Tag Archives: Europe

Prove You’re Not a Terrorist

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“Recently, France decided to crack down on those people who make cash payments and withdrawals and who hold small bank accounts. The reason given was, not surprisingly, to ‘fight terrorism,’ the handy catchall justification for any new restriction governments wish to impose on their citizens. And so, in future, people in France will not be allowed to make cash payments exceeding €1,000 (down from €3,000). Additionally, cash deposits and withdrawals totaling more than €10,000 per month will be reported to Tracfin—an anti-fraud and money laundering agency.  Anyone changing over €1,000 to another currency (down from €8,000) will be required to show an identity card.”

http://www.internationalman.com/articles/prove-youre-not-a-terrorist

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ECB’s Celebration of Its New $1.4 Billion Tower Is Spoiled by Protesters

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“Anti-austerity protesters seeking to spoil the inauguration of the European Central Bank’s new headquarters in Frankfurt’s east end set vehicles alight, erected barricades and left a trail of destruction across the city.  Police deployed water cannons to restore calm and keep the demonstrators at bay in the area surrounding the 1.3 billion-euro ($1.4 billion) tower, after setting up barbed wire and road blocks. Nine days after the ECB started buying sovereign debt in a 1.1 trillion-euro plan to revive inflation and rescue the economy, protesters are laying the blame for recession and unemployment in the 19-nation euro area at the doors of Draghi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-18/ecb-besieged-by-protests-as-draghi-celebrates-1-4-billion-tower

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Astonishing Images Show $4.2 Million In Seized Dark Market Drugs

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“Officers in Leipzig apprehended two individuals they believe to have been involved in the web-based Shiny-Flakes narcotics dealership, one a 20-year-old whose apartment was searched on 26 February and a 51-year-old Bulgarian courier.  From the search of the apartment and further seizures of shipments, a whopping 360kg of drugs were acquired by the police, including crystal meth, cocaine, speed, ecstasy tablets, LSD, hashish and marijuana. Combined, the drugs were worth just over $4.2 million. A cool €48,000 ($50,461) in cash was also found alongside all those illegal substances. The stash really is something to behold, as seen in the images sent over by the law enforcement agency.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/03/13/shiny-flakes-bust-pictures/

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Belarus: Loans return, but interest rates double to 65%

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“In addition to a 30% duty on the purchase of foreign currency imposed in December, the National Bank recommended banks not to issue loans to stabilise the situation on the financial market.  The measure was supposed to restrict the growth of money supply and increase the value of money. As a result, Belarusians have not been able to take loans from banks for a month.  Commercial bank began to issue loans again, but raised interest rates. The cheapest loan has an interest rate of 45%, the most expensive one – 82%.  Average interests rates are now from 60 to 65% against 25-30% in early December.”

http://charter97.org/en/news/2015/1/22/136361/

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Four-month deal reached between Greece, creditors

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“European finance ministers came to the agreement Friday as failure to reach a deal threatened Greece’s solvency. The extension will give Greece time to negotiate a follow-up arrangement with creditors as it attempts to undertake fiscal reforms.  The extension is contingent on reforms, which Greek officials and Europe will agree on by the end of April. Greece will present a list of reforms by Monday, Dijsselbloem said. The deal will be ratified when creditors are satisfied with reforms.  A euro zone fund for Greek bank recapitalization will remain available throughout the extension, Dijsselbloem added.”

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102441980

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Randomly generated bot tweet prompts investigation by Dutch police

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“The only problem was that Van der Goot hadn’t written the tweet. Instead, Van der Goot had handed the Twitter account over to ‘jeff_ebooks’, a bot they created which could automatically send tweets and hold conversations as an eerie simulacrum of themselves. It was jeff_ebooks who had sent the threat, and it was its creator who was being held liable.  Van der Goot told the Guardian that it makes no sense that they would be hauled in for questioning over a fairly mild claim made by an automatic Twitter account. The bot is what’s known as a markov chain generator, which uses a simple algorithm to create vaguely coherent sentences from a corpus of text.”

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/12/randomly-generated-tweet-by-bot-investigation-dutch-police

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How a gov. spelling mistake bankrupted a 134-year-old family business

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“Taxpayers were left facing a £9m bill after a clerk at Companies House added an extra ‘S’ on to the end of the name of the firm, with devastating consequences.   As a result, the Government agency wrongly stated that respected engineering firm Taylor & Sons Ltd had been wound up, when in fact it was an unrelated company called Taylor & Son Ltd which had got into financial difficulty.  The nightmare error proved fatal for the respected 134-year-old firm, with customers cancelling orders and lenders withdrawing credit after hearing incorrect rumours that the company was in dire financial straits.”

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/555578/businessman-Philip-Davison-Sebry-reacts-Companies-House-bankrupted-Taylor-and-Sons-Wales

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Greece Offers New Bailout Plan as Latest Grexit Drama Commences

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“We begin to see a pattern here. As always, we are led to believe the crisis is unavoidable and the horror is about to descend. And then at the last minute, or even after the last minute, the bureaucrats somehow manage to resolve their differences. Some government leader or other is proclaimed a hero and the mainstream media rejoices. This seems like a movie we’ve seen before. These constant cliff-hangers are part and parcel of the negotiating process. The contentiousness is necessary to ensure that all eyes are on Brussels and everyone gets the message that if you work in a government job, the fate of millions may hang on your actions and statements.”

http://www.thedailybell.com/news-analysis/36078/Greece-Offers-New-Bailout-Plan-as-Latest-Grexit-Drama-Commences/?uuid=6F7EFAA8-5056-9627-3C97350BFC837212

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Mortgage Banks Meet With Danish Government on Negative Rates

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“Denmark is helping its mortgage banks figure out how to tackle negative interest rates after the industry called upon the government to step in.  Business Minister Henrik Sass Larsen is forming a working group that will address the challenges that negative rates pose for the $500 billion industry. The development follows the central bank’s historic efforts to save its euro peg, forcing policy makers to cut the benchmark deposit rate to minus 0.75 percent, suspend government bond sales and sell a record amount of kroner to weaken the currency.  Nykredit and Nordea have said they won’t issue bond-backed mortgages at negative yields. Realkredit Danmark A/S has said it will.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-05/mortgage-banks-to-meet-with-danish-government-on-negative-rates

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Negative mortgage rates in Denmark; $3.6 trillion of negative yield debt

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“With negative interest rates in Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, Belgium, and Denmark, it was about time that we saw negative mortgage rates in Europe as well. In January, as much as $3.6 trillion of debt in Europe and Japan traded at negative yields. Unprecedented bond buying by the European Central Bank (the ECB) and Bank of Japan (the BOJ) has resulted in a manipulation of global capital markets that could lead to another major asset bubble.  The situation has gotten so out of hand that not only are interest rates -0.2% at the ECB’s overnight deposit facility, but commercial banks are also lending to individuals at negative rates.”

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/negative-mortgage-rates-denmark-3-210020766.html

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