BECAUSE THEY HAVE DONE AND ARE DOING HERE ALREADY--TAKE DETROIT, PUERTO RICO, AND CHICAGO, FOR EXAMPLE...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-america-is-not-the-next-greece_55a814c5e4b04740a3df6b11?utm_hp_ref=business&ir=Business&section=business

The key difference is that the United States has its own central bank -- the most powerful one in the world...

POWERFUL? ONLY IN THEIR MINDS. UBIQUITOUS, EXTRAVAGANT, FRIVOLOUS AND PANDERING, BUT NOT POWERFUL.

Watching the battle play out between Greece and Europe's financial leadership, observers in the United States might wonder how it is Greece got itself into this mess. Could such a thing ever happen here?

No, it could not. The reason lies in the different structure of the United States and the European Union, and has led to much confusion in the United States, as politicians have warned that if this or that policy isn't enacted, America could become “Greece on steroids.”

The key difference is that the United States has its own central bank -- the most powerful one in the world. Greece, meanwhile, does not. And while the states of the United States are genuinely united -- a common banking system, common federal budget and common political system -- the eurozone is a federation of countries with a common currency that, in the face of crisis, must largely fend for themselves.

When countries’ economies slow down, they have two sets of tools at their disposal: monetary policy (adjustment of the money supply) and fiscal policy (adjustment of government expenditures). Central banks fill the demand gap of a recession by printing currency, and governments do it by spending more than they save.

YES, AND IF THESE TOOLS ARE MISUSED, DUE TO IGNORANCE, BLIND IDEOLOGY, OR CORRUPTION, THE RESULT IS THE SAME. DON'T THINK THERE'S ANY SAFETY HERE...THEY TOOK THE SAFETY OFF WHEN THEY STARTED FINANCIALLY RE-ENGINEERING THE PLACE....FOR THE NEW OWNERS.

THE ON-AGAIN, OFF AGAIN BANKS ARE ON, AT THE MOMENT...WE WILL SEE WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS MONDAY.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/18/us-eurozone-greece-idUSKCN0PR29W20150718?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

The Greek government ordered banks to open on Monday, three weeks after they were shut down to prevent the system collapsing under a flood of withdrawals, as Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras looked to the start of new bailout talks next week.

The decree to re-open the banks came hours after new ministers were sworn in following a cabinet reshuffle in which Tsipras replaced dissident members of his ruling Syriza party following a revolt over the tough bailout terms.

In a move that marked a split with the main leftist faction in the ruling Syriza party, Tsipras sacked hardline former Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis and two deputy ministers following a party rebellion in which 39 Syriza lawmakers withheld support from the government over the package.

Panos Skourletis, a close Tsipras ally who left the labour ministry to take over the vital energy portfolio, said the reshuffle marked "an adjustment by the government to a new reality".

NEW REALITY, SAME AS THE OLD REALITY....

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/19/us-eurozone-greece-family-analysis-idUSKCN0PT05W20150719?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

The latest paroxysm of Greece's debt crisis has exposed growing rifts in the euro zone which, unless addressed soon, could lead to the break-up of European monetary union, the EU's most ambitious project.

The most worrying sign for European leaders is that public opinion and domestic politics are pulling them increasingly in opposing directions - not just between Greece and Germany, the biggest debtor and the biggest creditor, but almost everywhere.

Germans, Finns, Dutch, Balts and Slovaks no longer want taxpayers' money to go to bail out Greeks, while the French, Italians and Greeks feel the euro zone is all about austerity and punishment and lacks solidarity and economic stimulus.

With central and east European states growing more assertive and the Dutch and Finns facing mounting domestic constraints, a compromise between euro zone leaders Germany and France, increasingly hard to find over Greece, is no longer sufficient to settle the problems.

There are so many stakeholders with divergent views that crisis management is becoming ever more difficult. A far-reaching reform of the 19-nation currency area's flawed structure seems a remote prospect...

MORE

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-17/little-known-history-euro-crisis-was-baked-start

You’ve heard that the Euro was created to provide two benefits for Europe:

1. Unite Germany, France and other countries in a peaceful political situation, to prevent repeats of World War I and II

2. Create a macro-zone to compete against the economic strength of the U.S.

So how did we get to this … austerity and meanness of spirit, as typified by the grim expressions sported by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble in talks with Greece? Because the Germans don’t view the Euro as a utopian idealistic way to help promote peace and prosperity for all of the EU nations. Instead, Germany sees the Euro as a way to weaken its currency to increase exports. As Ben Bernanke notes today:



Moreover – in a little-known slice of history – the Euro was really created for very different purposes than peace in Europe or competition against the U.S. Specifically, this guy – a North American named Robert Mundell – is the father of the Euro:



Mundell is not the least bit European. Born in Canada, Mundell taught at the University of Chicago for 7 years, and has since taught at Columbia University in New York for more than 40 years. But didn’t Mundell create the Euro to help Europe? Not according to Guardian, Independent and BBC investigative journalist Greg Palast, who explained in his book Vulture’s Picnic:



Now does the destruction of Greece’s sovereignty make a little more sense? As Palast pointed out in the Guardian:



In other words, the Euro was intended to impose a Shock Doctrine straightjacket on Europe, where the big banks are stripping Greece and other countries of their public assets, pillaging, plundering and looting them of their natural resources and wealth.

http://harpers.org/blog/2015/07/greece-europe-and-the-united-states/

COMMENTARY ON CURRENT CONDITIONS IN EUROPE

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/celebrities-worlds-rich-lining-snap-greek-islands-162929228.html

Johnny Depp has reportedly become the latest celebrity to take advantage of Greece’s plunging economic woes to score a deal and gift himself a small private island. According to the Athens Macedonian News Agency, Depp is said to have purchased a piece of uninhabited land in the Aegean Sea spanning about 0.2 km for 4.2 million euros. Likewise it was reported last month that Brad Pitt and wife Angelina Jolie-Pitt were eying up Gaia Island to possibly snap it up and add it to their real estate portfolio which already includes a French castle...Aside from wealthy celebrities, it’s reported that affluent Russian and Chinese investors are also lining up to pick up Greek properties...

As part of Greece’s bailout plan, the government will have to sell off €50 billion in assets. And much of that will likely come from selling off some of their 1,200 to 6,000 islands...If you’re in the market for a private getaway in the Mediterranean, privateislandsonline.com has a directory of islands for sale with prices starting at €3 million, including Gaia Island which, according to the site, has yet to be snatched up.

Described as “the perfect millionaires’ playground,” Gaia spans 43 acres and is part of the Echinades. The waters are also said to present prime conditions for water sports, sailing, fishing, deep sea diving and swimming.

Other celebrities who already own property in Greece include Sean Connery and Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2015/07/18/greece-offshore-oil-gas-oilprice/29951299/

Greece is in an economic depression. Whether or not it agrees to the ruinous terms imposed upon it by its creditors in order to obtain a bailout, or if Greece opts for a much more uncertain route out of the Eurozone, Greece has years of hardship ahead of it.

The government is turning to offshore oil and gas as a potential source of revenues. Greece has almost no oil and gas production to speak of, and has failed in the past to make any major discoveries. But it still holds out hope of large potential reserves located offshore.

Under the previous government, Greece proposed tax cuts for oil and gas exploration in order to attract more investment. It also conducted extensive 2D seismic surveying of offshore tracts in the Ionian and Mediterranean Sea between 2012 and 2014, in an effort to improve data on its reserves.

On Tuesday, the Greek government said that it had received three bids for offshore oil drilling, to the west in the Ionian Sea and south of Crete in the Mediterranean. There were over 20 blocks up for bid accounting for over 200,000 square kilometers. The Greek government had invited Russian and Chinese companies to bid, but so far the Energy Ministry has not revealed which companies submitted the three bids...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/18/us-jpmorgan-mbs-lawsuit-idUSKCN0PS01D20150718?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) agreed to pay $388 million to settle a suit by investors claiming that the largest U.S. bank had misled them about the safety of $10 billion worth of residential mortgage-backed securities it sold before the financial crisis. The lawsuit, brought by Fort Worth Employees' Retirement Fund and other investors in offerings made before the 2008 financial crisis, accused JPMorgan of misleading them about the underwriting, appraisals and credit quality of the home loans underlying the certificates.

The lawsuit said that after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc failed, the certificates were worth at most 62 cents on the dollar.

JPMorgan agreed to a $13 billion settlement with the Justice Department in 2013 over allegations that the bank had misled investors in mortgage-backed securities about the soundness and risks of the investments that helped bring on the subprime-mortgage crisis of 2008. Throughout the litigation process, JPMorgan has said that the poor performance of the certificates was not due to the quality of the loans, but was caused by the collapse of the overall economy.

The $388 million settlement was disclosed in a court filing on Friday. It is subject to approval by a judge.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/wells-fargo-wins-dismissal-chicago-183603909.html

Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) won the dismissal of two lawsuits on Friday that had accused the largest U.S. mortgage lender of violating the federal Fair Housing Act by engaging in predatory lending practices in Los Angeles and Chicago.

The lawsuits by the city of Los Angeles and by Cook County, Illinois, which includes Chicago, accused Wells Fargo of steering black and Hispanic borrowers into higher-cost loans, a process sometimes called "reverse redlining".

They said this resulted in higher foreclosures and lower property tax collections, and necessitated higher spending to combat urban blight. Los Angeles and Chicago are the second- and third-most populous U.S. cities.

"We are pleased with both decisions," Wells Fargo spokesman Ancel Martinez said. The San Francisco-based lender is also the fourth-largest U.S. bank by assets.

Several large U.S. cities and counties such as Baltimore, Cleveland, Memphis and Miami have accused banks of biased mortgage lending that prolonged the nation's housing crisis. Their lawsuits have had mixed success...

The Hil-billies are restless. The same swarm, over and over again. The same Obomber personality cult that made lives miserable around here for years.

Post a positive Sanders thread, and they swarm. Post a negative Clinton thread, the same ones swarm.

Maybe I should start using the ignore function. But, they are good for a few laughs. Unintentional on their parts, anyway.

Not your previous incarnations of DU.

I don't believe in cults, and I don't like the people who belong. They aren't rational.

That's why the eurozone is such a disaster, too--it's another cult. The world has added economics to its lists of cult-like religions. Not good for economics OR religion.

When 50 of 57 prospective founding members of the new Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in late June signed on in Beijing to the new international financial institution’s Articles...

Please credit and share this article with others using this link:http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/626404/aiib-membership-has-costs-and-privileges. View our policies at http://goo.gl/9HgTd and http://goo.gl/ou6Ip. © Post Publishing PCL. All rights reserved.


INTERESTING, IF PROBABLY BIASED, BACKGROUND ON CHINA'S ANSWER TO THE IMF BY A RIVAL NGO...WORTHY OF A READ.

http://www.ekathimerini.com/199654/article/ekathimerini/news/tusk-europe-was-close-to-catastrophe-over-greece

European Council President Donald Tusk returned this week with a group of journalists from seven leading European newspapers, including Kathimerini, to the same room where on Sunday he held marathon talks with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday and Monday to agree a new bailout deal.

In his interview, Tusk talks about how at 7 a.m. on Monday Greece's eurozone membership was hanging by a thread. He also gives his view on the role of German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble in the negotiations and the little-known part played by Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

Speaking of the eventual agreement, Tusk says it was necessary to avoid the real risk of chaos and possible bankruptcy. “This is the first step in a long process,” he says...

Q&A FOLLOWS

http://www.treehugger.com/fossil-fuels/200-us-coal-plants-retired-2010-s-almost-40-countrys-coal-plants.html

It's been clear for a while that coal is the fuel of the past, not of the future. Just this year, 12,300 megawatts of coal power will shut down in the US, with a lot more to come (it is estimated that between 2012 and 2022, the total reduction in U.S. coal power capacity will have been 46,000 MW!).

The Sierra Club, with its Beyond Coal campaign, is working very hard to move the U.S. off coal and get commitments that coal plants will be retired.

They maintain this interactive map that shows "defeated" coal plants, and which ones are still operational... for now:

SEE LINK FOR MAP AND MORE

7/20/15 Lockheed to buy United Tech's Sikorsky for over $8 billion

Lockheed Martin Corp has agreed to buy United Technologies Corp's Sikorsky Aircraft for over $8 billion, two sources said on Sunday, cementing a deal that would confirm Lockheed's dominance in weapons making and giving the Black Hawk helicopter to the maker of the F-35 fighter jet.

The deal will add further heft to Lockheed, which already has annual revenues of around $45 billion and dwarves its nearest competitors, the defense business of Boeing and Northrop Grumman Corp.

It will make Lockheed less reliant on the $391 billion F-35 fighter jet business, while expanding its overseas sales by adding Sikorsky's iconic Black Hawk helicopters to a product line that already spans everything from satellites to naval ships.

The two companies plan to announce the deal on Monday before both report second-quarter results on Tuesday, said the sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly.

It will be Lockheed's largest acquisition since it bought Martin Marietta Corp for about $10 billion two decades ago. It is the first major strategic move for both United Tech Chief Executive Officer Greg Hayes, who was elevated to CEO from finance chief in November, and Lockheed CEO Marillyn Hewson, who took her job in January 2013.
United Technologies and Lockheed officials declined comment.

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/20/lockheed-to-buy-united-techs-sikorsky-for-over-8-billion.html

Igor Sikorsky was born and raised here and attended Kiev Polytechnic University, which has a statue in his honor.

Now there's a brand new (circa 2012) US Embassy here on Sikorskoho St, which was renamed in his honor upon the request of the US government. It's a $250 million dollar behemoth, which probably was a clear signal that the USA would be up to no good here. As a comparison, the original cost of the US Embassy in Iraq was supposed to be only $750 million, before those costs skyrocketed.

The embassy in Baghdad at one time employed 15,000, while the high figure I've seen for the one in Kiev is 750.

I ran some numbers a few years back and figured that the cost of the embassy here in Kiev, on a square foot basis, was in the range of the cost to build in Manhattan, NYC.

Coordinates on Google Earth (or Maps), should you want to look it up. 50°27'56.25" N 30°25'57.10" E

Adding a link: And let's try that again with a shortener: https://goo.gl/fIK5lH

http://wolfstreet.com/2015/07/17/no-growth-no-profit-no-problem/

It was a historic day. Google’s market capitalization jumped by over $60 billion, enough to bail out Greece for a couple of years, and handily beating the prior single-day record of $46 billion held by Apple. The thrilling event occurred on the news that Google’s second-quarter revenues rose 11% year-over-year – which seems like a lot in a quarter when S&P 500 revenues are expected to shrink – and “net profit” rose 17%, while net earnings per share of its class A common stock inched up a measly 1%, which sent these shares up 16%. Or maybe it was on the news that Google finally hadn’t disappointed analysts’ expectations. Or rather, that they’d finally lowered their expectations enough to where Google could exceed them.

The action gave the NASDAQ a big push to rise almost 1% to another all-time record. It’s now 4% above the prior crazy record of March 2000. And this time, everyone agrees, it’s different. But at least, Google had a profit. A big one, $3.9 billion, so “earnings” with a plus-sign in front of it, rather than a minus-sign. A feat that seems impossible to reach for a number of other companies in the tech space where profits are optional. Or perhaps even a handicap.

Morgan Stanley’s “New Tech” index is trading at 149.5 times forward earnings, Barbara Kollmeyer at MarketWatch pointed out. And that’s high. But it’s based on pro-forma, ex-bad items estimates of what earnings might possibly look like in the next twelve months under the most optimistic or simply fabricated circumstances. So rose-colored fiction. As those quarters get closer, analysts whittle their earnings estimates down. By the beginning of the reporting period, they’re then close to something that these companies can actually beat. Even better, those “earnings” to beat might actually be with a minus-sign in front. Just lose less money than expected. That formula works all the time.

So “New Tech” is very expensive. And compared to the peak of the last tech bubble which blew up in March 2000? “This is probably bubblier than it was then given the lack of market memory,” Keith McCullough, CEO of Hedgeye Risk Management, told Kollmeyer. Looking at past performance, the “New Tech” index sports an average trailing twelve-month P/E ratio of 69. And it’s high. But it obscures reality. The P/E ratio of a company that has a loss is undefined. It’s usually expressed as “N/A” or just a dash. It’s thus excluded from the average P/E ratio of the index (table). Hence, only profitable companies are included in the calculation of the P/E multiples of the overall index. Which gives the “earnings” part of the P/E ratio a strong upward bias...

ALLL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD...

Update: Please see correction at the end.

Two well-known financial forecasters claim that virtually all governments worldwide will be hit with a gigantic economic crisis in the first week of October 2015.

Martin Armstrong is a controversial market analyst who correctly predicted the 1987 crash, the top of the Japanese market, and many other market events … more or less to the day. Many market timers think that Armstrong is one of the very best.

...

Armstrong has predicted for years that governments worldwide would melt down in a crisis of insolvency and lack of trust starting this October. Specifically, Armstrong predicts that a major cycle will turn on October 1, 2015, shifting investors’ trust from the public sector and governments to the private sector.

Unlike other bears who predict that the stock market is about to collapse, Armstrong predicts that huge sums of capital will flow from bonds and the Euro into American stocks. So he predicts a huge bull market in U.S. stocks.

Edelson is another long-time student of cycle theory. Edelson – a big fan Armstrong – has also studied decades of data from the Foundation for the Study of Cycles.

Edelson is predicting the biggest financial crisis in world history – including a collapse of government solvency – starting on October 7, 2015 – the same week as Armstrong’s prediction – when the European Union breaks up.

Edelson also thinks that huge sums of investment will flow from the Eurozone to America, driving up U.S. stocks (unlike Armstrong, Edelson thinks U.S. bonds will also benefit). He thinks that Japan will be the next domino to fall … and that Japan’s default will also drive investments into the U.S. as a safe haven.

In other words, both Armstrong and Edelson think that – as the best looking horse in the glue factory – the U.S. stock market will skyrocket as others fall apart.

But to be clear, both believe that the domino collapse will eventually hit the U.S., and America will end up defaulting on its debts – and falling into financial crisis – as well.

.....

Correction: Several people have pointed out that Armstrong is not predicting that the crisis will be felt on October 1, 2015. Rather, he’s forecasting that October 1st is a major turning point, but that the governmental financial crisis may not be felt until some months later.

Complete story at - http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/07/governments-worldwide-will-crash-the-first-week-of-october-according-to-2-financial-forecasters.html

And they will run the presses off the rollers first before conceding that the markets are FUBAR.

As Wolf Richter concludes (see article above):

I wasn't thinking about markets in general, though I thought that would be a part of it.

But it seemed clear to me that, if a major land war would not break out in Europe, which is what the whole Ukraine crisis was bought around to accomplish, that Russia, China, and a number of other countries would have enough time to get measures in place to cause major financial havoc around the world, not because they were malicious, but because they just got tired of the USA causing their own brand of havoc throughout the world, but especially in the Middle East and Asia. Well it seems the EU has positioned itself to collapse without a war, but that still leaves Russia in place, which the USA and indeed the west has been trying to cut down to size for the last two centuries.

Now with alternatives to SWIFT and the World Bank/IMF partially in place, and most of the world outside the EU and English speaking countries siding with Russia, it becomes much more difficult to harm Russia with sanctions. Indeed, their economy is stronger now than before the sanctions were put in place.

Hope that makes some sense, but I can't fully summarize the 10,000 or so articles I've read, in whole or in part, since the start of the Ukraine crisis into a couple of paragraphs.

The chickens coming home to roost in the good ole USA. If it brings down the current Corporate Regime, it will be worth the pain.

Ukraine, Russia, Iran nuclear 'deal', Greece bailout 'deal', the TPP passed, health care 'won' in the Supreme Court, stock market is way up, jobs are 'good', unemployment is 'low'.

Then, Checkmate! No one will see it coming.

There was talk last year of Russia reopening a long dormant spying facility in Cuba. Plus a visit by a Russian spy ship to Havana earlier this year.

TWO ARTICLES ON THIS CHARACTER:

The Euro-Summit ‘Agreement’ on Greece – annotated by Yanis Varoufakis

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2015/07/15/the-euro-summit-agreement-on-greece-annotated-by-yanis-varoufakis/

The Euro Summit statement (or Terms of Greece’s Surrender – as it will go down in history) follows, annotated by yours truly. The original text is untouched with my notes confined to ITALICS. Read and weep…

Euro Summit Statement Brussels, 12 July 2015

The Euro Summit stresses the crucial need to rebuild trust with the Greek authorities i.e. the Greek government must introduce new stringent austerity directed at the weakest Greeks that have already suffered grossly as a pre-requisite for a possible future agreement on a new ESM programme i.e. for a new extend-and-pretend loan.

In this context, the ownership by the Greek authorities is key i.e. the Syriza government must sign a declaration of having defected to the troika’s ‘logic’, and successful implementation should follow policy commitments.

A euro area Member State requesting financial assistance from the ESM is expected to address, wherever possible, a similar request to the IMF This is a precondition for the Eurogroup to agree on a new ESM programme. Therefore Greece will request continued IMF support (monitoring and financing) from March 2016 i.e. Berlin continues to believe that the Commission cannot be trusted to ‘police’ Europe’s own ‘bailout’ programs.

Given the need to rebuild trust with Greece, the Euro Summit welcomes the commitments of the Greek authorities to legislate without delay a first set of measures i.e. Greece must subject itself to fiscal waterboarding, even before any financing is offered. These measures, taken in full prior agreement with the Institutions, will include:

CONTINUES AT LENGTH AT LINK

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2015/07/17/dr-schaubles-plan-for-europe-do-europeans-approve-english-version-of-my-article-in-die-zeit/#more-9296

The reason five months of negotiations between Greece and Europe led to impasse is that Dr Schäuble was determined that they would.

By the time I attended my first Brussels meetings in early February, a powerful majority within the Eurogroup had already formed. Revolving around the earnest figure of Germany’s Minister of Finance, its mission was to block any deal building on the common ground between our freshly elected government and the rest of the Eurozone.[1]

Thus five months of intense negotiations never had a chance. Condemned to lead to impasse, their purpose was to pave the ground for what Dr Schäuble had decided was ‘optimal’ well before our government was even elected: That Greece should be eased out of the Eurozone in order to discipline member-states resisting his very specific plan for re-structuring the Eurozone. This is no theory of mine. How do I know Grexit is an important part of Dr Schäuble’s plan for Europe? Because he told me so!

I am writing this not as a Greek politician critical of the German press’ denigration of our sensible proposals, of Berlin’s refusal seriously to consider our moderate debt re-profiling plan, of the European Central Bank’s highly political decision to asphyxiate our government, of the Eurogroup’s decision to give the ECB the green light to shut down our banks. I am writing this as a European observing the unfolding of a particular Plan for Europe – Dr Schäuble’s Plan. And I am asking a simple question of Die Zeit’s informed readers:

Is this a Plan that you approve of? Is this Plan good for Europe?

MORE ON PLAN AT LINK

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/20/us-markets-global-idUSKCN0PU00H20150720

The dollar jumped to three-month highs on Monday, extending its recent run of gains as expectations of a U.S. rate rise gathered pace, while gold prices plunged to their lowest in more than five years.

The greenback posted its best weekly performance in about two months last week, after Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen reiterated that U.S. interest rates will probably rise later in the year. Data on Friday showing a robust pick up in U.S. consumer prices and housing starts also helped the rally...

MORE

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-19/france-s-hollande-proposes-creation-of-euro-zone-government

ONLY A CRAZY PERSON WOULD THINK THIS A GOOD IDEA...AFTER WHAT THEY PULLED ON GREECE AND CYPRUS

French President Francois Hollande said that the 19 countries using the euro need their own government complete with a budget and parliament to cooperate better and overcome the Greek crisis.

“Circumstances are leading us to accelerate,” Hollande said in an opinion piece published by the Journal du Dimanche on Sunday. “What threatens us is not too much Europe, but a lack of it.”

While the euro zone has a common currency, fiscal and economic policies remain mostly in the hands of each member state. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi made a plea this week for deeper cooperation between the euro members after political squabbles over Greece almost led to a rupture in the single currency.

Countries in favor of more integration should move ahead, forming an “avant-garde,” Hollande said...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/20/us-eurozone-greece-idUSKCN0PU0DJ20150720

GREECE TODAY--SUMMARY REPORT ON THE GROUND

and Germany, and...

Have a good week, Marketeers!

Once the phantom collateral vanishes, there's no foundation to support additional debt and leverage.

When a speculator bought a new particle-board-and-paint McMansion in the middle of nowhere in 2007 with nothing down and a $500,000 mortgage, the lender and the buyer both considered the house as $500,000 of collateral. The lender counted the house as a $500,000 asset, and the speculator considered it his lottery ticket in the housing bubble sweepstakes: when (not if) the house leaped to $600,000, the speculator could sell, pay the commission and closing costs and skim the balance as low-risk profit.

But was the house really worth $500,000? That's the trouble with assets bubbles inflated by central-bank/central-state intervention: when inefficient companies and inflated assets are never allowed to fall/fail, it's impossible to tell the difference between real collateral and phantom collateral.

The implosion of the housing bubble led to an initial spike of price discovery. The speculator jingle-mailed the ownership of the poorly constructed McMansion to the lender, who ended up selling the home to another speculator who reckoned a 50% discount made the house cheap for $250,000.

But what was the enterprise value of the property, that is, how much revenue, cash flow and net income could the property generate in the open market as a rental? Comparables are worthless in terms of assessing collateral, because assets are mostly phantom collateral at bubble tops.

Let's assume the enterprise value based on market rents was $150,000. The speculator who bought the house for $250,000 sold for a loss, and at the bottom of the cycle the house finally sold for its true value of $150,000.

Complete story at - http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2015/07/we-need-crash-to-sort-wheat-from-chaff.html