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"If they don't get the Drachma back, you will be responsible for something truly truly horrible!".

This is a google translate translation: Ministers participating in the "great train robbery" First registration: Tuesday, February 7, 2012, 16:28 The legal use Katsios was perfectly clear, speaking Tuesday at noon in Makis Triantafyllopoulos and zougla Radio . In the circuit of corrupt government officials, tax collectors, managers and auditors of SDOE various institutions involved and politicians. The new element, however, that makes the difference is that between those policies, are ministers. The scam is repeated over time and after the introduction of Value Added Tax in 1987, namely how the circuits set up the "Great Theft of the Nation"...

No, I’m not suggesting she buy more Greek debt, I’m talking about buying the country of Greece. Buy it lock, stock and barrel, just like the Americans bought Alaska from the Russians in 1867. Russia was hurting financially from the Crimean war and Czar Nicolas needed to replenish his coffers. Alaska was a drag. Russian hunters had pretty well wiped out the fur seals and nothing would grow in the far north soils because of smelly black stuff that oozed out it. So he dumped it for $7.2 million on those gullible Americans. What would Germany and Greece get out...

ATHENS (Dow Jones)--Talks between Greece and its private sector creditors over a debt writedown plan appeared to stall Saturday as the banks' top negotiator left Athens amid signs of fresh disagreements over how much Greece would pay its bondholders in the future. Officials close to the talks said they may not conclude before a meeting Monday of euro-zone finance ministers where a second bailout which will keep Greece from defaulting is supposed to be discussed. Without a deal on the write-down of the debt held in private hands, the loan can't be released. Institute of International Finance chief Charles Dallara,...

In a paper entitled “Greek debt: The endgame scenarios”, Buchheit, one of the most prominent lawyers globally in debt restructuring cases, said that that “the restructuring could be facilitated in some way by a change to Greek law”. If English law is applied to the new bonds issued under the complex PSI, the Greek side would have to face the following consequences: Property confiscation: According to international law as well as many national legal systems, when a property is located within the jurisdiction of the legislating state, the latter has the power (de facto or by law) to nationalise or...

Thursday’s meeting of the governing body of the European Central Bank (ECB) will happen as calls for the central bank to take further action to solve the euro zone debt crisis by acting as lender of last resort for troubled countries increase. The committee is expected to keep interest rates on hold at the historic low of 1 percent, and hold back on further action, despite growing calls for the bank to resort to quantitative easing – buying government bonds in primary markets, like the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve. “(Mario) Draghi (the head of the ECB) can’t...

Reuters reports (via ForexLive) that Italian PM Mario Monti is flying to Brussels unexpectedly, and his office is giving no details about who he's going to meet or what he will while in the European capitol. News of his sudden trip coincided with a momentary drop in the value of the euro versus the dollar below $1.28, a value it hasn't hit since September 2010, according to CNBC. The euro has been falling steadily since Tuesday

(Reuters) - The half a trillion euros the European Central Bank pumped into the financial system buys hard-hit banks valuable time but will not in itself protect them from threatened rating downgrades, one of Standard and Poor's top executives said. The ratings firm put almost the entire euro zone and some of its biggest banks, including Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, Societe Generale and UniCredit, on a downgrade warning this month. In a telephone interview with Reuters on Friday, S&P's Managing Director of its Financial Institutions division, Scott Bugie, said this week's unprecedented injection of three-year loans by the ECB was...

European Union (EU) bureaucrats received a tongue-lashing from Michael O'Leary, CEO of the Irish airline Ryanair, who criticized EU leadership for dishonesty, stifling innovation, and over-regulating and taxing successful industries and companies. "The reason [other airlines] fail to innovate, and the reason why the airline industry is in such a mess, is because its run by politicians and bureaucrats who like nothing more than to pass another regulation when something is working," O'Leary said at an EU conference on innovation. "I remember Ronald Reagan's quote in the U.S. that the economic policy of government and bureaucrats is always, 'if it...

French leaders have launched outspoken public attacks on Britain, calling for the UK to lose its AAA credit rating and comparing its economy with that of Greece. Christian Noyer, the governor of the Bank of France, said that Britain faced larger national debts, higher inflation and slower growth than France. François Baroin, the finance minister, said Britain was “marginalised” and faced “a very difficult economic situation” because of Coalition policies. The blunt remarks are the latest sign of Anglo-French tension following David Cameron’s refusal last week to back a new European treaty drawn up in response to the eurozone crisis....

Some of the world’s most powerful investment banks were downgraded by ratings agency Fitch as Germany’s cherished European fiscal compact appeared to be unravelling. [Snip] Credit ratings of the world’s biggest lenders have come under pressure as weak economic growth and concerns about whether European politicians have done enough to end the Eurozone debt crisis. [Snip] Meanwhile, Germany’s attempt to save the Eurozone was hanging in the balance as Hungary and the Czech Republic claimed it would be damaging and protesters in Warsaw demanded Poland stands firm against Angela Merkel. Amid fresh warnings that Europe is triggering a 1930s-style global...

Stocks on Wall Street have dropped sharply as credit ratings firms gave the thumbs down to last week's European summit. A profit warning from Intel also weighed on blue chip stocks. It plunged 5.4% after warning that fourth-quarter revenue would fall about $US1 billion short of its previous guidance. Financial stocks were the weakest sector in the S&P 500 while Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase were two of the Dow's biggest decliners, shedding 5.1% and 4.1%, respectively. Fitch Ratings said the summit did “little to ease pressure" on the sovereign-debt crisis and that a comprehensive solution was “not...

RIGA, Latvia - Latvia's largest bank scrambled Monday to head off a run among depositors who were gripped by rumours of the bank's imminent ruin. Weekend rumours that Swedbank was facing legal and liquidity problems in Estonia and Sweden sent thousands of Latvians to bank machines on Sunday, with some lines reaching as many as 50 people.

The deal signed by the eurozone countries still faces huge hurdles, because of simmering tensions between the member states – and growing disenchantment within their own borders. A startling poll last night showed that only a third of French people believed that their country should stay in the euro indefinitely. The situation in Germany was scarcely better with support for staying in the single currency long-term standing at just 41 per cent. The figures were revealed in a ComRes survey for CNN last night. It shows how the leaders pressing for closer integration are dangerously out of touch with their...

The 17 eurozone states and six other EU countries agreed early Friday to create a new treaty that will allow them to introduce stricter fiscal rules in the hope of containing a worsening debt crisis, but Britain's prime minister immediately threatened to block the new accord. The failure to get agreement among all 27 members of the European Union at a summit meeting in Brussels reflected in large part a deep split between France and Germany on the one hand and Britain on the other. France and Germany are the two largest economies in the eurozone; Britain does not use...

David Cameron is at the centre of a furious row with Nicolas Sarkozy after Paris tried to isolate the prime minister at the EU summit by suggesting that Britain is seeking to exempt the City of London from all European regulations. In a move dismissed by officials in Brussels as an attempt to set Britain up as the fall guy, senior French figures said Cameron wanted an opt out from EU financial services regulation. The French were said to have found themselves isolated in their attempt to limit an agreement on tough fiscal rules for the single currency just to...

A legal loophole in international brokerage regulations means that few, if any, clients of MF Global are likely to get their money back. Although details of the drama are still unfolding, it appears that MF Global and some of its Wall Street counterparts have been actively and aggressively circumventing U.S. securities rules at the expense (quite literally) of their clients. MF Global's bankruptcy revelations concerning missing client money suggest that funds were not inadvertently misplaced or gobbled up in MF’s dying hours, but were instead appropriated as part of a mass Wall St manipulation of brokerage rules that allowed for...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy warned on Thursday that there would be "no second chance" if a crucial European Union summit failed to reach a deal to save the euro. "Never has Europe been so necessary and never has it been in so much danger... Never has the risk of Europe's explosion been so great," Sarkozy said with only hours to go before the EU summit in Brussels. "If we don't have an agreement on Friday, we will not have a second chance," Sarkozy told a meeting of European conservative parties in the French port of Marseille. As EU leaders geared...

FRANKFURT, Germany - Ratings agency Standard & Poors says it's putting the European Union on review for a possible downgrade of its triple-A credit rating. The move Wednesday follows up on a similar action taken Dec. 5 in regard to 15 of the 17 members of the euro because of the eurozone's debt crisis.

AFP - British Prime Minister David Cameron threatened to block a new European Union treaty designed to save the euro from the debt crisis if London's demands are not met. Cameron said Britain's huge financial sector and the single market would have to be protected if he were to sign up to a new EU-wide treaty aimed at resolving the crisis in the euro, which Britain does not use. His threat increases the likelihood that France and Germany, who proposed rewriting the treaty Monday, will end up pushing for an agreement between just the 17 nations who use the euro...