Free Republic

Unions representing around half of Greece's 4 million-strong workforce have called a 48 hour general strike for Wednesday and Thursday to protest against a sweeping package of austerity measures due to be passed in parliament this week. A wave of smaller strikes over recent days by groups ranging from rubbish collectors to tax officials, journalists and seamen has given a foretaste of this week's protest which will culminate in mass demonstrations in front of parliament, the scene of violent clashes in June. The protest, dubbed "the mother of all strikes" by the daily Ta Nea newspaper, is expected to be...

IMF Issues Brand New Warning About The Massive Risks To The Banking System Joe Weisenthal Sep. 21, 2011, 9:37 AMReleased this morning by the IMF. A new statement on huge risks to the banking sector. ------------------------------ * Weak growth, balance sheets and political resolve cause crisis of confidence * Large number of countries effected by government debt risks * Policymakers need to act to repair household, government and financial balance sheets Financial stability risks have risen sharply in recent months, as slower economic growth, market turbulence in Europe, and the credit downgrade of the United States have weighed on the...

HERAKLION, Greece—The first time he despaired of his debts, Vaggelis Petrakis drank a poisonous brew of beer and gasoline. A note he left didn't mention the financial woes of his fruit and vegetable business, of which his family was well aware. Instead, he left instructions for his children on how to look after his animals. "Put mother rabbit in a different place from the little rabbits," the note began. Then he had second thoughts and called his son, Stelios, who took him to a hospital. Mr. Petrakis survived that suicide attempt. But Greece's collapsing economy and the ruin of his...

<p>PARIS (Dow Jones)--The former International Monetary Fund's Managing Director, Dominique Strauss Kahn, Sunday said Greece is unable to pay its debt and its creditors will have to take losses on the debt they hold.</p> <p>"Greece got poorer, we can say Greeks will pay on their own, but they can't," Strauss Kahn said in an interview on French TV channel TF1. "There is a loss and it must be taken by governments and banks," he said.</p>

This is the fiery face of Greece’s financial crisis. A small-business owner, unable to pay off bank loans that have plagued him for months, set himself on fire yesterday -- his third attempt, authorities said. The unidentified 56-year-old went to a Piraeus Bank branch in Thessaloniki in northern Greece and tried to renegotiate payments on loans he had taken out on his home and failing business, police said. When bank officials refused, the man went outside, doused himself with gasoline from a can and set his clothing on fire -- as he shouted that he was in debt.

...Geithner is expected to attend the euro zone meeting on Friday and then return to Washington. The Treasury said on Monday only that he will discuss efforts to boost global recovery and cooperate on financial regulation, but U.S. attention is focused on risks posed by potential European debt contagion. The danger that a Greek debt default could roil bigger European economies was underlined on Monday as heavily exposed French banks' shares plunged and investor confidence in the euro zone's ability to surmount a sovereign debt crisis ebbed. Underscoring concerns by the United States about the global economic dangers from Europe's...

Europe is in disarray, stock markets are plunging, the banking crisis is back in full swing, gold is at record levels, and both the UK and US are self-evidently slipping back towards recession – not since the autumn of 2008 have things looked quite so ominous. We appear to be at another pivotal moment, with Western economies once more staring into the abyss. At a conference in Frankfurt this week, Josef Ackermann, chief executive of Deutsche Bank, compared events to the Lehman Brothers catastrophe of 2008 and warned that many banks in Europe are essentially bust. His opposite number at...

Once again the bond markets have spoken, and once again the message is the same: default. Greek two-year bonds are near 44%, having touched as high as 46%. The interest rate on 1-year Greek government debt is a stunning 59.8%.  Greece Not Saved  Supposedly "Greece was Saved" on that blue circle when yet another bailout (throwing more good money after bad) was approved.  The deal unraveled for numerous reasons but demands by Finland for collateral are at or near the top of the list. Austria, Slovakia, and the Netherlands now want collateral as well.  Under great pressure from Germany, the...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel no longer has enough coalition votes in the Bundestag to secure backing for Europe's revamped rescue machinery, threatening a consitutional crisis in Germany and a fresh eruption of the euro debt saga. Mrs Merkel has cancelled a high-profile trip to Russia on September 7, the crucial day when the package goes to the Bundestag and the country's constitutional court rules on the legality of the EU's bail-out machinery. If the court rules that the €440bn rescue fund (EFSF) breaches Treaty law or undermines German fiscal sovereignty, it risks setting off an instant brushfire across monetary union....

China paper warns of impact from euro crisis "Black Death" Reuters By Chris Buckley | Reuters – 3 hrs ago BEIJING (Reuters) - The "Black Death" of debt crisis across the Euro zone will hurt China by sapping demand for exports, although Beijing's relatively small holdings of euro assets will limit any damage to foreign exchange reserves, the nation's top official newspaper said on Monday. The bleak diagnosis for the euro's prospects appeared in the overseas edition of the People's Daily, the top newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party, in a commentary by a former central bank official and an...

Borrowing looms large in American life from homes to cars. But the explosion of student debt in the last decade is a pernicious trend that the colleges themselves are encouraging. How do colleges manage it? Kenyon has erected $70 million sports palace featuring a 20-lane olympic pool. Stanford's professors now get paid sabbaticals every fourth year, handing them $115,000 for not teaching. Vanderbilt pays its president $2.4 million. Alumni gifts and endowment earnings help with the costs. But a major source is tuition payments, which at private schools are breaking the $40,000 barrier, more than many families earn. Sadly, there's...

highlights of Harrington's story below. Here are some key points: Moody's ratings often do not reflect its analysts' private conclusions. Instead, rating committees privately conclude that certain securities deserve certain ratings--but then vote with management to give the securities the higher ratings that issuer clients want. Moody's management and "compliance" officers do everything possible to make issuer clients happy--and they view analysts who do not do the same as "troublesome." Management employs a variety of tactics to transform these troublesome analysts into "pliant corporate citizens" who have Moody's best interests at heart. Moody's product managers participate in--and vote on--ratings decisions....

During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-candidate Hilary Clinton ridiculed Barack Obama's inexperience with the famous ad asking who you wanted to answer the phone during a crisis at 3AM. Today, it is apparent that our nation desperately needs someone with experience, decisiveness, and leadership to navigate these troubled economic waters. .... Blame at 3AM is not the issue. The issue in time of crisis is the response and only the response. Thus far, our nation's response has been to increase the debt ceiling and provide a tepid response to critical spending issues. It's now 3AM and the world is wondering...

While I was doing research for another blog post, I happened upon a lamestream media (LA Times) story from 2008 about the massive budget surplus that accumulated under Sarah Palin’s bountiful watch as governor of Alaska. Try to imagine waking up one morning and reading a newspaper article in which the experts quoted had something like this to say about our nation’s federal budget:...

Liberals outline stimulus agenda in 'Contract for the American Dream' By Erik Wasson - 08/09/11 10:57 AM ET Liberal organizations and unions are frustrated that President Obama has not aggressively pushed a new jobs stimulus agenda and they are offering up a consolidated fall agenda for Democrats to embrace as an alternative to austerity. Representatives of MoveOn, Rebuild the Dream and the Center for Economic Policy and Research will join Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) on Tuesday to launch a progressive “Contract for the American Dream” to urge the administration and Congress to turn away from budget cutting and focus on...

Conquering the Storm by Sarah Palin on Monday, August 8, 2011 at 3:53pm In the coming days we’ll sort through the repercussions of S&P’s downgrade of our credit rating, including concerns about the impact a potential interest rate increase would have on our ability to service our suffocating $14.5 trillion debt. I’m surprised that so many people seem surprised by S&P’s decision. Weren’t people paying attention over the last year or so when we were getting warning after warning from various credit rating agencies that this was coming? I’ve been writing and speaking about it myself for quite some time....

The American Dream can be restored to reality. I have never been as optimistic about the future of our great nation as I am today despite significant leadership shortfalls in our elected leaders. The solutions to our crisis are so apparent and so easy to enact once our Congress either gets in the fight or gets out of the way. The sheer unwillingness of Congress to stand firm on a national program of controlling spending is mindboggling. It can only be explained by recognizing that entitlements are and stimulus funding is how politicians get reelected. Many legislators are only about...

The markets are "finally just revolting against all this insanity" and forcing us to come to grips with the reality of our debt crisis, Social Security, health care and all the problems with the European countries, Mark Fisher, oil and natural gas trader and CEO of MBF Clearing, told CNBC Friday. The anxiety level is at such a high that people, it doesn't matter whether we are or not [going into a recession], it's the perception of where we are,"

August 5, 2011 Euro Builder Ends His Career on a Bitter Note By JACK EWING FRANKFURT — Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, has spent much of his career building and defending the euro. But now, in a bitter twist, it looks as if his career may well end with the common currency in shambles. Mr. Trichet, 68, will retire at the end of October after an eight-year term. Yet markets are crashing, bond investors have turned on Italy and Spain, and it appears certain that when Mr. Trichet returns to civilian life on Nov. 1, the...

A government official tells ABC News that the federal government is expecting and preparing for bond rating agency Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the rating of US debt from its current AAA value. Officials reasons given will be the political confusion surrounding the process of raising the debt ceiling, and lack of confidence that the political system will be able to agree to more deficit reduction.