If Greece Fails

erudne · Aug 31, 2015

80 Year Old Woman Trampled To Death In Venezuelan, 75 Injured During Supermarket Stampede For Food…

It is worse on toilet paper Thursday.

Via The Telegraph:

An 80-year-old Venezuelan woman died, possibly from trampling, in a scrum outside a state supermarket selling subsidized goods, the opposition and media said on Friday.

The melee at the store in Sabaneta, the birthplace of former Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, was the latest such incident in the South American nation where economic hardship and food shortages are creating long queues and scuffles.

The opposition Democratic Unity coalition said Maria Aguirre died and another 75 people were injured – including five security officials – in chaotic scenes when National Guard troops sought to control a 5,000-strong crowd with teargas.

"Due to the shortage of food … the desperation is enormous," local opposition politician Andres Camejo said, according to the coalition's website. It published a photo of an elderly woman's body lying inert on a concrete floor.

Camejo said thieves had also attacked the crowd, members of which were seeking to buy cheap food on offer at an outlet of the state's Mercal supermarket chain in Barinas state.

There was no confirmation of the incident by authorities.

El Universal newspaper reported that Aguirre was knocked to the ground during jostling in the crowd, while the pro-opposition El Nacional said she was crushed in a stampede.

Keep reading

HT: GetAClue

erudne · Sep 25, 2015

Cabinet Member in Greece Quits on First Day on Job

Several members of staff had helped run Twitter account, he said

(ANSA-AP) — ATHENS — Hours after starting his new job, a junior minister in Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' left-wing government resigned late Wednesday over messages posted on his Twitter account that were considered racist and anti-Semitic.

Dimitris Kammenos, a deputy minister for infrastructure, submitted his resignation hours after Tsipras' new Cabinet was sworn in.

The 49-year-old Kammenos is a member of parliament from the Independent Greeks, a small right-wing party that joined the new coalition government after a general election was held Sunday.

Kammenos said offending comments posted in 2014 and 2015 on his account — which has now been canceled — were being investigated at his request by the police's cybercrime division. He added that several members of his staff had helped run the account.

— Hat tip: Insubria

PrDubi · Sep 25, 2015

Spend spend spend..

PrDubi · Sep 25, 2015

I was in Greece from the summer facilitating the sale of my condo rental. Life goes on....nothing melodramatic. ..just can't take cash out with a Greek bank account. .

erudne · Nov 16, 2015

Greece Credit Rating Affirmed at 'CCC' — Fitch Ratings

Greece has been assessed as having CCC's Issuer Default Ratings for its long-term foreign and local currency, Fitch Ratings in London announced in a release.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Fitch explained that Greece's financial assistance program with the European Stability Mechanism of up to 86 billion euros has reduced the risk of the country defaulting on its private sector debt obligations and supports the rating at 'CCC'.

"The issue ratings on Greece's senior unsecured foreign and local currency bonds have also been affirmed at 'CCC'. The Short-term foreign currency IDR has been affirmed at 'C' and the Country Ceiling at 'B-'," the release stated on Friday.

However, Fitch warned that the risks to the program remain high and further deadlocks in negotiations are possible.

"It will take some time for trust to be restored between Greece and its creditors… Meanwhile, the political situation in Greece remains unpredictable," Fitch cautioned.

Brutus57 · Nov 16, 2015

erudne said:
Cabinet Member in Greece Quits on First Day on Job

Several members of staff had helped run Twitter account, he said

(ANSA-AP) — ATHENS — Hours after starting his new job, a junior minister in Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' left-wing government resigned late Wednesday over messages posted on his Twitter account that were considered racist and anti-Semitic.

Dimitris Kammenos, a deputy minister for infrastructure, submitted his resignation hours after Tsipras' new Cabinet was sworn in.

The 49-year-old Kammenos is a member of parliament from the Independent Greeks, a small right-wing party that joined the new coalition government after a general election was held Sunday.

Kammenos said offending comments posted in 2014 and 2015 on his account — which has now been canceled — were being investigated at his request by the police's cybercrime division. He added that several members of his staff had helped run the account.

— Hat tip: Insubria

And of course even only having served a few hours he will still draw a full pension.

Brutus Out

erudne · Nov 18, 2015

It's all connected

Japan slips into technical recession with latest contraction

TOKYO (AP) — Japan's economy shrank in the July-September quarter as domestic demand declined, sending the nation into a technical recession.
The numbers from the Cabinet Office on Monday showed that gross domestic product, the value of a nation's goods and services, declined at an annualized pace of 0.8 percent in the third quarter, and contracted a seasonally adjusted 0.2 percent from the previous quarter.
That meant the world's third-biggest economy slipped into a technical recession, defined as two straight quarters of contraction, because it had contracted in the second quarter as well.
The government showed in its preliminary GDP estimates that domestic demand fell 1.2 percent at an annual rate, as businesses held back on investments.
Japan has been slipping in and out of such periods of contractions, while eking out growth in between. Weak GDP numbers could prompt fresh government stimulus measures.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has repeatedly promised to wrest Japan out of the doldrums and show GDP can stay in positive territory, a challenge for an industrialized economy like Japan that relies on exports for growth and whose population is aging.
Analysts say the government is now more likely to announce a spending package later this year, and the Bank of Japan could also move on further easing. Both would be a plus for the economy.
In one sign of hope, the numbers Monday show Japanese consumers are spending.
The government has been encouraging companies to give wage increases in negotiations that happen early next year, another move that could encourage spending.

I'll save my next rant about the stupidity of GDP being a definitive metric at to whether or not an economy is in a recession for some other day. But, I do enjoy the spinmeisters use of the word "technical" in this regard. As if to say, it is only a technical recession, but, not a real one. Contrast and compare the verbiage use to their condemnation of Canada's economy from their recent "technical recession".

This is, what, the second year of Japan's most aggressive QE the world has ever known? I think any rational person has gone beyond understanding that QE doesn't work and now must move on to wondering what the central bankers are really trying to accomplish when they engage in QE.