I am still trying to think on aesthetics when not distracted by Europe and other events.
There are as many aesthetic optima as there are minds capable of opinion.
The business of art controls. Artists starve if they do not sell.
A big part of the business is collecting.
Collecting includes buying a history, buying beauty, buying position or any other part subject to trade.
To be continued
Our President may be realizing that he is involved in a religious war.
It is like all such a "fur ball".
Resolution begins with the separation of faith and policy.
In the language of the eighteenth century, separation of Church and State.
"Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion or the practice there of."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/business/global/spain-moves-closer-to-bailout-of-banks.html?_r=1&hp
Still a very long way.
"The finance ministers from the 17 European Union countries that use the euro scheduled a conference call for Saturday afternoon in Europe, where the I.M.F. assessment was sure to increase the pressure on the Spanish government to swallow its pride and ask for help.
Spain’s euro-zone partners have been pushing the government in Madrid to bolster the country’s fragile banking system ahead of elections in Greece next week — the outcome of which could further destabilize the shared currency.
In what some have seen as a game of brinkmanship, however, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of Spain has delayed seeking outside help, trying to use the fear of economic contagion to get financial aid under better terms than those that Greece, Ireland and Portugal received when they were bailed out.
Spanish officials have been saying they first want to review audits by the I.M.F. and two independent consulting firms, whose first results are not due until June 21. Spain wants to avoid a repeat of the miscalculation of the problems at Bankia, a giant Spanish mortgage lender that was nationalized last month because of the growing number of bad loans on its books.
Yet in a sign of the urgency that policy makers feel, the I.M.F. released its report late Friday in Washington. It estimated the banks would need to raise at least 37 billion euros, or about $46 billion.
“The extent and persistence of the economic deterioration may imply further bank losses,” Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, deputy director of the fund’s monetary and capital markets department, said in a statement. “Full implementation of reforms as well as establishing a credible public backstop are critical for preserving financial stability going forward.”
Spanish banks are struggling with significant losses in their real estate loan portfolios, and they have been hurt by the country’s broader economic malaise, which has helped push Spain’s borrowing costs close to record highs.
The I.M.F. estimate did not include costs associated with the need for banks to restructure, or to book losses on loans. Including such costs, the Spanish banking system would require as much as 100 billion euros, or about $125 billion, according to estimates by private firms.
On Friday, President Obama urged European leaders to stabilize their financial sector and end their long-simmering sovereign debt crisis.
“These decisions are fundamentally in the hands of Europe’s leaders, and fortunately they understand the seriousness of the situation and the urgent need to act,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference. “They’ve got to stabilize their financial system. And part of that is taking clear action as soon as possible to inject capital into weak banks.”
In a speech in New York on Friday, Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the I.M.F., warned that global economic conditions had again deteriorated, with growth and financial stability at stake. Tensions are “now threatening the very existence of the European project,” Ms. Lagarde said.
One person close to the talks among euro zone officials said on Friday that they wanted Madrid to ask for help “pre-emptively,” allowing Europe to contain the problem now, with details of the package to be worked out later.
Since the start of the euro debt crisis more than two years ago, three governments — in Greece, Ireland and Portugal — have had to request bailouts. And those came with stringent budget and spending conditions imposed by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Those conditions have caused political upheaval in Greece, where the Coalition of the Radical Left, or Syriza, the party led by Alexis Tsipras, has vowed that if it comes to power it will refuse to live up to the nation’s bailout terms.
But Spain may be able to avoid the strict fiscal oversight that Greece had to accept. The euro zone’s bailout fund was empowered last year to make loans to governments for the specific purpose of recapitalizing banks, with the conditions and payback terms focused largely on the financial sector and not the government’s fiscal autonomy.
In another concession to make the move more palatable to Madrid, the I.M.F. would not be called in to help oversee the program, according to one of the people close to the discussions. Instead, the European Banking Authority would take its place, this person said. That, too, would give a bailout more of a bank focus, rather than the sort of broader jurisdiction over government finances that the I.M.F. typically demanded"Wolkenkuckucksheim
Martin Wolf reports on a letter he has received from the Director General of the German Finance Ministry; taken in context with the speech just given in Riga by Germany’s man at the ECB, what we get is a terrifying picture. Basically, it seems that even as the euro approaches a critical juncture, senior German officials are living in Wolkenkuckucksheim — cloud-cuckoo land.
Now, I know the phrase normally refers to a state of naive optimism, not normally something one attributes to German officials. But a broader interpretation would be that of believing, despite all the evidence, that the world is the way you want it to be, and acting on that false belief.
So the man from the finance ministry asserts that the euro crisis was brought on by fiscal irresponsibility, and in particular by “short-termism” — so that the remedy is to focus on long-run fiscal irresponsibility plus structural reform, which he insists has never failed.
All one can say is, My God. You have to be willfully blind not to know that private excess, not public, caused the problems in Spain and Ireland — and nowhere, not even in Greece, did Keynesian stimulus efforts have anything at all to do with the crisis. As for fiscal responsibility plus reform solving the kind of problem we face now — massive real overvaluation with a fixed exchange rate — it would be truer to say that this has never worked. As Wolf says, just look at Argentina.
As for Mr. Asmussen, I’ve already written about the extraordinary illogic of saying that a partial recovery from a Depression-level slump — one that has not, by the way, been accompanied by a large improvement in competitiveness — vindicates austerity.
This is scary stuff. If top officials in Germany are this disconnected from reality at this late date, what chance does Europe have?"
Now, I know the phrase normally refers to a state of naive optimism, not normally something one attributes to German officials. But a broader interpretation would be that of believing, despite all the evidence, that the world is the way you want it to be, and acting on that false belief.
So the man from the finance ministry asserts that the euro crisis was brought on by fiscal irresponsibility, and in particular by “short-termism” — so that the remedy is to focus on long-run fiscal irresponsibility plus structural reform, which he insists has never failed.
All one can say is, My God. You have to be willfully blind not to know that private excess, not public, caused the problems in Spain and Ireland — and nowhere, not even in Greece, did Keynesian stimulus efforts have anything at all to do with the crisis. As for fiscal responsibility plus reform solving the kind of problem we face now — massive real overvaluation with a fixed exchange rate — it would be truer to say that this has never worked. As Wolf says, just look at Argentina.
As for Mr. Asmussen, I’ve already written about the extraordinary illogic of saying that a partial recovery from a Depression-level slump — one that has not, by the way, been accompanied by a large improvement in competitiveness — vindicates austerity.
This is scary stuff. If top officials in Germany are this disconnected from reality at this late date, what chance does Europe have?"
I went looking for an update.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18382659
""We hope that as a result of these injections [of capital] families and companies will have more solvent banks which are able to offer them credit, which they are not able to do at the moment," he said.
'Unprecedented' The exact amount that Spain will receive will be decided after the completion of two audits of its banks, due to be completed by the end of the month.
A team comprising staff from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund will head to Madrid to assess the needs of the Spanish banking sector, a Eurogroup spokesman confirmed to the BBC."
The object of such a loan is to support the bank in the event of a run.
They work when the bank is illiquid. The Spanish banks are not illiquid.
The Spanish banks are insolvent. They have lost their capital and their deposits. The debts must be discharged, the titles on property cleared and deposits returned to the depositors with the contracted interest.
This will require changes to Spanish law. The proposed loans merely enable
The orderly collapse of the banks. They will not be repaid. Depositors would be well advised to run from the banks and the Euro.http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/business/global/spain-moves-closer-to-bailout-of-banks.html?hp
Spain to Accept Rescue From Europe for Its Ailing Banks
By RAPHAEL MINDER, NICHOLAS KULISH and PAUL GEITNER
European finance ministers promised up to $125 billion in aid, which they hope will quell rising financial turmoil ahead of elections in Greece next week that could roil world markets.
Not workable.
TARP in the U.S. bought the bad debt into the government where much of it was resolved.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment