Barcelona braces for million-strong march for Catalan independence

The Catalans tire of giving up all for a cause they see as unjust.
When a people can no longer provide for their own, because of the "masses" means of indebted plight, the point of "No Return" has now become the main focal point for the means of ascension, toward what is seen as a viable escape, and yet only offers the means, to a much more elevated path, of indenture..

Up to a million people are expected to converge on Barcelona to join a rally demanding independence for Catalonia in Spain's north-east.

At least one train and more than 1,000 coaches have been chartered to bring supporters to Tuesday evening's march, which is likely to mark a watershed in the hitherto marginal independence movement and a rupture with Spain's federal government.

Long-standing resentments about what Catalans see as their unfairly high contribution to central government have been inflamed by Spain's economic woes. Polls show support for independence running at 51%, twice as high as in 2008 when the financial crisis began.

France shooting: organised gangs prey on drivers travelling abroad

Could this be a symptom of unemployment?
Both Spain and France have a very high unemployment rate, with the young making up it's base.

Car-jackings and "distraction" robberies have become such a problem that earlier this year the Foreign Office warned British drivers travelling abroad that they had become "easy targets" for the gangs.

Thieves typically trick their victims by faking accidents, throwing stones at their windscreens to shock them into stopping, or pretending to need help.

Once the target vehicle has pulled over, the robbers either stage a hold-up or distract the occupants to get them out of the car while an accomplice steals valuables or even the car itself.

Hundreds of British tourists have been victims of such thefts, particularly in Spain but also in France.

British registration plates are an easy giveaway that the occupants are on holiday and likely to have cash and valuables with them in the car. Hire cars are also a regular target.

Gassed?

France has had other, equally sinister crime waves in recent years.

In 2007, the Foreign Office advised caravanners to install alarms after a string of tourists in France were gassed and robbed as they slept.

Britons were also warned to stay only

Battle for Trafalgar as developers eye Spain's last unspoilt shores

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/8068192/Battle-for-Trafalgar-as-developers-eye-Spains-last-unspoilt-shores.html

The government is backing the developers.
There is no sense of loyalty for their people or their land.
It's all about the money

The sun is setting over the Atlantic waves on El Palmar beach, casting long shadows of two wetsuit-clad teenagers leaning against their surfboards. But as the light fades on another peaceful day in this remote corner of southern Spain, the Andalucian government and the property developers it backs are hard at work finalising their plans to shake up the region, and build a hotel for 1,300 people.

"The dimensions of the problem are enormous," he said. "Over 80% of the Spanish coast has been developed – either in hotels, apartments, roads or ports.

"And it's not just Spaniards that need to be aware. In the south of England, in Denmark, along the French and Italian coasts – everyone is being fed the myth that building equals tourism equals wealth. It is not true."

More recently, the monstrous Algarobbico hotel – a huge, empty shell leering over the beach near Almería – still serves as a concrete symbol of the threat to Spain's coasts. The hotel was built in 2003, on the border of the Cabo de Gata natural park, but never opened and was immediately subject to legal wranglings that continue to this day over its proposed demolition. Authorities now say that demolition is technically and physically impossible, owing to the 65,000 cubic metres of concrete which cannot be removed from the hillside

Spain strike impact limited to transport and plants

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100929/tpl-uk-spain-strike-d1a0d5d.html

That's alot of non-production, and if continued long enough will ensure that the "People's" voice will be heard.
Get off your ass America, your brothers and sisters need your help.
The Central Banks have made this a world wide problem, and Europe is actually willing to do something about it.

Trade unions said 10 million people, or more than half the workforce, were on strike. Government officials gave no numbers but played down disruption.


However, in a sign of low industrial activity, electricity demand was about 20 percent less than expected, according to data from grid operator REE.

Reckless Europe beats reckless America at property bubbles

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100007092/reckless-europe-beats-reckless-america-at-property-bubbles/

I think Ambrose has underestimated the US inventory, or he just hasn't figured out that the banks have it well hid off their balance sheets, but that's beside the point. The point is how many countries that he points out who all coincidentally had the same type of bubble at the same time.
What a convenient coincidence, or is it? It would seem to me that the same type of banking model practice has been put to extensive use world wide, and world wide it blew up into their face.
Can you see the outline of a plot here, that was FED fortified?
Or else the world got stupid all at the same time.
The we didn't know excuse just doesn't wash anymore
This was an intentional take down.


Once and for all, let us nail the lie that the global credit crisis was basically a US sub-prime property bubble that went wrong, and that Europe was merely an innocent bystander hit by shrapnel.

This is the property bubble chart on Page 12 of the IMF’s latest report (Article IV) on France.

As you can see, France had the most extreme price rises from 1997 to 2009, followed by Spain and Italy some way below.

The Anglo-Saxons were more moderate. The US bubble was tame by comparison (measured by price: inventory overhang is another matter) and has largely corrected. This the American way, a short sharp purge. The Club Med bubbles have not corrected, by a long shot.

Michelle Obama to vacation in Spain

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/336549,michelle-obama-vacation-spain.html

What is the entertainment budget of the White House, and why should the taxpayer pickup the tab for this elaborate extravaganza? It's not as though Michelle didn't just come back from vacation.

Spanish media reports said Michelle Obama and her younger daughter Sasha, 9, would be on Spain's Costa del Sol between August 4 and 8.

There had been speculation that Barack Obama might also come to Spain to celebrate his 49th birthday on August 4.

Michelle Obama has reserved about 30 rooms for herself and her daughter, their friends and bodyguards at a five-star hotel in Benahavis near Marbella, hotel sources said.

Germany and France examine 'two-tier' euro

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/7837874/Germany-and-France-examine-two-tier-euro.html


Germany and France are examining ways of creating a "two-tier" euro system to separate stronger northern European countries from weaker southern states.

A European official has told The Daily Telegraph the dramatic option was being examined at cabinet level.

Senior politicians believe their economies need to be better protected as they could not cope with another crisis on a par the one in Greece.


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View from the lab: continental driftThe creation of a "super-euro" zone would initially include France, Germany, Holland, Austria, Denmark and Finland.

The likes of Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and even Ireland would be left in a larger rump mostly Mediterranean grouping.

The official said French and German officials had first spent months examining how to exclude poor-performing states from the euro but decided it was not feasible.

A two-tier monetary system in the 16-member euro zone is being examined as a "plan B".

"The philosophy is the stronger countries might need to move away from countries they can't afford to bail-out," said the official. "As a way of containing the damage, they may have to do something dramatic, though obviously in the short term implementation is difficult.

"It's an act of desperation. They are not talking about ideal solutions but the

Clarke and Dawe ask the million dollar questions

http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/05/20/2905304.htm


John Clarke and Bryan Dawe calculate the cost of the European debt crisis

You wanna bet Germany already got wind of these facts?
And you thought you were the only one thinking about how they were going to pay the bailout back.

Keeping Pace With the Global Economy

http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/todd-harrison-random-thoughts-bkx-global/5/25/2010/id/28467

Taxpayer ripoffs

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/2303-See,-The-Gun-Is-Loaded!.html

So basically all the bailout for the piigs did was to give even more money to the banks, just in a roundabout way.
Yes America those are your tax dollars(you help fund the IMF)being once again just flushed down the toilet,


Let's see if I can figure out what's happened here.

1.Banks shorted the Euro, (correctly) surmising that Greece, Portugal, Spain and others can't possibly cover their debts.


2.The ECB freaks out as the Euro heads toward PAR and calls "emergency meetings" (forgetting, I might add, that the Euro traded under PAR not that long ago.)


3.The ECB and Eurozone decides to "defend" the Euro with €1t in "defensive measures", including buying bonds of bankrupt sovereigns (gee, that's nice - monetization by another name.) Since the ECB and EuroZone cognescenti is of course connected to the large banks in Europe (including France, where Sarkozy is located) these banks know to back off on Friday (notice the nice little uptick?) to lock in their bonuses from these insanely-profitable trades against their own currency.


4.The very same banks, including the ones in Sarkozy's back yard, see the very nice spike and short the Euro even harder, (correctly) surmising that they have successfully stuck the gun up the nose of the ECB!
Rinse and repeat until you have all the money.

Naw, it wouldn't be that simple, would it? Why of course it would.

See, lending someone money when they're bankrupt can't possibly make them not-bankrupt. It can only make them more-bankrupt. As a consequence the ECB's action is self-destructive and doomed to fail, and as a consequence there is no reason for these banks to back off at all! Indeed, quite to the contrary - they have (correctly) deduced that they can make billion in bonuses by shorting their own currency to destruction, forcing ever-larger "interventions" by the ECB!

Fight the Derivatives Cancer with a Wall Street Sales Tax, Plus Bans on Hedge Funds, Credit Default Swaps, and Synthetic CDOs

http://tarpley.net/2010/04/25/fight-the-derivatives-cancer-with-a-wall-street-sales-tax-plus-bans-on-hedge-funds-credit-default-swaps-and-synthetic-cdos/

As a country that wishes to maintain our sovereignty we can no longer afford to overlook our own downfall, because it's plainly staring us in the face.
The games of speculation that the rich play behind the curtain place no value on human life. It's all only about the numbers in dollar signs and they create those numbers anyway they can and use our lives to do with as well as to bail them out when they fail. They only live because "WE" let them.
It's time to end this game before it ends all of us. As "the world's people", "WE" owe it to our selves.


The urgent problem raised by all this is the $1.5 quadrillion derivatives bubble. The financial crisis which struck the United States and the world in September and October 2008 was in fact a world a derivatives panic. This panic marked the first phase of a world economic depression caused by derivatives speculation. The second phase of this depression, which is now beginning, can also be attributed in large part to derivatives, since derivatives are the main tool being used in the speculative attacks on Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, and other nations, building up towards a chaotic collapse of the euro.

Derivatives are the Cause of the World Depression of Our Time
Far from being some arcane or marginal activity, financial derivatives have come to represent the principal business of the financier oligarchy in Wall Street, the City of London, Frankfurt, and other money centers. A concerted effort has been made by politicians and the news media to hide and camouflage the central role played by derivative speculation in the economic disasters of recent years. Journalists and public relations types have done everything possible to avoid even mentioning derivatives, coining phrases like “toxic assets,” “exotic instruments,” and – most notably – “troubled assets,” as in Troubled Assets Relief Program or TARP, aka the monstrous $800 billion bailout of Wall Street speculators which was enacted in October 2008 with the support of Bush, Henry Paulson, John McCain, Sarah Palin, and the Obama Democrats.

Europe's bruised economies search for way forward

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Europes-bruised-economies-apf-509572434.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=6&asset=&ccode=

People all over the world are asking this question.
Isn't it a coincidence they're all asking it at the same time?
And what do all of them have in common to have to make them ask such a question?
"The Banks"

After the boom, where does growth come from now?


The wreckage of Spain's economic growth model stands neatly aligned on the roads leading out of Madrid -- row after row of unsold houses, windows dark, for-sale signs out front.

Spain and other countries on Europe's financially stricken fringe are groping for a new basis from economic growth to put people to work and pay down crushing deficits and debts. In Spain's case, something to start generating jobs for 4 million unemployed people amid the rubble of an unsustainable construction and housing boom.

The question is especially urgent in countries with the eurozone's messiest public finances: Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and Greece.

Germany mulls sending spies to Wall Street

http://rawstory.com/2010/03/germany-mulls-spies-wall-street/

No really we were just kidding......NOT!

Many in Europe see currency speculation as 'economic terrorism'

Germany's finance minister says his government is considering sending spies to London and New York to monitor the activities of currency speculators.

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told the German Parliament on Tuesday that he may have to send spies to the world's two most important financial centers "to set up surveillance of who is getting together with whom for which kinds of speculative processes, and where,” according to a report at Bloomberg.

The move comes in the wake of Greece's debt crisis. Many European politicians and analysts blamed the crisis on currency speculation and credit default swaps, which they say caused the cost of servicing Greece's debt to jump this year, forcing the country into severe spending cuts that have led to a wave of protests and riots across the country. Greece's debt crisis, in turn, has caused the euro to plummet in value.

EU warns 5 major eurozone nations on budgets

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/EU-warns-5-major-eurozone-apf-380714428.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=7&asset=&ccode=

We're all going down together kids.
But hey the banks survived.

The European Union on Wednesday warned Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands that they are relying too much on a strong economic recovery to meet debt reduction targets.

European Commission reports say that the five largest nations that use the euro have "rather optimistic" growth forecasts in their programs to cut budget deficits to the EU limit of 3 percent of gross domestic product.

It said budget figures could be worse than they expect if growth remains slow.