Tag Archives: ABN AMRO

That did not take long

Wow, it has been a mere 22 hours since my last Blog. In there I wrote: “The additional part where we see that Pakistan is importing close to $400 million from the Netherlands each year is optionally be getting hit as well“, which comes to pass when I see the flames on Twitter between Geert Wilders (https://twitter.com/geertwilderspvv) and the Pakistani Government (https://twitter.com/pid_gov). Even the the Pakistan Defense forum(https://twitter.com/defencedotpk), they immediately went to their copy of ‘Art of War‘ and gave us “Royal Dutch Shell, Phillips, Unilever, ABN AMRO interests in the Muslim World should be nationalised, levy heavy duties on Dutch shipping passing through the Suez, Hormoez shall be closed off for Dutch ships. Their airlines should be barred from using OIC airspace. Watch it melt!“, now a forum is not a government speakeasy, so there is time, but this riled up well over 100,000 Pakistani’s in all walks of life. Yet in here a few cool heads prevailed with: “Doesn’t matter to them, as it will hurt Pakistan itself, thousands will be unemployed, lakhs of people are working directly or indirectly in Unilever Pakistan, not even 0.1%profit generated from Pakistan, of total Unilever profits, even all oic countries ban it, it will hardly damage them“, yes it will hurt Pakistan, yet will it hurt enough? When Pakistani interests are moved from Unilever to European or American alternatives, do you think that the pain is long term? No, that is unlikely to be the case, yet the long term pain to Dutch industrials will be clear when they lost the ability to meet quota’s and to meet the expectations of analysts. That pain will be very visible. So even when we see the response by Geert Wilders with: “Don’t claim victory too soon @pid_gov I am not finished with you yet. I will expose your barbarism in many other ways“, we have to wonder if he is exposing barbarism or instigating discourse through attacks on Islam? That has always been the setting here. Perhaps we need to take another look at the setting, which started as early as 2015. I implied it in my title ‘Lollies to the Right‘ (Yesterday’s blog), in this lollies is an English slang for money. Someone is funding all this. The Cartoon competition shows another side, from the $12,500 in Garland Texas, and the amount (unknown) for the Dutch event. This is not from the pocket of Geert Wilders, someone is funding these fumes hoping that a war will erupt and we need to find out who is behind the screens on the far right, it is more important then you know. It is not merely about the hatred, the setting of economic strike backs was always going to be a clear setting. And I was right all along. We now see in the Daily Pakistan: ‘Dutch govt seeks improved bilateral ties with Pakistan after blasphemous contest saga‘, where we see: “Dutch envoy to Pakistan, Ardi Stoios-Braken announced on Twitter that the Embassy team will work with fresh energy and focus on promoting the bilateral relationship with Pakistan and mutual understanding“, yes I saw that coming a mile away and the question becomes, how much will that cost the Dutch government? By the way, in that same period of contemplating my correctness, I also designed two new (optional) Google devices, so it required close to no brainpower, so I had three other things running in the back of my head. Here too we are fed the lies by Geert Wilders. The lie “to avoid the risk of victims of Islamic violence, I have decided not to let the sacrilegious cartoon contest go ahead“, yet that was not really the case was it. The game was not set on the competition, but on the backdrop and I wonder what happened on May 1st 2018. When we were shown: ‘Far right leaders gathered in the southern French city of Nice‘, we were not in the picture on the rest. There was another player there, ready to use Geert Wilders as the tool he is. This was merely foreplay, binding the hands of certain politicians and setting the stage for others. The Independent gave on that very same day: ““The European Union today has catastrophic consequences for our countries, and yet another Europe is possible, the Union of European Nations,” she told a rally as she met with the leaders. “Europe is a good idea and the European Union is killing it.” The next European Parliament elections are scheduled for the 23 to 26 of May 2019 – after Britain is set to leave the European Union.“, that is the part that matters more, when things go out of balance, other players can come in and have some fun making money fast, that is the one part were the right seems to be blind. With Italy much more firmer in the right, with the AfD (Alternativ fur Deutchland) we see that they are still growing, even more so as Angela Merkel is now in a much lower ratings than ever before, so even as that does not indicate that AfD will push to better staging and more seats, that is not a given. Yet, in this I was proven wrong in my assumptions (based on data) on how Matteo Salvini was not really a risk and he got a much larger slice of Italian politics then we imagined and with Germany we cannot afford that mistake again. In all this it is more and more clear that the UK got out in time (a little too late though), with the European settings we all get to look at, there is a clear path that half of Europe will be in an anti-Muslim stage soon enough and not being part of that war is the only good we can hope for.

Yet the only links that I get back to in the end (thanks to some data that I found in Austria) from sources like the Wiener Zeitung and the Freedom Party of Austria and Heinz-Christian Strache is Steve Bannon of all people. Right on the same day that Cambridge Analytica became a non-entity, we see that Steve Bannon was always part of this, the question becomes: Was that why the data was needed? Was this why there was a nice dinner in Nice? OK, I admit that this is slightly too ‘conspiracy theoretic’, but the elements are there; we forgot that 87 million Facebook users are not merely there to use for the far right, they can also be used against the left and more important, once properly mined and grouped, other elements can also be addressed. We were treated to Channel 4 and their ‘Cambridge Analytica CEO filmed boasting of using entrapment, bribes and honey-traps to influence election‘, but the much larger cake is not merely the elections, it is the fact that creating discourse in Saudi Arabia as it is ready to start a trillion dollar investment setting (well over half for the creation of Neom, city of the future), we see a lot more opportunity for those players. Even in history we saw the UK push Egypt in another direction as it feared the larger hold and more importantly the hold that the UK would lose, we see a variation now by the escalations of Islam and anti-Islam and in all this Geert Wilders is the most visible tool. In this Steve Bannon played the game very well. Even as we saw him being close to Islamophobic in Breitbart and his film script, on which the Washington Post reported with “The script for the film, Destroying the Great Satan, which was never produced, opens with a fantasy scene of the US Capitol adorned with a star-and-crescent flag and broadcasting the Muslim call to prayer, according to a script obtained by the Washington Post. The film imagines a “fundamental clash of civilizations” between the west and “supremacist” Islam“. So, this is clearly not in my imagination and there is heaps of data behind it all, but there is no clear link, all the direct links are hidden. I am not speaking about ‘advertised’ open admiration between the players. No, there is a larger part in this and it is between middle men so there is nothing to prove. That evidence is not out there and it unlikely never ever will be. Steve Bannon is slightly too intelligent for that, because over time it comes knocking at his door, so he got it truly insulated against that, using tools like ‘Wilders’ as he sees fit. Marine Le Pen is in her heart too nationalistic (French) so she is an ally, but just up to a level and the same can be said for Matteo Salvini, all set in a stage of anti-Islam. Now that we see the Dutch impact others will be more cautious. When the Guardian informed us of “Steve Bannon has announced plans to establish a foundation in Europe that he hopes will fuel the spread of right-wing populism” we also got the push from Politico with “his potential European partners are ambivalent, saying they want to keep the controversial American at arm’s length even as they seek to tap his expertise on how to disrupt politics on the Continent“. I do not think it is false, but I do believe that there is orchestrated caution here. Yet as we also see: “Bannon’s connections to Europe’s leading populists, many sound unsure about letting an outsider play a central role in next year’s election, let alone one with his reputation. Some pointed out they are already working on their own pan-European alliances“, as well as “Rivière, his party’s international spokesman, said he has talked to Bannon about how he could “provide us with new ideas or share his experience.” Rivière said The Movement would be “a good non-partisan tool box” to achieve that. Bannon, who formerly ran Breitbart media, helped lead the successful Trump campaign in 2016 and went on to serve in the White House for seven months“. Here we see levels of facilitation and that facilitation will only go as far as Steve Bannon gets an industrial upper hand and it is not clear to me if these political players will be aware. What is very clear is that both Israel and Saudi Arabia need to become a lot more cautious when it comes to America. In the end, the Iranian escalations, the Syrian, Russian and Turkish setting in all this sounds nice and it sounds nice that America is on THEIR side, but only for as long as the economic fallout blows the wind to America, in the end those nations stand alone, in the end, America has a protection barrier called the Atlantic Ocean and they can retreat to ‘home ground’ , that is the play any bankrupt nation makes, lets others do the work for them, they only come when the cream is there to be scooped. When that does not happen, they walk away and we need to find a way to stop anti-Islam movements now, because they endanger the State of Israel in a similar way and even if these far right settings do not care, we should because when escalated it is a mess that no one can visit for at least a generation.

I think (as I stated before) that the seriousness of Saudi Arabia and the push for innovation has scared America and Europe. You see, the last time anyone was this driven we ended up with Google and now they are 4th in size on a global scale, that is until 2023 when they will jump back to number 2. Both IBM and Microsoft have issues and they will polarise clearly in view in 2019, at that point we will see a new shift and Google will bypass them pretty much overnight with all the 5G issues brought to the well willing hands of close to 2 billion people within a year, it is that same fear that made certain governments strike out against Huawei technologies. And that has nothing to do with security issues. When you realise that, we also see why the entire Wilders cartoon issue is a larger one. So, when you consider that the richest companies’ revenue wise in 2017 had Royal Dutch Shell on 7th with 240 billion in revenue. Now consider that the entire Wilders situation is still playing in Pakistan, with escalations still opening up in the UAE, Oman and Saudi Arabia. So when you consider that Shell could get hit and those hits are translated to additional opportunities for Exxon, which country benefits that? In the end Exxon and Shell might up trading revenue places on that same list in 2019.

There are enough markers in all this, but no direct evidence, that is likely to be seen after it is too late. At that point what will Europe do? Wake up, or just let it slide? I will let you decide, just be aware that the impact will be the economy, it usually is the first one to take a body blow in such events.

 

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Wanna buy some Junk (stocks)?

OK! I admit that I am slightly over the boil at present. Not only have we seen several banks with their ‘why would I care what happens to others’ attitude, now we see the message that Co-op bank has now ‘ascended’ to the status of Junk!

Several things are happening, yet, let us take a few steps back, so you can see why this upsets me so. The year was 2009; Britannia (building society) gets added to the Co-op bank group. This happens around the same time SNS Reaal had a property finance group dwindle its value by a quarter of a billion Euro’s, and that was not a bad day for them. 2010 would then become the massive body blow to the SNS as their property group would increase its 2009 damage by 300%. So, at this point, is there anyone out there not wondering why this continued for 3 years?

Whilst all these property issues were happening all over on the EU side, the Co-op bank thought it was a good idea to continue in their footsteps? Consider the issues, which are NOW stated as issues, must have been known then too.
That in itself means that more than just a small investigation needs to take place. There is every notion that the involved parties require investigation. If we see the waves continuing from 2009 onwards, we see a wave of mergers, left right and centre with a shifting of ownerships and a shifting of losses over and over again. At the middle is a small group of people who seem to ‘make’ their quota and getting a nice 7 figure commission in the process. Poor Prime Minister Cameron was admitting defeat in the papers at that time. Whilst well over seven billion pounds in bonuses were granted to less than 3000 people. So in this age the noble art of thief, burglar, prowler and cut-throat is gone. Instead, some become bankers, you get the idea.

So, we saw the Britannia merger in 2009. The consequence was that Co-op acquired a company (The Britannia) ‘worth’ 35 Billion, yet, when we look at the value of Co-op, those numbers seem to be completely off the wall. Can anyone explain to me how a bank, who in their financial results of 2008, stating an operating result of 85 Million, with 64 Million of profit before taxation sucks up a company with a stated worth of 35 BILLION? No one seems to be asking the questions many should be asking. Now, as stated before, I am no economist and my degrees do not include economy, yet the Co-op/Britannia combination makes as much sense as me walking into IBM HQ, walking up to Ginni Rometty’s office asking her ‘How much for just the company?’, paying her for IBM, take over her office and have it redecorated. And trust me when I say that her weekly allowance is a lot higher than my pre-tax annual income.

So, as this happened, no one seems to be asking the tough questions. In the meantime to the next time-slice, the following issues occur. Our trusty Dutch nationalised SNS, now values at minus 127 Million and its property market is now reported at minus 600 million Euro. At this time, alarms should have been singing, ringing and clinging on many levels, not just at Co-op banking group. For those thinking that they are just separate banks then I would state that this is not entirely accurate. Consider that RBS took part of ABN AMRO (former one of the big four banks of the Netherlands). In the time (pre purchase of Britannia), Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Lloyds TSB and HBOS Plc needed a massive bailout by the UK government. Soon thereafter Co-op suddenly goes fishing for a great White, using nothing more than a Dinghy and a $9 bamboo fishing rod?

In that same period Co-op is involved with the purchase and annexation (to coin a phrase) of Somerfield stores. It was reported to have a net income of just more than 220 million pound a year, yet, it was purchased for a 1.5 billion pound. That part makes decent sense as the net profit is a little over 10% of the purchase value. Yet, in light of Britannia and other events taking place, I add some serious question marks with these methods of vulture growth through acquisitions. I have seen this happen over the decades, and overall it rarely turns out well. This story turns that way as we see the Co-op food group (name after the merge of Somerfield stores) had reported in 2011 (as stated by The Guardian on 25th August 2011) a 21% fall of profits. Suddenly, the 220 million pound profit shrinks and looks less appealing. The Guardian in the same article also reported: “The Company has committed to investing £2bn in the business over three years, with £280m spent in the period.

So the initial spending outstretches a full year of profits, with investments stretching beyond the 130% of the purchased value of the food stores. With refitted shops, additional refitting and new shops, the total number of shops seem to go beyond 550 stores. This is happening at times when caution is the only way to go forward.

The additional cost of getting these systems to run and align in an infrastructure would require massive amounts of resources. That part became clear if we look at the story from Computer World (http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/applications/17614/updated-co-operative-bank-losing-customers-through-system-problems/). This story is set to the Bank itself, yet the issues of so many sides and so many systems, and therefore the enlarged infrastructure required is not a relief of costs, but a pressure added to it.

Another side of pressure was displayed by Reuters (http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/02/27/uk-cooperativebank-lloyds-idUKBRE91Q00E20130227). On the 27th of February this year it was stated that Co-op was somewhat short on cash. They were 1 billion short. (oh, let me get my wallet! Duh!) This seems to be the major reason that the addition of 632 branches of the Lloyd’s Banking group could not be purchased.

These facts are more than worrying. The vulture acquisition game is worse than a game of Texas Hold’em Poker. First there is the fact that the board of directors is gambling with other people’s money, the second part is that the circle of damage increases with each acquisition. Consider that the UK only has a 0.3% economic gain at present and that the economy is extremely fragile for now. Allowing these mergers to continue until a solid block of stability is gained should be disallowed on several levels and not just with co-op. Until the economy bounces back and the costs are more stable, this bank should clearly be placed under scrutiny of the most conservative nature.

It is said that the Co-op banking group consists of almost 125.000 employees. Now consider that any hardship hits this group. A thought that is not too unrealistic, especially as they are on shaky grounds for now. I am not just talking about their Moody status, to which their response was on May 11th 2013 as ‘Disappointing’. I am talking about infrastructure issues, weather related issues and any issues that will drag the rest down if additional write downs will be required to the property group from the Britannia acquisition (consider what happened to SNS Reaal in the Netherlands), a mere 5% write down will come down to over 1 Billion, whilst their cash reserves is already 1 Billion too low. So if that result in shut-downs and lay-offs, then a 10% loss of staff is not unrealistic, which means another 12,000 will be out of a job. That must be prevented at all cost. Such damage could push the UK 0.3% increase down to a lower than 0.1% decrease soon thereafter. In addition, those cut downs will hurt their non-aligned infrastructure even more and that might even start a snowball effect on people and infrastructures. I admit that the previous paragraph is all speculations on my side. I have however seen these kinds of reorganisations and crushing results first hand. I had faced them when the economy was good, under current conditions; these events are a nightmare to consider.

Is there any good news here? Well, I feel that I am not that optimistic on the statements they made, yet, overall Co-op could be in a worse place. The only proper solution for them in my mind is to dig in and weather the storm for now. Getting by the next 2 years is more important than allowing one rash acquisition to endanger it all. You will wonder about my evidence?

That is a fair question!

Many businesses are in a bad shape, and there is every chance that some will fail. Now consider the Property acquisition (Britannia). No matter how high their assets are set. Part of their acquired branch was commercial lending and mortgages. Last December Reuters quoted this, a real issue taking in regards the high pressure on lacking stability funds “At this rate it will take another decade to return to normal – and I’m not sure there is much anyone can do about it.

So increasing more pressure could in the end result in the taxpayer getting a hefty addition to the outstanding national debt. A national debt, that is currently in excess of 1 Trillion Pounds.

So, from my point of view it is important to consider the story we saw recently in the Netherlands. The SNS Reaal board counted on Government bail-outs as they regarded themselves too big to fail. We need to make sure and make it clear that the Co-op banking group is not allowed to be this arrogant, or allowed such a way to a bail-out.

 

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The Italian menace?

The Italian menace?

Just when you thought it was safe to think of any kind of future again, the abyss opens up right in front of you and your savings are again in danger.

The first topic of discussion as presented by the Dutch NOS was of course the European budgets. To a budget of 960 billion, the Dutch contribute 6 billion and they got a one billion dollar discount. Yes, this seems to be the Marks and Spencers approach to budgeting. Now, they seem to be happy, and I am not sure how to feel. It does however give a clear picture that the Dutch, always visible as a high player, are anything but that big. When you are profiles as a larger player and their contribution is less than a tenth of 1 per cent, that it means that they are not that big a player at all (or so it seems).
So, the Dutch politicians are going home with a satisfied feeling until the end of the decade. So how is this impacting? It is what followed that could become the real worry. It is a newscast of the return of Mr Berlusconi. Yes! He is returning to Italian politics with elections less than 3 weeks away. Does he have a chance? Not sure and not really my worry to be honest.

What is interesting is how he pulls people in with his dreams of giving back the real estate taxation of 2012. So, if that is done then Italy would be withdrawing from their promise to get their budget and deficit under control. If that happens, then what is next for Europe?
The bigger issue is that this might be a clear indication that Goldman Sachs is back and actively trying to meet their share in the Game of Greed.
They seem to be a clear controlling and influential party with most European governments. Forbes already reported this as a ‘danger’. They did mention the Monte dei Paschi banking scandal as part of their news cast as well. They also remained soft in their ideas of nations no longer being governable. I am less subtle. From my viewpoint I am willing to contemplate the opinion that the European governments are about to become the bank’s bitches with Goldman Sachs leading them the way to population enslavement. I agree, the thought is a little strong!

You see, there is method to my madness, or my madness is methodical (either way works). So, let us take a look at how I got to that conclusion.

In the Dutch newscast on this, as well as in Forbes and as well as mentioned in other sources “Berlusconi, who said he won’t seek the executive position but rather prefers to become Finance Minister, has seduced the masses saying he will repeal a property tax imposed by Monti, returning about €4 billion ($5.4 billion) to the people by refunding taxpayers’ 2012 payments” so with all the shortages, they add to the non-debt resolving side. We can debate whether it is the right or the wrong thing to do. In my view it is an Italian choice and it is their right to choose. Whether right or wrong, it is however interesting that Berlusconi seeks the Finance Ministers position. With him being a connection to Goldman Sachs as a (former) international advisor? It also means that the Italian deficit will be upped by another 5.4 billion dollars. This implies that Italy is less interested in getting their deficit down.

My issue is that according to the numbers Goldman Sachs is one of the banks retaining their gains these last years. I have nothing against that as I do have a capitalistic side. There is however a realistic side to profit, and many greed driven organisations seem to remain very unrealistic. With the ties he had/has, and the rules of the game so unaltered. I worry about what will happen to the Italian debt during the next government term.

Here is the link between this all. This was discussed by the Independent. “What price the new democracy? Goldman Sachs conquers Europe”. In there they made the following statement: “Instead what you have in Europe is a shared world-view among the policy elite and the bankers, a shared set of goals and mutual reinforcement of illusions.” (Nov 18th 2011). I could not have said it any better.

Now we get to the juicy part. Should Berlusconi get elected, and then we will suddenly read on how certain realignments of bad banks will be needed? There will be a change, and of course Goldman Sachs will get their share. It is all nice and legal. No matter how they react, whether Europe breaks apart, whether the costs will once again be set into other places. We are looking at an additional total debt increase of half a trillion dollars (across the EEC) and Goldman Sachs will get their share. So why are the European legislations not dealing with this clearly visible weak flaw?

Now, here is where I get to go on thin ice. The conspiracy theorist in me might think that this is what the power players from the US had in mind from the beginning. From their point of view governments are obsolete! Especially when these governments are getting in the way of highly desired profits, commissions and personal wealth goals.

Politicians seem to get pushed into an ego trip (in some cases they are simply with their backs against a wall). They do not cover their budgets and get the back of these strong players to get visibility and media to do the things that should be investigated and questioned on many levels. The Dutch SNS was a clear example. However other banks and acting parties should not be forgotten. The ABN/Amro Bank was one of these banks that required nationalisation. They are linked in all this with connections to the Royal Bank of Scotland (who was having a nice go at acquiring ABN/AMRO). And again here comes Goldman Sachs around the corner, having a nice juicy finger in all of these matters. They were in an investigation regarding Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO) traders. They were not guilty, as some people forgot to disclose certain matters. However, the LA Times reported this on October 12th 2010: “Hedge fund operator John Paulson a key player in SEC case against Goldman Sachs. His firm made $15 billion in 2007 by betting that Americans would default on their home loans in droves.” From my point of view, that is not all they betted against.

Why am I so against Goldman Sachs? The issue is not Goldman Sachs; they are not breaking any law. It is the politicians that walk away with golden futures, creating bad banks and leaving the population to work of the debt through taxation, a population left with forever less and less. Soon this can no longer remain affordable and Italy seems likely the next one moving into this direction. This is where banks and large corporations become in charge and we get to work past retirement ages to fill the need of their greed. This is a need that is eternal and will never be satisfied. If you doubt me, then look at the list of nations that was able to keep their budget. It seems that only Belgium made their budget, and that might only have been because they were without a parliament racking up cost for the most of 2011. They even celebrated their new parliament after a record 541 days without a parliament on December 11th 2011. So that would definitely helped in keeping the cost down.

So back to the headline I started with “The Italian menace?”
Is it Silvio Berlusconi the menace? Possibly! If he continues on a path that does not stop the rising debts.
Is Italy the menace? Possibly! If they do not get a handle on their debts. In this case I mean a solution where they pay for their massive overspending from more than the last decade, mostly under Silvio Berlusconi.
Will the Italian menace end the EEC? Likely! If debts keep on rising, and as insurmountable debts are taken as write off’s against retirement funds and national treasuries. It is not impossible that Italy becomes the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Should you consider that this could never happen, then think again. The same was said about the SNS bank and that puppy is now a nationalised one (but it seems that for now it is not house broken).

This has happened again and again. This is not just about the banks. Politicians are also to blame. For that I would like to mention papers like “Investing in Greece: an Olympic opportunity”. It came from Costas Bakouris in 2001. The thoughts were all fair enough. However, how much came to happen? How much money did come in?

Most facts point towards the information that the Olympics cost double from what was budgeted and out of the amount approaching 10 billion a lot less then budgeted came in.
There was the article called “Business and investment prospects strong after Olympic Games triumph” Which was released after the games of 2004. In December 2004, through the newspaper USA Today. It was published in December 2004. The interesting part of the second story is that there was no name attached to it. So what was THAT source?

Even though the Olympics are a unique event, the financial consequences are real and high. Yet, there were no visible budget cuts and massive cuts were required. But wait, here is super hero/villain Goldman Sachs to help with the presentation of it all.

The Olympics were the most visible, but not the only one. This is what Felix Salmon wrote for Reuters on February 9th 2010 (exactly 2 years ago). “It’s a bit depressing that EU member states are behaving in this silly way, refusing to come clean on their real finances. But so long as they’re providing the demand for clever capital-markets operations like these, you can be sure that the investment bankers at Goldman and many other investment banks will be lining up to show them ways of hiding reality from Eurostat in Luxembourg.

In that time, banks wrote cheques for investment events no one could cover. This is clearly shown in the case of the Dutch SNS. And the fun does not stop here. The article “ABN Amro hiring spree targets Asian private wealth” 29 January, 2013 Written by Elliott Holley shows that they are hiring again, with at least 1 person from Goldman Sachs. It is interesting how this small circle gets to go everywhere.

Goldman Sachs does not seem to have broken any laws. Politicians all over Europe seem to have changed very little, and they seem to all extremely willing to get into bed with Goldman Sachs, their ‘golden’ solution. National politics does not seem to regulate banks to the degree that is needed and some governments do not seem to properly regulate themselves either.

When we look at the 2011 EEC numbers we see the following: the largest government deficits in percentage of GDP were recorded in Ireland (-13.1%), Greece (-9.1%), Spain (-8.5%), the United Kingdom (-8.3%). Whilst the Government debt kept on going up and was set at 10 421 987 million Euro, which boils down to 82.5 (% of GDP). (Source: Eurostat News release 62/2012 – 23 April 2012)
They also show that Even though the GDP was set to become negatively in 2012, it had been forecast slightly positive in 2013. There is no proof of that, and whatever taxation was acquired in 2012, Berlusconi wants to hand that back to the people. Consider these numbers. Now add three facts to this equation.

1. The LIBOR scandal (see previous blog) shows how within the UK the percentages had been tweaked. This means that the percentages were incorrect. Now consider that the LIBOR is based on 4 times the planets GDP (adding up to 300 trillion $ as mentioned in several articles).

2. The GDP is the market value of all the final goods and services produced within in a country in a given time period. We have seen how people are without work. Economies are shrinking and services are lost to families all over the EEC. So how does that number keep on going up?

3. The European Economic Forecast, Economic and Financial Affairs (Spring 2012) document shows a picture again way too optimistic. In several nations it seemed to predict that 2013 was a year when things would be turning up. There is NO sign that this is happening. The belts are tightening in nearly all European nations. In addition, when we consider the SNS Property moving into Bad banks, we see that the current need for business property is diminishing due to lack of revenues. From my point of view it implies that the mentioned government debt at 82.5% of GDP (2011) could be as high as 90% of GDP. If that is true, then the overall percentages will hit all harder as the interest rates for government debts should be higher, and their credit ratings might be lower as a consequence.

Now consider that should the debt grow and their rating goes one level down, then that nation might have to pay a percentage on their debt. With governments owning hundreds of billions, an example means that a debt of $300B, if the interest is only 1% that would come down to an annual payment of 3,000 million, just to keep it stable. That means every person pays between 50 and 300 dollars to pay the interest. EVERY PERSON! Now consider that this is not a real problem for most people, however Consider that in Spain 24% has no job, that means that this amount will be paid by 75% of the population with income, so they pay more now. Then consider that the debt needs to go away.

We cannot trust banks as LIBOR shows. The EEC papers show them to think of them in a better state then they are, and the presented numbers are debatable. And as shown from several sources Goldman Sachs is connected to nearly every stage, somehow in some non-criminal way.

So two years later (after the claim by Felix Salmon), where are we now and what bad news is yet to come?

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