Donald Trump’s grandfather Friedrich Trump was banned from Germany for failing to complete mandatory military service. Appeals to his local prince fell upon deaf ears.
“Politico is reporting that officials in the eastern European country of Ukraine are seeking ways to apologize to incoming President Donald Trump for their secretive efforts to help Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.”
Read more: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/01/12/politico-ukrainian-officials-election/
“The Greek Finance Ministry in their infinite wisdom has decided that its nation’s taxpayers will only be granted deductions or tax-allowances if payments are made using a debit or credit card.”
“People once hoped that if they came into property they could sell it and live easier; now they fear that they will be unable to sell it and the taxes will drag them down. …After many years in which only very valuable properties were taxed, many Greeks went from paying almost no taxes on real estate to not having enough money to pay.”
https://fee.org/articles/greek-taxes-are-so-high-that-people-are-turning-down-inheritances/
Japan, already carrying the highest debt to GDP ratio of all OECD countries, has approved a record spending bonanza of 97.5 trillion yen in its 2017 budget, even while the Japanese birth rate has collapsed to 1899 levels, prompting questions as to how its mounting debt could ever be retired.
Italy, carrying the third-highest debt to GDP ratio and having been mired in recession for eight consecutive years, plans to nationalize four failing banks, borrowing at least 20 billion euros to do so. Since taxpayer bailouts were ostensibly banned by Europe in 2015, an exception to the rule will be invoked to enable the Italian bailout. But who would lend to the already massively indebted Italian government to fund its acquisition of zombie banks, especially after the IMF’s recent warning that Italy is on course to remain in recession for another decade, the government’s recent collapse after a failed referendum to increase executive powers, and in light of the half-dozen active Italian secession movements? Well, likely the same sort of institutional investors who recently bought 16.5 billion euros’ worth of 50-year Italian government debt, expecting to be able to flip it to the European Central Bank in a hypothetically-expanded bond-buying program down the road.
Sweden, facing a debt bubble and soaring housing prices, with mortgage loans now averaging between 105 and 140 years amortization, has seen its central bank’s board requiring a tie-breaker vote to continue its negative interest rate policy and bond-buying program.
European Union officials have decided to force Apple Computer to pay a retroactive 13 billion euros in tax to the Irish state for the activities of Apple’s Irish subsidiaries, which employ around 6000 individuals. The Irish government, not wishing to see an economic golden goose killed if Apple were to pack up and leave Ireland, insisted that it had not given Apple any special treatment warranting the tax and did not want the ordered transfer. The EU budgets cash it ‘earns’ from fines as a normal revenue item, so if Ireland refuses to collect the tax it may be transformed into an EU fine under competition rules instead.
Every day provides increased evidence that developed-world sovereign debt is quite literally “a bubble in search of a pin”, as Peter Schiff put it in his 2011 book ‘Crash Proof’.
“Funny money is getting funnier and funnier. Our challenge is to figure out who’s the butt of the joke.”
Read more:
With her Christian Democratic Union party facing increasing losses at the hands of German voters fed up with zero economic growth and state-run facilities bursting at the seams handling millions of Middle Eastern war refugees, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has begun shaking a stick at the Internet:
Merkel cautioned that public opinion was being ‘manipulated’ on the internet. ‘Something has changed — as globalisation has marched on, (political) debate is taking place in a completely new media environment. Opinions aren’t formed the way they were 25 years ago,’ she said.
Europe’s bureaucrats were one step ahead, and in a shocking move, on Wednesday the EU Parliament voted on a non-legislative resolution which calls for the EU to ‘respond to information warfare by Russia.’ Russian news websites RT and Sputnik news agency were alleged to be among the most dangerous ‘tools of Russian propaganda.’
“Trump and Putin now have an opportunity to change course. Within the first 90 days after Trump’s inauguration, they have a chance to halt the downward spiral in U.S.-Russian relations, avert a massive arms race, save trillions of dollars in military budgets over the next decade, and, most important, reverse the frightening march to war. I do not say this lightly. This scenario is possible.”
http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/trump-putin-big-war-little-deal-83125
“In a separate protest in the northern city of Thessaloniki, protesters burned a U.S. flag. The visit comes only two days before the anniversary of a bloody 1973 student revolt that helped topple the 1967-1974 military junta which was backed by the U.S. government. Obama, who will be succeeded in January by Donald Trump, arrived in Greece on Tuesday on his last foreign tour as president of the United States.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-greece-obama-protests-idUSKBN13A2DT
“When the European Central Bank introduced a negative interest rate on lenders’ deposits two years ago, few thought things would ever go this far. This week, a German cooperative savings bank in the Bavarian village of Gmund am Tegernsee — population 5,767 — said it’ll start charging retail customers to hold their cash. From September, for savings in excess of 100,000 euros (US$111,710), the community’s Raiffeisen bank will take back 0.4 per cent. Introducing the sub-zero policy in June 2014 with a cut to the deposit rate to minus 0.1 per cent, ECB President Mario Draghi said the move was ‘for the banks, not for the people.'”
