Posts Tagged ‘Troika’

Notes From Underground: Irony of Ironies … In the Land of Fiscal Austerity and Budget Cutting Circumcision is Outlawed

August 13, 2012

The news is so slow that some ridiculous headlines just creep in, but I wonder what the Greeks think. If the fiscal sheriffs from the TROIKA only took the tip it wouldn’t have been so bad but the German creditors took the entire reproductive assemblage. Ok, enough. New word out of Germany is that a Berlin-based think tank has filed a new case against the legality of the ESM but is asking the Federal Constitutional Court to allow the EUROPEAN COURT of JUSTICE (ECJ) to hear the case and decide if the stability mechanism is legal under EU law. The Eurosceptic group EUROPOLIS is asking for European to determine the legal status of any European bailout program.

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Notes From Underground: It’s Europe Again- The Tour de France; the British Open; and the Olympics

July 22, 2012

All eyes are on Europe: And I am not talking about the wide, wide world of sports. It seems that the European financial situation has “worsened” as the Spanish yields exploded on Friday sending the Euro stock markets into a sizable selloff. Remember the outcome of the June 29-30 meeting of the Euro policymakers? All the EUROCRATS were celebrating the victory of PRIME MINISTERS RAJOY AND MONTI‘s victory over the IRON CHANCELLOR, Frau Merkel. It now seems that the victory was PYRRHIC as the markets are now testing the resolve of the ECB, EU FIN MINS and, ultimately, the IMF. As with any TROIKA, if all the horses are not pulling together the wagon is very unstable.

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Notes From Underground: Laugh, Laugh, I Thought I’d Die

February 19, 2012

Two big issues have been the rage of financial news during the weekend. First, the Chinese Central Bank lowered its reserve requirements by 50 BASIS POINTS in what is being termed an effort to engineer a “soft landing” and prevent a drastic fall in GDP. This is my first laugh as the raises in the reserves during the last 18 months did little to slow the economy. Besides, if the Chinese Politburo wants to install pro growth policies it has control of the credit creating mechanism. As the markets are looking for anything that sustains the recent global equity rally, why not the Chinese reserve ratio?

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Notes From Underground: Unemployment Gains Manufacturing a Recovery

February 5, 2012

The Obama administration had much to cheer as the NONFARM PAYROLL number exceeded almost all the pundits and FED‘s projections. Just before the release, CNBC analysts were in herd formation all gathered around the “BULL” of safety and predicted around a 100,000 job gain. Job gains came in at roughly 250,000 even as state and local governments continued to shed employees. Earlier, the Canadian data was tepid, but again, the Ontario manufacturing sector added jobs and is mirroring the increase in manufacturing seen in the U.S. Whether the predictors of the release are right or wrong makes no difference to traders or investors for the most important pundit is the market’s reaction.

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