Tag Archives: Austerity

Incredible confusions: Why ‘austerity’ if we can just print the money?

Posted on by

“Debt can either be repaid or be defaulted on. Destroying the purchasing power of money through inflation is one way to default on the debt. Simply not paying the debt is the other option. In both cases, savers, ‘thrifty pensioners’, and the customers of banks, insurance companies, and pension funds will suffer, and in the inflationary scenario everybody will suffer greatly. Sadly, the massive printing of money and accumulation of debt that has occurred since the termination of the gold standard and the adoption of limitless state fiat money and pro-growth central banking has now brought us to a point where defaults appear to be unavoidable. This is not some great reset. It is a man-made catastrophe.”

http://detlevschlichter.com/2014/03/incredible-confusions-part-3-david-graeber-asks-why-austerity-if-we-can-just-print-the-money/

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Cyprus Central Bank Governor resigns with $250K golden parachute

Posted on by

“One of the main criticisms directed against Demetriades has been how, under his watch, the now defunct Laiki Bank accumulated around €9.5 billion in emergency liquidity aid, only to buckle and fail when the ECB threatened to pull assistance.  ‘How much independence can a central banker have when, from his statements, it appears he was serving other expediencies instead of his country’s interest,’ President Nicos Anastasiades said last year.  For the state to get its €10 billion in bailout funds last March, the president said, it was told to privatise state companies, seize deposits, make painful cuts, and raise taxes.”

http://cyprus-mail.com/2014/03/10/cbc-governor-panicos-demetriades-resigns/

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Bill Bonner: The Massive Problem Threatening the Global Recovery

Posted on by

Bill-Bonner2

“Debt is an obligation laid upon the future by the past. The larger it gets, the harder it is for the future to happen.  There is a correlation between extreme levels of public debt and low economic growth. High levels of debt-to-GDP have been historically associated with low levels of economic growth.  That is what has been happening in Japan for the last 23 years… and in Europe and the US for the last seven. These economies are still fighting deleveraging, resisting debt deflation and pretending that they can continue to add debt forever… and that somehow this will get them out of their debt traps.  But they are doomed. Without growth they can’t pay the debt. With so much debt, they can’t grow.”

http://www.bonnerandpartners.com/the-massive-problem-threatening-the-global-recovery/

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Free banking will go, says RBS chief

Posted on by

“Savers eventually will have to pay for their current accounts, according to the new chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland. Ross McEwan, the head of Britain’s second-biggest current account provider, said that free banking would come to an end because up-front fees were more transparent. RBS had no plans to scrap free banking, but he cast the eventual adoption of a fee-based system in the context of making banks more straightforward for customers. He said in a weekend interview: ‘I think [the end of free banking] is something that will be addressed in the marketplace.'”

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/industries/banking/article4020894.ece

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Italy Imposes 20% Tax Withholding On All Inbound Money Transfers

Posted on by

logo3

“In the latest example that Europe is increasingly formalizing a regime of implicit capital controls, we learn that Italy has just ordered banks to withhold a 20% tax on all inbound wire transfers: a decree which on to of everything will apply retroactively to February 1. As Il Sole reports, the deductions will be automatic (unless prior request for exclusion), and then it will be up to the taxpayer to prove that the money is not in the nature of compensation ‘income.’ In other words, as of this moment, but really starting two weeks ago, all Italians are money launderers unless proven innocent.”

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-16/money-launderer-until-proven-innocent-italy-imposes-20-tax-withholding-all-inbound-m

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Bundesbank Floats Wealth Levy Idea for Future Crises

Posted on by

“Germany’s central bank Monday proposed a one-time wealth tax as an option for euro-zone countries facing bankruptcy, reviving a idea that has circled for years in Europe but has so far gained little traction.  ‘The question arises whether in extraordinary national emergencies in addition to privatization and conventional consolidation efforts, private wealth can also contribute to avert a government insolvency,’ the Deutsche Bundesbank said.  The idea of a one-time tax on private wealth isn’t new. Italy has flirted with the idea of a wealth tax over the past three years.  The IMF in October also floated the idea of a one-time ‘capital levy,’ amid a sharp deterioration of public finances in many countries.”

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304007504579346330639793674

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Greek Government Passes New Property Tax Legislation

Posted on by

“The new property levy, which has been years in the making, aims to boost Greece’s budget revenues by rolling several taxes into one, but is also seen as harming the economy’s expected rebound next year, driving dented property prices even lower. The law imposes a tax on residential housing, commercial properties, vacant property lots, farms and sports fields and aims to raise some €2.6 billion ($3.55 billion) per year and offers discounts to those who prove they cannot afford to pay it.  In September 2011, Greece imposed a real-estate tax that it placed on electricity bills and is collected by the country’s power company.”

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304866904579272000551853972

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

All-Time High Unemployment: Depression In Europe Getting Deeper

Posted on by

“This week we learned that eurozone unemployment came in at an all-time high of 12.2 percent for September.  Back in January 2012, it was sitting at just 10.4 percent.  The funny thing is that the mainstream media will barely call what is going on in Europe a ‘recession’ even though the unemployment rates in both Spain and Greece are now much higher than anything that the United States ever experienced during the ‘Great Depression’ of the 1930s.  A 25-year-old Spanish man with three college degrees that moved to London in a desperate search for a job is now cleaning up poop for a living.  The economic collapse of Europe continues to march on, and there is no end in sight.”

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/all-time-high-unemployment-the-economic-depression-in-europe-just-keeps-getting-deeper

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Dismantle the euro, says Nobel-winning economist who backed it

Posted on by

“A Nobel prize-winning economist will on Thursday withdraw his support for the euro saying it has created a ‘lost generation’ unemployed youngsters and should be broken up. Sir Christopher Pissarides was once a key proponent of a single currency but will on Thursday accuse the euro of ‘dividing Europe’ and say action is needed to ‘restore the euro’s credibility in international markets’ and the ‘trust that Europe’s nations once had in each other’, according to the Daily Mail.  The Cypriot-British economist, who won the Nobel prize in 2010, is speaking days after Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, insisted the crisis in the eurozone was not yet over.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/10512678/Dismantle-the-euro-says-Nobel-winning-economist-who-once-backed-currency-union.html

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

NSA spied on Italian leaders ‘from US diplomatic missions in Rome, Milan’

Posted on by

“The new leak, revealed by Glenn Greenwald with l’Espresso, alleges that the National Security Agency subjected Italy’s leadership to surveillance, although not specifying which people within the country’s ‘leadership’ were monitored, via US diplomatic missions in Rome and Milan. The spying went on from 1988 to at least 2010.  The report on Friday reveals the service kept whole two sites running in Italy: one in Milan, the country’s main economic hub, and one in Rome. Of all European nations, only Italy and Germany had two SCS sites working simultaneously, according to the leak.  The new report provided appears to directly contradict official statements dismissive of earlier spying allegations.”

http://rt.com/news/nsa-italy-greenwald-spying-833/

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet