NEW THINGS

Another light news day.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/07/links-71212.html

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Links 7/12/12

The Old Primates’ Club: Even Male Monkeys Ride Their Fathers’ Coattails to Success Science Daily (furzy mouse)
Couple arrested for dancing while waiting for the train in New York Your Jewish News (Carol B)
Exclusive Leaked Documents: American Dietetic Association is Intentionally Using State Legislatures to Block Alternative Nutrition Providers and Restrict Free Speech Forbes. A bit of a Daily Mail style headline…
National Reconnaissance Office accused of illegally collecting personal data McClatchy (Paul Tioxon)
CHANOS: China’s Credit Situation Is Worse Than Greece And Spain Clusterstock
China’s shadow banking surfaces MacroBusiness
Olympic security: army reinforcements called in to fill G4S shortfall Guardian (Lee S)
Germany Investigates Morgan Stanley Executive Associated Press
Liborfest!

Exclusive: Push For Libor Settlement Sky News (Scott)
Corporations Dodge LIBOR Scandal Bullet CFO
Libor Scandal May Have Broken Key Market-Stress Measure WSJ Economics Blog. Where have these guys been? Lambert pointed this out as soon as the scandal broke.
LIBOR Ain’t Nothing But an Acronym: We Must Abolish the Finance Capitalist Class Black Agenda Report (nathan)

Number of women running for US Congress at record level Guardian (Lee S)
Manufactured quotes Columbia Journalism Review. A sighting of evil NAM, which has been doing anti worker propaganda for over 100 years!
USA Presbyterian Church Takes Step Toward Divestment From For-Profit Health Insurance Companies OEN (Carol B)
Insurers Pay Big Markups as Doctors Dispense Drugs New York Times
FOMC Minutes Not a Smoking Gun Tim Duy
The Financialization of Accumulation Monthly Review (Carol B)
Banks face swaps threat after cut ratings Financial Times
U.S. home foreclosure filings rise AFP
Many Wall Street executives say wrongdoing is necessary: survey Reuters. Aieee, missed including this yesterday…
Shake-Up at New York Fed Is Said to Cloud View of JPMorgan’s Risk New York Times
New law gives US companies a break on pensions Associated Press (Carol B)
* * *

There may be news but it is not where I can find it easily.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/
The telegraph misses the accent:

Ireland passes the latest review of its bailout programme, as Britain's economic forecaster says the Government must find £17bn of savings on top of the current £123bn austerity plan or face a £65bn deficit by 2061.

12 Jul 2012

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Alexander: we are making tough decisions on the economy

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander says the Government is making short-term and long-term decisions to get Britain's books balanced.

12 Jul 2012

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Home foreclosures on the rise in the US

US housing market in double dip as prices fall to fresh lows

Lenders in the US are notifying more property homeowners that they face losing their home, with foreclosures rising for the first time in two years.

12 Jul 2012

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Debt crisis: Italy statisticians 'too squeezed to track recession'

Italy's official statisticians are threatening to down calculators and stop reporting on its stricken economy – as they fall victim to the recession they are paid to track.

12 Jul 2012

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Debt crisis: Spain's recession 'could last until 2014'

Spain's recession could drag into 2014 due to austerity measures, economists warned, after Madrid outlined a new €65bn (£51bn) cuts package.

12 Jul 2012

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Debt crisis: Italy's statisticians threaten 'stats black-out'

Italy's official statisticians are threatening to down calculators and stop reporting on its stricken economy – as they themselves fall victim to the recession they are paid to track.

12 Jul 2012

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Greek unemployment rate at new record of 22pc

Greek unemployment hit a record 22.5pc in April and may keep edging higher, with even the key tourism sector unlikely to provide more than fleeting support over the summer as visitors stay away from the recession-hit country.

12 Jul 2012

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Government must find extra £17bn of cuts, OBR warns

Britain must find an additional £17bn of spending cuts or tax rises to help defuse an impending demographic timebomb, the government's official forecaster has warned.

12 Jul 2012

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The British economy: in numbers

Britain must find an additional £17bn of spending cuts or tax rises to rescue Britain's finances from an impending demographic timebomb, the government's official forecaster has warned. Here is a snapshot of the British economy.

12 Jul 2012

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OBR: £50bn of extra spending cuts needed

The Government will be told by its official forecaster today that it needs to find up to £50bn of further spending cuts or tax rises by to keep a lid on public debts.

12 Jul 2012

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/debt-crisis

Eyewitness: Madrid, Spain
Picture, 12 Jul 2012: Photographs from the Guardian Eyewitness series
Euro crisis: the pain in Spain
11 Jul 2012: Editorial: Spain's prime minister, Mariano Rajoy has established something of a reputation for contradicting himself
Spanish coal miners bring message of defiance to Madrid
11 Jul 2012: As Mariano Rajoy announces new austerity measures, capital welcomes miners fighting huge cuts in subsidies
Spain's prime minister has fallen hostage to his own austerity discourse
11 Jul 2012: Miguel-Anxo Murado: Mariano Rajoy's measures aren't working, yet he has so much invested in appeasing Brussels that he can't change course
Spanish miners' protest reaches Madrid - in pictures
Gallery (12 pictures), 11 Jul 2012: Coal miners angered by huge cuts in subsidies have converged on Madrid for protest rallies after walking for nearly three weeks
China and Brazil face sustained slowdown as eurozone crisis takes toll
11 Jul 2012: Growth slows in emerging economies on continuing eurozone crisis and deterioration in US economy, HSBC report says
Eurozone unemployment could soar by 4.5m unless austerity is reversed – ILO
11 Jul 2012: Study says eurozone unemployment could reach 22 million by 2016 unless policies 'change course in concerted manner'
Mariano Rajoy announces €65bn in austerity measures for Spain
11 Jul 2012: Spanish prime minister makes spectacular U-turn to comply with EU bailout terms
Spanish coal miners: 'We need to keep on fighting' - video
Video (6min 36sec), 11 Jul 2012: Spanish miners are protesting in Madrid against government cuts that threaten their livelihoods. More than 8,000 have been on indefinite strike since the end of May Jason Parkinson filmed violent clashes over the past month between miners and riot police and got rare access to interview workers who have occupied the mines for over a month
Eurozone crisis live: Clashes in Madrid, after Spain announces €65bn austerity plan - as it happened
11 Jul 2012: Prime minister Mariano Rajoy has revealed details of further painful spending cuts and tax rises, while protestors have clashed with police in Madrid

http://www.spiegel.de/international/topic/euro_crisis/

Euro Rescue in Limbo German Constitutional Court Wants to Help Berlin

SPIEGEL ONLINE - July 11, 2012 Germany's Federal Constitutional Court gave an important signal at Tuesday's marathon hearing on the ESM bailout fund and fiscal pact. The judges want to help the government get the controversial EU projects through the bottleneck of the German constitution. But it will be a tight squeeze this time. An Analysis by Thomas Darnstädt and Dietmar Hipp more... [ Forum ]

The World from Berlin Court Delay Spells Risky 'Endurance Test' for Euro

SPIEGEL ONLINE - July 11, 2012 Germany's top court isn't going to let Europe badger it into making a quick ruling on the permanent bailout fund and fiscal pact. As a result, the euro could be in a dangerous limbo till autumn. German commentators say the court has every right to take its time. more...

The Search for an Antidote One Greek's Idea for Saving His Country

SPIEGEL ONLINE - July 11, 2012 The economy is in abysmal shape and state finances are disastrous. But former advertising executive Peter Economides has a plan to save Greece. He wants to transform the old Athens airport into a space where young Greeks can realize their business ideas. And give them an incentive to stay home. By Julia Amalia Heyer more...

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It's hotter in Karlsruhe than you think

Posted by Masa Serdarevic on Jul 12 17:30. Comment.

Admittedly the words Karlsruhe and German and constitutional court lack any sex factor, but the relative lack of attention the case is getting seems a bit odd to us given what’s at stake. We’d expect the markets to be just a bit more het up about it. More…

Accruing an old lady

Posted by Joseph Cotterill on Jul 12 16:50. Comment.

The UK’s Office for Budget Responsibility is in desperate need of a graphic designer…
Ugly and abbreviation-riddled as it is, the chart does portray something of an accounting milestone for UK debt. More…

Some more big scary Libor risk numbers to digest

Posted by David Keohane on Jul 12 13:59. Comment.

It’s been a little while since we had a nice Libor risk estimate so we were delighted when Morgan Stanley’s attempt dropped into our inbox. MS take the Libor risk in three chunks:
1) Regulatory fines (an estimated median 7 to 12 per cent hit to 2012 EPS). More…

Another ECB muddle

Posted by Paul Murphy on Jul 12 11:15. Comment | Share ~~ECB’S BONNICI SAYS DEPOSIT FACILITY FALL ‘ENCOURAGING’~~
*ECB Overnight Deposits Plunge At Zero Interest
*ECB Says Overnight Deposits Fall to Lowest in Seven Months (1)
Apparent hopes that the ECB’s decision to reduce the rate paid on funds in its deposit facility from 0.25 per cent to zero will magically move money from hoarding banks to the real economy feel premature.
Here’s Reuters to set the scene:

The European Central Bank’s move to cut its deposit rate to zero has had an instant impact with banks more than halving the amount of cash parked there overnight.
The central bank hopes its unprecedented move, which means banks will now get nothing if they park spare cash there, will nurture a return of more significant interbank lending by encouraging banks to look for more profitable options beyond the ECB.
Wednesday was the first day under the new set-up and figures published by the ECB on Thursday showed banks held 325 billion euros in the facility overnight, well down on both the 800 billion they left there the previous day and the 700 billion they deposited at the same point of the last reserves period in June.

But is that what is really happening here? Did we suddenly get circa €500bn swirling round the interbank market overnight in Europe?
No, we did not.
The deposit facility may have shrunk by half-a-trillion, but then you need to go and look at another little item amongst the ECB stats labeled “Current Account Holdings.”
And when you do that you’ll notice that it’s gone up by almost €500bn overnight.
So all this really means is that banks were not actively dealing with the ECB overnight Wednesday.
Indeed, Mario Draghi himself has stressed on numerous occasions that ECB base money lives in a closed system. Thus only the ECB can permanently extinguish reserves.
A zero return on the deposit facility just incentivises the money to sit elsewhere. It does not speak for its usefulness.
And so when someone like the Josef Bonnici, an ECB governing council member, describes the drop in the deposit facility as “encouraging” — as he did no Thursday morning — what he means to say is “Actually, we haven’t got any evidence yet.”
H/T reader AO
Related link:
The base money confusion – FT Alphaville

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/12/me-at-business-insider/

http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-krugman-on-the-euro-crisis-2012-7

I have been betting on no decision. The powers think stability is greater than it is.

http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-krugman-on-the-deficit-2012-7

Euro tumbles as Asian funds shun EU chaos

The illuminated euro sign is seen in front of the headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt

The euro has plunged to multi-year lows against a range of currencies on fears of a deepening slump in Italy and Spain, and ugly disputes between eurozone leaders.

12 Jul 2012

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This is not a happy development.