue of what happens to Strasbourg - which fears the loss of the monthly influx of free-spending MEPs, assistants and lobbyists - out of the discussion. "If we vote for that the next step would be to enter into negotiations with the council (member states). It will then end up in a European Convention. We will then negotiate on questions of compensation ," he noted. Ideas for compensation range from moving an EU court there to setting up a new university. Ken Daly, a lawyer advising the single seat campaign, noted that if there was "political will" a "simple" treaty change could be made, something that has already happened three times in the last two years, including to set up the eurozone bailout fund (ESM). For his part, McMillan-Scott is challenging EU member states to come up with a "roadmap" for a single seat by the end of June, something MEPs overwhelming called for in a vote last October. Ahead of the June 2014 European election, where the costly "travelling circus" as it colloquially known is often a doorstep issue, McMillan-Scott and his fellow one-seaters also want political parties to put the single seat issue into their party manifestos and those running for election to sign a pledge on it. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=af2_1366915802 gemini MEPs find new line of attack against Strasbourg eu parliament Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:46:32 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=419_1366835983 gemini Poll in European Union's six biggest countries finds Euroscepticism is soaring amid bailouts and spending cuts Ian Traynor, Europe editor The Guardian, Wednesday 24 April 2013 20.30 BST http://is.gd/GhCuBf Public confidence in the European Union has fallen to historically low levels in the six biggest EU countries, raising fundamental questions about its democratic legitimacy more than three years into the union's worst ever crisis, new data shows. After financial, currency and debt crises, wrenching budget and spending cuts, rich nations' bailouts of the poor, and surrenders of sovereign powers over policymaking to international technocrats, Euroscepticism is soaring to a degree that is likely to feed populist anti-EU politics and frustrate European leaders' efforts to arrest the collapse in support for their project. Figures from Eurobarometer, the EU's polling organisation, analysed by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), a thinktank, show a vertiginous decline in trust in the EU in countries such as Spain, Germany and Italy that are historically very pro-European. The six countries surveyed - Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Spain, and Poland - are the EU's biggest, jointly making up more than two out of three EU citizens or around 350 million of the EU's 500 million population. The findings, published exclusively in the Guardian in Britain and in collaboration with other leading newspapers in the other five countries, represent a nightmare for Europe's leaders, whether in the wealthy north or in the bailout-battered south, suggesting a much bigger crisis of political and democratic legitimacy. The damage is so deep that it does not matter whether you come from a creditor, debtor country, euro would-be member or the UK: everybody is worse off," said Jos'e Ignacio Torreblanca, head of the ECFR's Madrid office. "Citizens now think that their national democracy is being subverted by the way the euro crisis is conducted." EU leaders are aware of the problem, utterly at odds over what to do about it, and have yet to come up with any coherent policy proposals addressing the mismatch between the pooling of economic and fiscal powers and the democratic mandate deemed necessary to underpin such radical policy shifts. Jos'e Manuel Barroso, the European commission president, said on Tuesdaythis week the European "dream" was under threat from a "resurgence of populism and nationalism" across the EU. "At a time when so many Europeans are faced with unemployment, uncertainty and growing inequality, a sort of 'European fatigue' has set in, coupled with a lack of understanding. Who does what, who decides what, who controls whom and what? And where are we heading to?" The most dramatic fall in faith in the EU has occurred in Spain, where the banking and housing market collapse, eurozone bailout and runaway unemployment have combined to produce 72% "tending not to trust" the EU, with only 20% "tending to trust". The data compares trust and mistrust in the EU at the end of last year with levels in 2007, before the financial crisis, to reveal a precipitate fall in support for the EU of the kind that is common in Britain but is much more rarely seen on the continent. In Spain, trust in the EU fell from 65% to 20% over the five-year period while mistrust soared to 72% from 23%. In five of the six countries, including Britain, mistrust prevailed over trust by sizeable margins, whereas in 2007 - with the exception of the UK - the opposite was the case. Five years ago, 56% of Germans "tended to trust" the EU, whereas 59% now "tend to mistrust". In France, mistrust has risen from 41% to 56%. In Italy, where public confidence in Europe has traditionally been higher than in the national political class, mistrust of the EU has almost doubled from 28% to 53%. Even in Poland, which enthusiastically joined the EU less than a decade ago and is the single biggest beneficiary from the transfers of tens of billions of euros from Brussels, support has plummeted from 68% to 48%, although it remains the sole country surveyed where more people trust than mistrust the union. In Britain, where Eurobarometer regularly finds majority Euroscepticism, the mistrust grew from 49% to 69%, the highest level with the exception of the extraordinary turnaround in Spain. A separate, more detailed study published this week on the impact of the currency and debt crisis and the austerity policies that have followed also found steep falls across the EU in faith in democracy and national political elites. The study for the Cabinet Office by the European Social Survey, linking university researchers across the EU, found that soaring unemployment, anxiety and insecurity had eroded faith in politics. "Overall levels of political trust and satisfaction with democracy across much of Europe, but this varied markedly between countries. It was significant in Britain, Belgium, Denmark and Finland, particularly notable in France, Ireland, Slovenia and Spain, and reached truly alarming proportions in the case of Greece," it said. The financial crisis "not only eroded the objective economic conditions of many citizens, but also created widespread anxiety about a country's future even among those who did not experience hardship directly". Faced with this erosion of political support and the battering traditional politics is taking from populist newcomers such as Beppe Grillo's Five Star movement in Italy, policymakers appear at a loss. On Monday, Barroso said the austerity policies being applied, mainly under pressure from Berlin, had reached the "limits of political and social acceptance" and were "unsustainable" in their current form. On Tuesday, though, the commission in Brussels sought to row back on his remarks. Within the eurozone, the key response to the crisis, apart from bailouts, has been to embark on a systematic surrender of budgetary and fiscal powers from national governments and parliaments to Brussels, as well as having countries being bailed out overseen by a "troika" of technocrats and economists from the commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. These are "federalising" steps in a long process of eurozone integration that might see it transformed from a currency into a political union. "The EU has hit home and is here to stay as a watchdog of budgets, labour markets, pensions etc. This is unprecedented, and risky," said Torreblanca. "Unless it is fixed, it will feed the vicious circle between anti-EU populism and technocracy which we are currently seeing operating." Barroso argued strongly in two speeches this week that federalism was the only answer to Europe's crisis of finances and of confidence. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, brushing off widespread fears of a new German "hegemony" in Europe and the eurozone, also said that governments had to give up much more power to Brussels. "We still haven't found the answer to the question of whether we're actually now prepared to unite on common economic parameters inside the single currency area," she said in a Berlin debate with the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk. "If we want to have a common currency, a common Europe, we have to be ready to give up our hard-won habits ... That means we have to be prepared to accept that in the end Europe has the final word in certain things. Otherwise we can't keep on building this Europe ... To an extent, we have to jump over our own shadows. I'm ready for that." But Tusk delivered an unusually stark warning that German prescriptions could bring increasing nationalism and populism across the EU in a backlash that was already well under way. "We can't escape this dilemma: how do you get a new model of sovereignty so that limited national sovereignty in the EU is not dominated by the biggest countries like Germany, for example," he said pointedly. "Under the surface, this fear will be everywhere: in Warsaw, in Athens, in Stockholm. It will be everywhere without exception." Aart de Geus, head of the Bertelsmann Stiftung, a German thinktank, also warned that the drive to surrender more key national powers to Brussels would backfire. "Public support for the EU has been falling since 2007. So it is risky to go for federalism as it can cause a backlash and unleash greater populism." http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=419_1366835983 gemini Crisis for Europe as trust hits record low crisis europe Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:12:22 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7f5_1366722070 megaT77 In one of Focus Washington's first programs, Chuck Conconi interviews the enigmatic Washington-insider Alexander Mirtchev, founder and president of the Krull Corporation. As an economist who grew up under Communist rule in Bulgaria, served as the premier of the country briefly, and who later came to excel in the free-market of the U.S., Dr. Mirtchev provides a unique perspective on the current economic situation in the U.S. and in emerging markets. Alexander Mitchev is the type of fascinating figure who general audiences have little access to, but is a major player in how Washington actually operates. Mirtchev's first interview provides a very rare perspective on this massive bailout our government is considering. On Focus Washington, we hope to have other guests, like Mirtchev, who can provide nuggets of news that insiders actually can use. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7f5_1366722070 megaT77 Alexander Mirtchev from Krull Corporation on Focus Washington Alexander Mirtchev, Krull Corporation, economic analysis, Washington DC Sun, 21 Apr 2013 23:41:19 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=949_1366601927 AxisofEvil In a sweeping unanimous vote, members of Congress voted to overturn parts of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act that previously banned 28,000 federal employees, including members of Congress , from engaging in insider trading, requiring them to make financial disclosures publicly online. The bill passed into law April 2012 after lengthy debate, but took less than one minute to repeal in both the Senate and the House last week - President Barack Obama has since signed the newly-repealed bill into law. The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, was a law passed last year designed to prevent insider trading among lawmakers and government officials by requiring them to post disclosures of financial transactions online. According to official records, no Republican or Democrat objected in the unanimous repeal, consuming just 10 seconds worth of time in the Senate and 14 seconds in the House, according to official records. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) was one of the leading proponents of the repeal basing his decision on the a recommendation made by the National Academy of Public Administration. "This was their recommendation and the House and Senate agreed it was the best course of action," he said. Government officials will still have to file disclosures of securities trades more than $1,000 within 45 days, but they no longer have to file them in a searchable database that is readily available to the public. Despite robust support for STOCK last year, President Obama signed the repeal into law Tuesday. Lawmakers contend that the repeal is a necessary security measure. The National Academy of Public Administration, a nonprofit group, published a report last month declaring that posting financial transactions histories online would create an "unwarranted risk to national security and law enforcement, as well as threaten agency missions, individual safety and privacy." The group has recommended that the online posting requirements should be suspended indefinitely. The original STOCK legislation followed a "60 Minutes" television report highlighting how some members of Congress are making money on stock trades illegally by having insider knowledge of upcoming decisions by major corporations and financial institutions before they are announced to the public. Lawmakers have been involved in shady dealings that some believe is evidence of insider trading. In a notable example, Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) sold more than $115,000 worth of stocks and mutual fund shares in September 2008 as U.S. stock markets plummeted during the worst financial downturn since the Great Depression. He used much of the money to invest in Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Durbin's 2008 financial disclosure statement shows that he sold mutual fund shares worth $42,696 on Sept. 19, the day after then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke urged congressional leaders in a closed meeting to craft a bank bailout to help financially troubled banks. The Sunlight Foundation, a government accountability watchdog group, reported that despite its rapid passage, there were delays in making the details of the STOCK repeal available to the public. "The bill was not available to the public on the Library of Congress website," Sunlight reports. Spokespeople for Sunlight believe that the repeal could open the door for illegal trades. " sets an extraordinarily dangerous precedent suggesting that any risks stem not from information being public but from public information being online," said Lisa Rosenberg of the Sunlight Foundation. http://www.mintpressnews.com/congress-repeals-disclosure-of-financial-transactions-critics-decry-insider-trading/ http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=949_1366601927 AxisofEvil Congress Repeals Disclosure Of Financial Transactions, Critics Decry Insider Trading Corrupt SOBs, US polticians and Insider trading Fri, 12 Apr 2013 06:35:06 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d0f_1365762305 gemini 12 April 2013 Last updated at 11:02 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22116270 Cyprus president Nicos Anastasiades has said he will appeal for extra funding assistance from the European Union. On Thursday, it emerged that Cyprus would need to raise an extra 6bn euros ($7.8bn; lb5.1bn) to secure a 10bn euro bailout from Brussels and the IMF. The president now says he is writing to EU leaders, asking them to change their policy towards Cyprus. Mr Anastasiades made the announcement ahead of a eurozone finance ministers meeting in Dublin. According to a draft document prepared by the country's creditors, the cost of the rescue has risen to 23bn euros from 17.5bn euros, with Cyprus now having to find 13bn euros of this. 'Critical times' The Dublin meeting will review how Cyprus can raise its contribution to the bailout being put together by the EU and IMF. Mr Anastasiades said he had already spoken to EU Economy and Euro Commissioner Olli Rehn ahead of the Dublin meeting. He also said he would also be writing to European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso and to EU President Herman Van Rompuy. "The letter to Mr Barroso and Mr Rompuy will refer to the need for EU policy to change towards Cyprus by giving it extra assistance, given the critical times we are going through as a result of the economic crisis and the measures imposed on us," Mr Anastasiades said. The finance minister of Luxembourg, Luc Frieden, said on Friday that Europe and the IMF could not increase their 10bn euro share of the bailout. "I believe the policy will be that the volume will remain at 10bn ," he told a German radio station. Late on Thursday, a Cypriot government spokesman confirmed that one fundraising option being considered was the sale of some of the country's gold reserves. "The Cypriot government put various options forward, including this," Christos Stylianides told a news conference. He blamed the gulf between the original bailout total and the new 23bn figure on the previous administration and the time it took to negotiate a bailout, delays which pushed the cost of recapitalising its banks much higher. Mr Stylianides accused former President Dimitris Christofias of failing to "take responsibility, and complete indecisiveness" in promptly negotiating a bailout. 'Big burden' Analysts said the increase in the cost of the bailout meant Cyprus faced huge new challenges. Jonathan Loynes, chief European economist at Capital Economics, said that the "biggest burden of the increase in the bailout will fall on depositors and bank bond-holders, whose combined contribution will rise from an expected 5.8bn euros to 10.6bn euros." Under bailout terms agreed in March, depositors with more than 100,000 euros in savings will bear part of the cost of the rescue. The bank sector on which much of the Cypriot economy was dependent is shrinking, and thousands of jobs are being lost. Laiki Bank is being wound up and its healthy assets transferred to the Bank of Cyprus. Capital controls Late on Thursday, Cyprus relaxed restrictions that were imposed last month on access to accounts in order to head off a run on banks. The capital controls, the first that any eurozone country has applied, were put in place when banks reopened on 28 March after they were closed until a bailout agreement. A new decree, which will remain in place for seven days, lifts all restrictions on transactions under 300,000 euros, a move aimed at helping cash-starved domestic businesses which had difficulty paying suppliers and employees. Also, the daily limit on transactions outside of Cyprus not requiring prior approval is raised from 5,000 to 20,000 euros. However, the daily cash withdrawal limit of 300 euros stays in place. Meanwhile, eurozone officials at the meeting in Dublin are also due to review Slovenia's growing problems. There will be no discussion at the meeting of finance ministers, and the country will not make an application for bailout funds. But Slovenia's finance minister, Uros Cufer, is expected to present to EU and European Central Bank officials his plan to shore up the country's finances. Slovenia, which adopted the euro single currency in 2007, has been forced to recapitalise its main banks and the economy is struggling. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d0f_1365762305 gemini Cyprus to appeal to EU for extra <span class="highlight">bailout</span> funding bailout Sat, 30 Mar 2013 06:27:48 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a73_1364638871 gemini Josephine Moulds Thursday 28 March 2013 15.04 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/28/slovenia-next-candidate-eurozone-bailout A bank branch in Ljubljana. Slovenian banks have EUR7bn of bad loans on their books. Slovenia - famed for not very much - is fast emerging as the latest contender for a eurozone bailout. Nestling between Croatia and Italy, this country of almost 2 million people may be best remembered in the UK for losing to England at the last football World Cup. With risotto from Italy, goulash from Hungary and strudel from Austria, its cuisine is heavily influenced by its neighbours. But when it comes to its finances, Slovenia follows more closely in the footsteps of Spain and Ireland, with a large, troubled banking sector that threatens to bring down its economy. The once-booming former Yugoslav republic was plunged into recession by the economic crisis, which dented demand for its exports of manufactured goods, machinery and transport equipment, chemicals and food. The economy is expected to shrink by at least 2% this year. But the statistic that has everyone concerned is the EUR7bn (lb6bn) of bad loans on Slovenian banks' books, an amount equivalent to around a fifth of its GDP. The rating agency Moody's has already downgraded Slovenia's second largest bank, and the IMF has estimated that the government needs to recapitalise Slovenian lenders to the tune of at least EUR1bn. Perhaps most worrying is the fact that the prime minister, Alenka Bratusek, was moved to say this week that her country would not be seeking a bailout. Bond investors are not taking any chances. Prices of Slovenian government debt have plunged, sending yields rising by an eye-watering 0.8% on Wednesday alone. Slovenia's 10-year debt is now yielding around 6.15%, not far from the 6.49% yield on 10-year bonds from Portugal, which is already in a bailout programme. Laurence Wormald at SunGard Financial Systems said: "The evidence suggests that action will be needed by Slovenia within the next two, three months. However, a bail-in is likely to be less drastic than the one in Cyprus, since Slovenian banks are much less leveraged than those of Cyprus. Also Slovenia is different from Cyprus in one crucial respect, in that Slovenia has not created a large offshore banking centre." After Slovenia, who's next? The research house Capital Economics has its money on Malta and Luxembourg. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a73_1364638871 gemini Slovenia could be next candidate for eurozone <span class="highlight">bailout</span> euro bailout Mon, 25 Mar 2013 14:56:54 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9cf_1364237319 religionhater European and US stock markets have fallen despite the agreement of a bailout deal for Cyprus. The falls came after the head of the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers suggested that the Cyprus model, which involves a tax on bank deposits, could form a template in any future bailout. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9cf_1364237319 religionhater Cyprus <span class="highlight">Bailout</span>! Cyprus, Bailout, EU, Totalitarianism Mon, 25 Mar 2013 07:28:33 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=433_1364210374 gemini Ian Traynor and Josephine Moulds Monday 25 March 2013 10.59 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/25/cyprus-bailout-deal-eu-closes-bank Draconian terms aimed at keeping Cyprus in eurozone include closure of second-largest bank and big losses for wealthy savers European leaders reached an agreement with Cyprus early on Monday morning that closes down the island's second-largest bank and inflicts huge losses on wealthy savers. Those with deposits of less than EUR100,000 (lb85,000) will be spared, but Russians with money in Cypriot banks will lose billions of euros under draconian terms aimed at preventing the Mediterranean tax haven becoming the first country forced out of the single currency. The deal is expected to wreak lasting damage on the Cypriot economy, which has grown reliant on offshore banking and Russian money. Analysts said Cyprus could see its economy contract by 10% or more in the years ahead. Shares rallied across the eurozone on news of the deal, which does not need approval from the Cypriot parliament. The FTSE 100 was 0.8% higher and there were gains of around 1% in the German, Spanish and Italian equity markets. The response in the currency markets has so far been muted, with the euro ticking up just 0.1 cent against the dollar. The final deal came close to what the IMF chief, Christine Lagarde, had demanded a week ago but which was rebuffed by the Cypriot president, Nicos Anastasiades. Laiki, or Cyprus Popular Bank, is to be closed. Its EUR4.2bn in deposits over EUR100,000 will be placed in a "bad bank" and could be wiped out entirely. Those with smaller deposits will see their accounts transferred to Bank of Cyprus. The Cypriot government reportedly fought hard for Bank of Cyprus to be spared, but the island's biggest bank will face huge restructuring. No bailout money will be used to the recapitalise it. Instead shareholders and bondholders will be hit. It is thought depositors with more than EUR100,000 at the bank will also be involved in the recapitalisation, and are expected to face losses of around 30%. Getting the bank up to healthy EU-mandated capital levels will be made harder by the fact that Bank of Cyprus will inherit a EUR9bn debt Laiki had with the European Central Bank (ECB). The bailout deal does not need approval from the Cypriot parliament because it has been achieved by restructuring the country's two largest banks, rather than levying a new tax on citizens. Negotiations got under way on Sunday amid a hardening of stance by the IMF and Germany, which insisted that depositors must take the hit for bailing out the eurozone's latest crisis economy. Reports suggest that Anastasiades threatened to resign amid demands for a deep restructuring of Cyprus's banking system, but he remained in his post on Monday morning: "I'm happy because we shall have a programme and it's in the best interests of the Cyprus people and the European Union," he said, on leaving the building in Brussels where talks were held. The ECB had threatened to cut off funds propping up Cypriot banks on Monday, which would have precipitated the island's exit from the euro if the emergency meeting had not reached an agreement. Wolfgang Sch"auble, Germany's finance minister, said: "The numbers have not changed. If anything they've got worse." Germany is determined that Cyprus deflate a bloated financial sector that exceeds the size of the Cypriot economy by a factor of seven. "It is well known that I won't allow myself to be blackmailed by no one or nothing," said Sch"auble. "I'm aware of my responsibility for the stability of the euro. If we take the wrong decisions we'll be doing the euro a great disservice," he told a German Sunday newspaper. Cyprus had hoped to secure a rescue package from Russia, but the government was forced into fresh negotiations with its troika of lenders - the EU, the IMF and the ECB - after the Cypriot finance minister, Michalis Sarris, returned empty-handed from two days of talks in Moscow last week. The new bailout deal will hit foreign investors, particularly Russians, hard. Russian nationals are estimated to hold more than EUR20bn of the EUR68bn deposited in Cypriot banks. There were signs of panic over the weekend as a EUR100 limit was imposed on ATM withdrawals in Cyprus. Officials said they believed the country would now need strict controls on money transfers in and out of the economy in the coming weeks or possibly months, cutting off its citizens and companies from much of the rest of the eurozone's financial system. Europe's economics commissioner, Olli Rehn, said: "The near future will be very difficult for the country and its people." http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=433_1364210374 gemini Cyprus <span class="highlight">bailout</span> deal with EU closes bank and seizes large deposits cyprus bailout