NEW THINGS: @22:35, 10/23/12

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I have been trying to find some developments on the news today.
The early polls after last nights "debate" are encouraging.
The 538 blog at the Times has Obama at 290.8 electoral votes of 270 to win.
The election has not happened yet.
I missed our Presidents promise that the sequester would not happen.
We are looking at two years of scorched earth from the House.
The Bush tax cuts will expire.

Europe has noticed that it might be dead.
The Greek Parliament has not accepted the next austerity plan.
They have not called another election. That is next.
Spain can't do more austerity and have a government.
A reasonable plan for Spain if the Euro does not die soon would be to repudiate the private losses of their banks, rescue the deposits and rebuild
banking with rational bankruptcy.
The crown will own the busted developments.
Britain will probably leave the EU before the Euro's final agony.

I can make the case but why spend the ink?

Spam, First in first out:

Extended Warranty.         My vehicle will die. My promises will not.

Greg Montoya will not get an answer.   I am relived there was an end.

Thinner is better mostly. Green coffee extract is a nostrum of little use.

Term Life: I expect to last about another thirty years.
The actuaries put a smaller number on the term.

"This is THE END!" The end of waiting soon. The beginning of the trip.

"Box 353" deals in time keepers. Pinsleur claims ten days.

"Printer supply" I will ink the proper line as required.

"B7312007" has no information. I do not want to do a criminal records check.

I want no business with ADT. An alarm triggered is a tag saying rob me.

That is my email I do read it. "Greg Montoya" should not know.

I do not have a roof to put photovoltaic collectors on. When I have one I will pay close attention to such adds.
Solar electricity is often subsidized by power companies. They are not interested in installations that do not connect to the grid.   The cheap way is to undersize the solar and the storage and back up with a gas generator.
If I size the storage to do a day and a half full load, three days with load shedding. Load shedding would be minimal water usage, refrigerators remain closed, minimal electric lights, no electric heat of any kind and at most one computer. Heat is a wood fire. 30 kilowatt hours Charges at 4 kilowatts in about 8 hours. Really big solar panel. Twelve and a half square meters of full sunlight.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/german-finance-minister-says-worst-is-yet-to-come-in-euro-crisis-a-862994.html

"The financial markets have been notably calm of late. Stock indexes have ticked upwards and interest rates on sovereign bonds have drifted downwards. The euro has also remained relatively stable against the dollar. And investor panic seems to have dissipated.

But appearances can be deceiving, said German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble on Tuesday. "I'm not so sure that the worst of the crisis is behind us," he said at a mechanical engineering conference in Berlin, warning that reform efforts needed to be re-doubled to ensure that trust in the euro returns. His comments were echoed by Yves Mersch, a member of the European Central Bank Governing Council who was also present at the event. He warned that even if calm had returned to the markets, it could be deceptive. "The bleeding has been stopped, but the patient is not yet in the clear," he said.
Eye of the Storm?
Their pessimism contradicts comments made by European Commission Vice President Olli Rehn a week ago. In Bangkok for a meeting of finance ministers from Asia and Europe, he told the Bangkok Post that "there is no likelihood of any country leaving the euro zone. The key message I told the ministers was that there is cause for prudent optimism. I think that the worst is over for the euro debt crisis."
The divergent commentary on the state of the euro zone comes as Europe finds itself in what increasingly feels like the eye of the storm. Recent ECB pledges to buy unlimited quantities of sovereign bonds from debt-ridden euro-zone member states to lower their borrowing costs have relieved financial market pressure. However, Greece continues to be slow in implementing necessary reforms and will likely need funding beyond that which has already been pledged.
'We Are All Sinners'

Potentially more troubling, bank problems in Spain threaten to force Madrid to seek a full bailout from the European Security Mechanism, the euro zone's permanent bailout fund. And the situation isn't getting any easier. On Tuesday, Spain's central bank announced that the country's gross domestic product (GDP) had shrunk by an additional 0.4 percent in the third quarter, following a similar plunge in the second. The negative economic growth promises to make it even more difficult for Madrid to reach its ambitious austerity targets. Perhaps mindful of the headlines made last week when he seemed to rule out a Greek bankruptcy during a talk in Asia, Schäuble made it clear that even if the situation in Europe does worsen again, it will not be the end of the euro zone. "We are determined to do everything necessary to preserve the euro as a trustworthy currency," he said. But reform, he added, must continue to be the priority. "We can't get around the need for a mid-term reduction in sovereign debt," he said.
As for Greece, Schäuble tread more lightly on Tuesday than he did last week. In the knowledge that "we are all sinners," he said, it seems likely "that we can come to agreement on a policy that makes sense for Greece."

cgh -- with wire reports"

Guardian:

Eurozone crisis as it happened: Greek leaders fail to agree on austerity package as markets slide

23 Oct 2012: Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, PASOK leader Evangelos Kouvelis and Democratic Left's Fotis Kouvelis are holding talks in an attempt to finalise Greece's €13.5bn austerity programme

619 comments

Telegraph:

Debt crisis: Europe ratchets up grip on Madrid

The EU-IMF Troika in charge of Spain's €60bn (£48bn) bank rescue is to demand much tougher action by the country's authorities to clean up toxic debts, risking a clash that could deter Madrid from requesting a full sovereign bail-out.

23 Oct 2012

| 17 Comments

RBS under pressure to offload US business

A general view of The Royal Bank of Scotland Headquarters on February 9, 2009 in London, England

Royal Bank of Scotland has come under pressure to sell its US business and shrink its investment banking arm by the body charged with managing the taxpayers’ 82pc holding in the lender.

23 Oct 2012

| Comment

FTT will "raise billions", says EU Commission

.European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso addresses the media after the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize was given to the EU

The European Commission has backed plans for 10 countries to impose a financial transaction tax (FTT), claiming the controversial levy will “raise billions of euros of much-needed revenue”.

23 Oct 2012

| 72 Comments

Debt crisis: as it happened - October 23, 2012

Pressure on Rajoy to seek bail-out after Spain's economy contracts further and Moody's downgrades five regions citing worries over reliance on short-term credit lines to fund day-to-day operations.

Greece Kills Bond Buyback Proposal

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/23/2012 - 17:23 Bond Creditors default Fresh Start Greece Rating Agencies One of the zanier proposals floated in the past few weeks, yet sufficient to send Greek bonds soaring to post-restructuring highs on hopes of a take out, was the suggestion that Greece would repurchase its fresh-start bonds in the open market, which recently traded in the teens, and have since virtually doubled, at a price ~25 cents of par. Obviously since the price of the bonds had been much lower, even the mere possibility of what is termed in the industry as a distressed buyback, sent everyone scurrying to purchase the paper, as if it had any intrinsic economic value (it did not), instead of mere hopes that Greece would throw even more good money after bad (especially since the fresh start bonds have a meaningless cash coupon and nobody expects them to be repaid at maturity). There is also the detail that a distressed buyback is, for the rating agencies, equivalent to an Event of Default, but knowledge of that small fact would be demanding too much out of those who scrambled in the latest chase for yield. Anyway, with all that said, it now appears that the whole idea is over, with Greek Kathimerini reporting moments ago that Greece has scuttled the proposal for a bond buyback.

News bites @ 6

by Dioni Vougioukli

23 Oct 2012 5:05 pm

People with disabilities stage an anti-austerity protest in Athens, 23 October 2012 (Reuters)

1. CAUTIOUS SAMARAS Following a meeting with the leaders of the two junior parties supporting the coalition government, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras will meet with New Democracy (ND) MPs on Tuesday afternoon to ensure that they will not withdraw their support to the government when the time comes to vote for the new measures. At the weekend, ND MP Nikos Stavroyiannis was expelled after stating in public that he could not vote for the forthcoming austerity package.

2. TSIPRAS CALLING Addressing a rally in Serres on Monday evening, Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras appealed anew to the Greek MPs to not vote in favour of the new austerity measures. Commenting on New Democracy MP Nikos Stavroyiannis' statement that he will not vote for the latest round of austerity measures, leading to his expulsion from the ND parliamentary group, Tsipras said: "We hail the bold decision of the ND deputy from Fthiotida and call on all the citizens to unite...it is the MPs' patriotic duty to not vote for these measures...let them not be the last measures (of austerity), but the first measures that will not pass."

3. DISABILITY PROTEST Defying the rain, people with disabilities demonstrated throughout Greece on Tuesday, protesting the discontinuation of their disability pensions and benefits until their re-evaluation by the Disability Certification Centers (KEPA), which affects more than 70,000 disabled people. In Athens, the demonstrators gathered outside the headquarters of the Social Security Foundation and marched to the labour ministry, while similar demonstrations were held in 36 other cities outside KEPA offices. The protesters are demanding the resumption of their disability pensions and retroactive payment of disability welfare benefits as of the date of the re-examination application until completion of the re-examination process and issue of a new certificate.

4. MAKE A WISH A 17-year-old Greek-American girl has collected 80,000 USD (approximately 60,000 euros) for needy children in Greece, which will go to the Greek branch of the Make a Wish International foundation. Christina Levendi, a senior at Tenafly Highschool, enlisted the help of her schoolmates and organised an event at the community centre of Saint Trinity Cathedral in Manhattan, after sending out hundreds of e-mails and making hundreds of telephone calls to spread the news.

5. OCTOBER 28 The Acropolis Museum will celebrate the October 28 anniversary marking Greece's entry into World War II by offering free admission to its premises between 8am and 8pm on that day, as well as thematic presentations organised by the archaeologists-curators, which will be held every hour between 10am and 6pm.