austerity

BIS Says Party Over for Quantitative Easing

The Bank for International Settlements has demanded Central Banks stop their quantitative easing in hopes of a global economic recovery.  All that has happened is a stock market love affair while the real economy languishes.  BIS has issued their annual report demanding nations deleverage, which is codespeak for austerity.

Outrageous Economic Shorts - Labor Be Damned

Welcome to our round up of economic shorts.  These are the latest outrages that caught our eye which you might have missed.  Probably the biggest disaster happening today is the Senate pushing forward with a corporate written cheap labor immigration bill regardless of the negative impact this will have on jobs and the economy.

Outrageous Economic Shorts - There Is No STEM Worker Shortage

Once again our daily barrage of economic injustice news is overwhelming.  From lobbyist lies to interest rate swap rigging to killing workers by the hundreds to our best and brightest working jobs flipping burgers, here are some quick economic news shorts that you don't want to miss.

 

Congress Ushers in 2013 with a Resolution to Push the Economy to the Brink

capital buildingPast the final hour the House finally passed a bill to avert the fiscal cliff. The Senate had passed the legislation in the wee hours of New Years Day and after much brew ha-ha the House allowed an up and down vote on the Senate bill. We have listened to months and months of squabbling, bringing the economy to the brink over a very simple final result that could have been passed months ago.

When Hedge Funds Trump Governments

vultureWhile Greece suffers to the point of revolution and suicide, hedge funds made out like bandits on Greek sovereign debt.

Greece had reached its target of buying back enough bonds at a discount to retire 21 billion euros, or about $27 billion, of its debt. The bigger winners, though, were hedge funds, which pocketed higher profits than many had expected, in yet another Greek bailout financed by European taxpayers.

To some experts, this latest chapter in the long-running Greek drama is another reminder of how private investors have managed to outmaneuver European officials at various stages of the debt crisis. And they caution that each time it happens, future debt workouts in the euro zone will become even more costly.

When Europe wanted to give the Greek bond holders a hair cut, the hedge funds threatened collective action against a host of European countries. They wouldn't buy any European sovereign bonds in retaliation against the Eurogroup taking a hard line against them.

The warning was blunt: If Athens set off legal mechanisms in the bond contracts known as collective action clauses, forcing bondholders to accept lower prices, investors would stop buying the bonds of struggling European countries. That would be bad news for Spain and Italy — to say nothing of Portugal and Ireland when they return to global bond markets in 2013.

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