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Is this the beginning of the end for the eurozone? On Thursday, Germany rejected a Greek request for a six-month loan extension. The Germans insisted that the Greek proposal did not require the Greeks to adhere to the austerity restrictions which previous agreements had forced upon them. But Greek voters have already very clearly rejected the status quo, and the new Greek government has stated unequivocally that it will not be bound by the current bailout arrangement. So can Germany and Greece find some sort of compromise that will be acceptable to both of them? It certainly does not help...

Check out five opinions trending online, from Google’s black box to Hillary’s men. Voting with their euros: In a proxy no-confidence vote, Greeks are sending their money abroad as creditors try to reach an agreement with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board writes. “Fleeing deposits represent a resounding vote of no confidence in the new government, and no wonder. Mr. Tsipras’s hard-left Syriza party keeps digging in against reforms that would be necessary for Greece to stay in the euro.” Read more. Israel’s Sarah Palin: Writing for the Daily Beast, Ricky Ben-David and Nira Yadin analyze...

Brussels- European leaders agreed on Friday to extend Greece's bailout for four months after weeks of terse negotiations.

Before he entered politics, Yanis Varoufakis, the iconoclastic Greek finance minister at the centre of the latest eurozone standoff, wrote this searing account of European capitalism and and how the left can learn from Marx’s mistakes ___ In 2008, capitalism had its second global spasm. The financial crisis set off a chain reaction that pushed Europe into a downward spiral that continues to this day. Europe’s present situation is not merely a threat for workers, for the dispossessed, for the bankers, for social classes or, indeed, nations. No, Europe’s current posture poses a threat to civilisation as we know it....

Germany has rejected a Greek request for a six-month extension to its eurozone loan programme. The rejection came despite the European Commission calling the Greek request "positive" only minutes earlier. Greece had sought a new six-month assistance package, rather than a renewal of the existing deal that comes with tough austerity conditions. However, a German finance ministry spokesman said it was "not a substantial proposal for a solution".

China's Real Estate Market Crashing... Real Estate is the single biggest domestic lending segment in China. Combined with deflation in Iron Ore, Steel, Copper, and other industrial metals China's collateral quality is looking very very shaky compared to loan volume... SNIP While the world's attention is glued to events in Greece, the real action continues to evolve quietly thousands of kilometers east, in China, where the near record surge in new loans remains unable to offset the dramatic slowdown in shadow banking issuance. And while China's bubble-chasing, animal spirits have recently reoriented themselves from real estate to the stock market,...

Fighting has flared up again in the Ukraine. The Egyptians are sending soldiers into Libya as another North African state collapses into chaos. The militants of Islamic State are spreading their influence across the region. You’d think Barack Obama might have bigger foreign policy issues to worry about than a small state of 10 million people on the eastern edges of the Mediterranean. But Greece may be about to turn from a European into an American problem. As the game of brinkmanship between the radical Syriza government elected last month and the European Union gets played out, it has become...

Greece Says Extension is "Absurd" Talks between Greece and eurozone officials were expected to last through the night. Instead Greece Bailout Talks Collapsed in Acrimony after four hours. A crucial meeting of eurozone finance ministers over the future of Greece’s bailout broke down in acrimony after Athens angrily rejected the bloc’s insistence that it extend its current €172bn rescue as “absurd” and “unacceptable”. It is the second time in five days that negotiations between the new anti-austerity Greek government and its eurozone creditors have collapsed and it means Athens, whose public finances are deteriorating fast, could soon be left with...

Greece Bailout Talks Break Down After Athens Rejects 'Unacceptable' Eurozone Demands Creditors present ultimatum as finance minister insists other members must water down austerity conditions if country is to reach ‘honourable agreement’ Jennifer Rankin 16 February 2015 Talks between Greece and its eurozone creditors collapsed in disarray on Monday night, heightening concerns that the country is edging closer to a disruptive exit from the single currency. The breakdown of discussions in Brussels over the Greek bailout programme appeared to leave both sides as far apart as ever, although eurozone finance ministers said a last-ditch summit could be held on Friday....

Greece is on a collision course with the eurozone’s creditor powers after emergency talks ended in acrimony on Monday night, triggering the most serious political crisis since the launch of the euro. The Leftist Syriza government reacted with fury to eurozone demands that it must stick to the country’s discredited austerity plan, describing the draft text as “absurd and unacceptable”.

Greece's pleas to stop the "fiscal waterboarding" of its devastated economy are substantively no different from President Obama's repeated warnings to Germany to stop bleeding the euro area economy with excessive fiscal austerity. Sadly, the president's reportedly more than a dozen phone calls to the German Chancellor Merkel in 2011 and 2012 urging supportive economic policies in the euro area fell on deaf ears. These calls were not just brushed aside; they were plainly ridiculed as Chancellor Merkel kept telling the media that "it made no sense to be adding new debt to old debt." But -- worrying about one-fifth...

For over a fortnight, Europe's single warning to Greece has been that the chaos and misery of national bankruptcy await it unless its new left-wing government changes its anti-austerity tune. The message of impending doom appears to have gone largely unnoticed on the streets of Athens, where a mood of hope and optimism bordering on euphoria reigns as Greeks see themselves finally shaking off foreign shackles to shape their own destiny.

White House Warns Europe On Greek Showdown Washington blames Europe for the lack of global recovery and is losing its patience with EMU creditor states that fail to pull their weight By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard 13 Feb 2015 The Obama administration has leapt to the defence of Greece, warning Germany and Europe’s creditor powers that they must meet Athens half-way to avert a potentially dangerous rupture and a euro break-up. Caroline Atkinson, the US deputy-national security adviser, said the eurozone authorities had imposed the main burden of adjustment on the weaker deficit states and should do more to accept their share...

"I want to work with Congress to replace mindless austerity with smart investments that strengthen America," said President Obama in a recent speech at the Department of Homeland Security. In the making of a counter-cultural hero, in an era of failed responsibility and in an era of passing the buck, a new superstar has been found. In America, we have Elizabeth Warren, who is coming on like gangbuster as an alternative to Hillary Clinton, something I predicted a long time ago. In Europe, Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister whose un-tucked shirts worn with blue jeans have become a symbol...

At midnight, Greece turns into a pumpkin. The clock is clearly ticking but is this the 10th or 11th hour? Given the eurozone propensity to extend deadline after deadline, it's hard to say precisely what time this is. But we can say Greek Bailout Talks with Europe Break Down. Eurozone finance ministers’ first attempt to grapple with the bailout demands made by the new Greek government broke down in recriminations after the two sides failed even to agree a way to take negotiations forward after six hours of talks in Brussels. Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister who chairs the...

The political centre across southern Europe is disintegrating. Establishment parties of centre-left and centre-right - La Casta, as they say in Spain - have successively immolated themselves enforcing EMU debt-deflation. Spain's neo-Bolivarian Podemos party refuses to fade. It has endured crippling internal rifts. It has shrugged off hostile press coverage over financial ties to Venezuela. Nothing sticks. The insurrectionists who came from nowhere last year - with Trotskyist roots and more radical views than those of Syriza in Greece - are pulling further ahead in the polls. The latest Metroscopia survey gave Podemos 28pc. The ruling conservatives have dropped to...

With tax receipts tumbling and ELA funding hitting its limit, the Greeks are up against it. On the other side, the Greek strength in the face of EU's demands (and Eurogroup's realization of the uncertainty this could lead to) has apparently led to the start of compromise. As Bloomberg reports, •*GERMAN, GREEK OFFICIALS SIGNAL COMMON GROUND ON AID DEAL •*GERMANY SAID NOT TO INSIST ALL PARTS OF CURRENT BAILOUT STAY •*GREECE SAID TO BE OPEN TO SURPLUS, PRIVATIZATION DEBATE As Merkel noted earlier, "Europe is always about finding a compromise," and it appears they are getting closer - as long...

It is important for clients to be aware of the total amount they paid for day care, and have the day care provider's tax ID number, Social Security number or employer identification number (EIN). A new requirement in 2015, those filing tax returns must bring proof of health insurance, for example Affordable Health Care Act Forms 1099 A, B, or C. Clients should know birth dates for the members of their family. Health Care Marketplace Navigators will be at each tax site to assist families with enrollment in the health insurance marketplace and to answer questions regarding tax credits and...

Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos said that if Greece failed to get a new debt agreement with the euro zone, it could always look elsewhere for help. "What we want is a deal. But if there is no deal - hopefully (there will be) - and if we see that Germany remains rigid and wants to blow apart Europe, then we have the obligation to go to Plan B. Plan B is to get funding from another source," he told Greek television show that ran in to early Tuesday. "It could the United States at best, it could be Russia,...

Germany has been sacking Greece and other Mediterranean economies for years, and the Hellenic revolt against austerity is overdue. When the euro was established in 1999, prices were translated from the mark, franc and other currencies into euro at prevailing exchange rates. (Greece joined the Eurozone in 2001, giving up the drachma.) National prices reflected differences in labor costs and efficiency across countries, but owing to a variety of social and demographic conditions, productivity improved more rapidly in Germany and other northern countries. Making goods in the South became too expensive, and Greece and others could no longer export enough...