Greece headed toward default; Austria and France to be downgraded by S&P

from the ft...

Greek debt restructuring talks collapse

Talks over Greece’s debt restructuring collapsed on Friday, an unexpected breakdown that makes it increasingly likely Athens will become the first government of a developed country in more than 60 years to suffer a full-scale default on its debt.

In a statement, lead negotiators for Greek bondholders said that the latest offer made by Athens “has not produced a constructive consolidated response” from “all parties” – a clear reference to International Monetary Fund conclusions that bondholder losses must be increased significantly or a second Greek bail-out would have to be bigger than the agreed €130bn.

and then there's this, also from the ft...

S&P set to downgrade two eurozone nations

The credit rating agency Standard & Poor's is set to downgrade two triple A-rated eurozone nations, with one government official naming France and Austria. The other triple A-rated nations, including Germany, are expected to escape downgrade.

This has yet to be confirmed by the agency or the governments.

can't we please just get the global financial and economic collapse over with so we can figure out how to move on...?

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City of London, the home base (besides Wall Street) of the world's banksters, is upset

add this whine to that of jamie dimon's sad bleating about basel from monday (see my previous post and related link)...

Britain to sue ECB over threat to City

Britain is to sue the European Central Bank for setting rules that allegedly handicap the City of London and would force one of the world’s largest clearing houses to decamp operations to the euro area.

The unprecedented legal action underlines the depth of ministerial concern over the ECB policy, which comes as the UK engages in a turf war with France and Germany over Europe’s financial markets infrastructure.

An ECB policy paper, released in the summer, requires clearing houses to be based in the eurozone if they handle more than 5 per cent of the market in a euro-denominated financial product.

Britain will ask the courts to strike down the rule on the grounds that it restricts the free movement of capital and infringes on the right to establish cross-border businesses across a multicurrency European Union.

The policy, if enforced by the ECB, would undermine London’s financial market infrastructure since it would require that clearing houses shift many of their operations to the eurozone – most likely Frankfurt or Paris.

British diplomats have long feared that Paris was leading attempts to rig market regulations in a bid to shift the centre of gravity for financial services from the City to the continent.

The UK fought off French attempts in recent months to insert into an EU directive a requirement for clearing houses to have access to central bank liquidity – a measure effectively confining most euro-denominated clearing to the eurozone.

of COURSE france and germany want not just a BIGGER piece of the pie, they want the BIGGEST piece... ain't it fun to watch the global banksters and their gang of crooks go to war with each other...?

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Hopey-changey strikes again

disgusting...

Obama, in Europe, signs Patriot Act extension

Minutes before a midnight deadline, President Barack Obama signed into law a four-year extension of post-Sept. 11 powers to search records and conduct roving wiretaps in pursuit of terrorists.

"It's an important tool for us to continue dealing with an ongoing terrorist threat," Obama said Friday after a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

With Obama in France, the White House said the president used an autopen machine that holds a pen and signs his actual signature. It is only used with proper authorization of the president.

Congress sent the bill to the president with only hours to go on Thursday before the provisions expired at midnight. Votes taken in rapid succession in the Senate and House came after lawmakers rejected attempts to temper the law enforcement powers to ensure that individual liberties are not abused.

i repeat... disgusting...

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Sarkozy lashes out at the banksters at WEF in Davos

i love it... i love it a LOT... 's about time one of the leaders of the industrialized nations put the cards on the table... i'm no sarkozy fan but he's got this one right...

The world has paid with tens of millions of unemployed, who were in no way to blame and who paid for everything. It caused a lot of anger. Too much is too much. The world was stupefied to see one of five biggest U.S. banks collapse like a house of cards. We saw that for the last 10 years, major institutions in which we thought we could trust had done things which had nothing to do with simple common sense. That's what happened... There is an ocean between flexibility and the scandal we saw. So if people present me as obsessed with regulation, it's because there is a need for regulation. I don't contest the principle of securitisation, but when one offshore country guaranteed 700 times its GDP, are we in the market economy or in a madhouse? Bonuses don't bother me, provided there are also ... draw-downs when there are losses. When things don't work, you can never find anyone responsible. Those who got bumper bonuses for seven years should have made losses in 2008 when things collapsed.

you tell 'em, nick... i've been waiting a long time to hear this kind of righteous rant from a major world leader...

(thanks to bobswern at daily kos...)

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Bush and bin Laden: "Their prolonged game has made not only the audiences tired but has also transformed the playground into a big pool of blood"

gee... do ya think...?

a stretch of the doctrine of fair use with apologies to juan cole...

The USG Open Source Center translates an article from the Persian Afghan press alleging that French troops were at one point close to capturing Usamah Bin Ladin in Afghanistan, but that American forces stopped them from doing so. It says that a forthcoming French documentary containing interviews with the French soldiers provides proof for the allegation. The argument is that the Bush administration needed Bin Ladin to be at large in order to justify its military expansionism.

Afghan article says US Bin-Ladin hunt phoney
Hasht-e-Sobh
Friday, October 3, 2008
Document Type: OSC Translated Text

Afghan article says US Bin-Ladin hunt phoney

Text of article, "Bin-Ladin on the run? The rumour which was fact", by Afghan independent secular daily newspaper Hasht-e Sobh on 29 September

So, the rumour was right: French soldiers trapped Usamah Bin-Ladin, but were not allowed by the Americans to arrest the apparent fugitive leader of Al-Qa`idah. A Bin-Ladin documentary just released by French documentary cinema examines this issue, an issue which has led to heated debate in the French media.

This French documentary shows how the Americans are interested in continuing the game, a bloody and expensive game whose victims are only the unprotected and local people of our dry and dusty country. It was last year that rumours spread about this report in Kabul, but it has not been taken seriously by the media. But watching this revealing French documentary changes the rumours into disturbing facts. "Bin Laden, the failings of a manhunt", produced by Emmanuel Razavi and Eric de Lavarene, two French filmmakers and reporters, assesses and confirms the claims of French soldiers that they could have killed Usamah within two operations, but the American forces prevented them. This film has not been broadcast publicly yet and is to be broadcast by Planet, a French network.

Even though French soldiers have insisted on this in the battlefield many times, the Elysee Palace in Paris and the White House in America have rejected this, and the Afghan leadership does not have any information about it yet!

The main question that arises is the extent to which the "Bin Laden on the run" project is a problem for America and Afghanistan. Seven years of suicide bombing and explosions, blood and violence, unmanned fighter planes, and old vehicles full of explosives, all to catch a long-bearded Arab whom America apparently hates? And an Arab who worked for the CIA in the name of Allah, and who now, also in the name of that same Allah, has conducted a jihad against that same CIA?

Facing the facts in this Usamah film is a bitter and disturbing experience and will make you nervous and wish that what it is that you are watching is just a baseless rumour, or a figment of Hollywood's imagination. But it is not. The pictures are real and you are facing a debate in documentary form. The only justification for the bloody presence of America in Afghanistan is the ambiguous existence of Usamah Bin-Ladin and the Al-Qa'idah terrorist network.

George Bush, with his "war on terror" project, has transformed the middle east and Afghanistan into an inflamed bomb ready to explode, but has not found out anything about his beloved lost Usamah Bin-Ladin so far.

What is seen, and the film also emphases this, is that all these slogans, this fighting and killing are a game, a painful and prolonged game whose end even the players do not know and which is running out of control. Apparently, it is a game of cat and mouse, just like "Tom and Jerry", the famous cartoon. But it is a reality that the stubborn one from Texas does not want to catch the mouse - unlike credulous Tom - and that the long-bearded Wahhabi Arab does not want to hide - unlike the intelligent and roaming Jerry. Their prolonged game has made not only the audiences tired but has also transformed the playground into a big pool of blood.

There have always been questions that neither the politicians have been willing to answer, nor the independent western media to raise. If Usamah is not the lost one of the Americans, then who is? What are the Americans searching for in Afghanistan and who are they looking for? The main media in the West remained silent before the report of the Usamah Bin-Ladin arrest by French soldiers. And, through a news boycott, they reduced a certain fact to a rumour.

Certainly, they will do the same before this film, too. But instead they will try to complicate the scenario. More painful than anything else is the political fair in Kabul, a poor fair where everyone offers his despicable commodity - a combination of generous western customers and thankful sellers of the country. Everyone knows the fact, like "an obvious secret", but no one wants to irritate the delicate minds of their nervous guests, guests who will be staying at home until the new year.

Politicians try to forget such news in Kabul, and this is the advice they give to the people. Forgetting and ignoring such facts is possible, but how can we forget and ignore the bombs exploding next to our houses every day?

let's hope this story grows legs...

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Foreign Policy magazine - glorifying repressive regimes for being "tough on terrorism" while stirring up more fear

a publication with the impressive title of "Foreign Policy" ought to be able to rise above being a propaganda tool... oh, well... so much for a mag published by the carnegie endowment for international PEACE, eh...?

The List: The Worst Places to Be a Terrorist

Fighting transnational terrorism often involves making unsavory choices between protecting civil rights and providing security. The following regimes have opted for the latter and are definitely not the kind of places you want to get caught if you’re plotting some terrorist mayhem.

so where are these places that are so zealously safeguarding their citizens...?

• Jordan
• Egypt
• Singapore
• Russia

and, oh, by the way...

• France

i just gotta ask, what's the implied message here...? are these places the u.s. should be emulating...?

now, for the fear-mongering...

How (Not) to Spot a Terrorist

Identifying terrorists on the battlefield is relatively simple. My scout-sniper school instructor always reminded us of a solid truism that applies perfectly both in Afghanistan and Iraq—shoot the one with the gun. The same cannot be said of the world’s most dangerous terrorists—the ones operating covertly inside the United States and Europe. They are an entirely different matter. Hunting them down is more akin to finding Soviet spies during the Cold War. It requires an educated, deeply institutionalized counterintelligence apparatus...

and...

Meet the New Face of Al Qaeda

Few of the deadliest modern-day suicide bombers fit the stereotype of a mass murderer. Here’s a look at four once-average people who epitomize the changing profile of the terrorists we fear most.

and they go on to profile folks that, horror-of-horrors, could pass among us unnoticed...

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Millions of children are being raised on prejudice and disinformation

aw, geeeez... more bullshit from foreign policy... check this out...

the title...

Europe’s Philosophy of Failure

now, for the meat...

In France and Germany, students are being forced to undergo a dangerous indoctrination. Taught that economic principles such as capitalism, free markets, and entrepreneurship are savage, unhealthy, and immoral, these children are raised on a diet of prejudice and bias. Rooting it out may determine whether Europe’s economies prosper or continue to be left behind.

Millions of children are being raised on prejudice and disinformation. Educated in schools that teach a skewed ideology, they are exposed to a dogma that runs counter to core beliefs shared by many other Western countries. They study from textbooks filled with a doctrine of dissent, which they learn to recite as they prepare to attend many of the better universities in the world. Extracting these children from the jaws of bias could mean the difference between world prosperity and menacing global rifts. And doing so will not be easy. But not because these children are found in the madrasas of Pakistan or the state-controlled schools of Saudi Arabia. They are not. Rather, they live in two of the world’s great democracies—France and Germany.

oh, my stars and garters... shocking... just SHOCKING...! "savage..." "unhealthy..." "immoral..." they certainly COULDN'T be talking about capitalism, free markets, and entrepreneurship...! oh, but wait...! yes, they ARE...! france and germany are DARING to challenge THE RELIGION OF CAPITALISM... how terribly cheeky of them...

The deep anti-market bias that French and Germans continue to teach challenges the conventional wisdom that it’s just a matter of time, thanks to the pressures of globalization, before much of the world agrees upon a supposedly “Western” model of free-market capitalism. Politicians in democracies cannot long fight the preferences of the majority of their constituents. So this bias will likely continue to circumscribe both European elections and policy outcomes. A likely alternative scenario may be that the changes wrought by globalization will awaken deeply held resentment against capitalism and, in many countries from Europe to Latin America, provide a fertile ground for populists and demagogues, a trend that is already manifesting itself in the sudden rise of many leftist movements today.

well, we CERTAINLY can't tolerate POPULISM, now, can we...?

i don't know about you, but i find this little screed terribly naive... by choosing to completely overlook the ravages caused by globalization, the breathtaking exploitation of people and resources wrought by capitalism, and the global financial chaos we are experiencing right at this moment from free and unregulated financial markets, the author is revealing himself as nothing more than a public relations shill for the global super-rich... like they need another apologist... i say, "bloody good for france and germany for trying to inject a little truth into their school curriculums..." it's a novel idea, but, who knows, it might catch on...

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Damn...! We're down the global economic rabbit hole NOW, for sure...!

jumpin' golly gee willikers...

The biggest rogue trader scandal in history hit Societe Generale on Thursday as the French bank accused a junior employee of a fraud costing $7 billion.

France's central bank and government scrambled to shore up confidence in the banking system after "SocGen", France's second-biggest bank, said it had been the victim of massive and "exceptional" fraud.

Its trading losses spiraled to 4.9 billion euros ($7.1 billion) as the bank tried to close out the rogue positions in Monday's sliding market.

The country's top banker dubbed the trader "a genius of fraud". SocGen declined to give a name, but three sources at the bank named him as Jerome Kerviel, 31, a trader on the bank's award-winning equity derivatives desk earning less than 100,000 euros a year. Kerviel could not be reached for comment.

DAMN, sam...!

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War profiteering must have hit a plateau

yesterday's story from the new york sun...

Attack on Iran Said To Be Imminent

UNITED NATIONS — In a sign that U.N. Security Council-based diplomacy is losing steam, a number of sources are reporting that a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities may be imminent. France and America also are pushing for tighter economic sanctions against Tehran, without U.N. approval.

prompted a few thoughts from moi...

the 2001-2002-2003, staged rollout of the latest cash generation war videogame and its related software, kicked into high gear by the gwot, has started to plateau, so it's time to crank it up a notch, dontcha know... after cutting all those recent arms deals in egypt, the near east, the middle east and south asia, it'd be a damn shame if there wasn't an opportunity to USE 'em... and, yeah, the aftermarket (parts, spares, replacements) is damn near as lucrative as it is for the new models, but if ya don't have SOMETHIN' goin' on SOMEWHERE, nothin's gonna fall to the bottom line... those pesky profit margins and quarterly results just gotta keep trending up, up, up... you know what it's like with those wall street analysts... it's the same old story... "what have you done for me LATELY...?" damn, running a business is just so LOADED with daily challenges...!

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