Défaut de la Grèce et CDS : Stiglitz accuse la BCE Joseph Stiglitz n'a pas sa langue en poche. Dans , le prix Nobel d'économie égratigne la Banque centrale européenne et son manque de transparence. Dans le dossier grec, Stiglitz estime que la position de l'institution de Francfort a été pour le moins curieuse. Que n'a-t-on écrit sur ces "credit default swaps", ces contrats qui permettent de s'assurer contre un défaut de paiement ? A la base, un CDS peut s'avérer utile. Mais revenons à Athènes. "Dans ce cas, un régulateur qui prend en compte la stabilité financière du système veille en principe à ce que l'assureur paye en cas de perte. Juges et parties ? Alors plusieurs hypothèses existent. Dans le milieu des économistes, certains s'interrogent aussi. Pour couronner le tout, c'est l'International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), composée de banquiers, qui décide si un "événement de crédit" a bien eu lieu et si ce dernier permet d'activer les CDS.
Phillip Knightley: When is a terror threat not a terror threat? Let's ask a man called Felix... - Commentators - Opinion Dzerzhinsky took over anti-terrorism duties in the newly-emerged Russia at the end of the First World War when the country was riven with revolt and violence. He realised that he had no chance of identifying all the terrorist threats and those planning to perpetrate them. Instead he developed a questionable technique that has become part of espionage theory throughout the international intelligence community: you lure the terrorist to you. When the story of the foiled bomb plot first broke it seemed too good to be true. In the tradition of Dzerzhinski, the Saudi intelligence service had apparently "dangled" one of its agents in front of known al-Qa'ida members hoping for a "bite". The Trust appeared to be a huge anti-Bolshevik organisation working from Moscow to overthrow the Communists and reverse the revolution. In intelligence circles the Trust became a textbook operation and its principles copied worldwide. But they are risky.
The M1 Abrams: The Army tank that could not be stopped - Open Channel Saurabh Das / AP file U.S. M1 Abrams tanks withdraw to a safe position after mortar rounds landed nearby in Kufa, Iraq, on April 29, 2004. By Aaron Mehta and Lydia Mulvany, Center for Public Integrity Editor's note: This article was corrected after publication. The M1 Abrams tank has survived the Cold War, two conflicts in Iraq and a decade of war in Afghanistan. But now the machine finds itself a target in an unusual battle between the Defense Department and lawmakers who are the beneficiaries of large donations by its manufacturer. The Pentagon, facing smaller budgets and looking towards a new global strategy, has decided it wants to save as much as $3 billion by freezing refurbishment of the M1 from 2014 to 2017, so it can redesign the hulking, clanking vehicle from top to bottom. Its proposal would idle a large factory in Lima, Ohio, as well as halt work at dozens of subcontractors in Pennsylvania, Michigan and other states. The Center for Public Integrity The cash and the tank. Sen.
JPMorgan Chase Fought Rule on Risky Trading Jim Young/Reuters JPMorgan’s trading mistakes “were self-inflicted, and this is not how we want to run a business,” said Jamie Dimon, above, the bank’s chief executive. The bank’s shares tumbled 9.3 percent on Friday. Several visits over months by the bank’s well-connected chief executive, , and his top aides were aimed at persuading regulators to create a loophole in the law, known as the . Even after the official draft of the Volcker Rule regulations was released last October, JPMorgan and other banks continued their full-court press to avoid limits. In early February, a group of JPMorgan executives met with Federal Reserve officials and warned that anything but a loose interpretation of the trading ban would hurt the bank’s hedging activities, according to a person with knowledge of the meeting. In the February meeting was Ina Drew, the head of JPMorgan’s chief investment office, the unit that suffered the $2 billion loss. JPMorgan officials declined to comment for this article.
CDS et Grèce : Comment Wall Street manipule le plan de sauvetage de la Grèce - La station de métro Wall Street à New York. REUTERS/Eric Thayer - Il s’est passé une chose pour le moins curieuse lors de l’élaboration du plan de sauvetage de la Grèce. Les contrats d’échange sur défaut (CDS) –instruments financiers ayant contribué à déclencher le cataclysme de 2008– ont été mis de côté; une fois de plus, les grandes institutions financières n’ont pas eu à répondre de leur actes irresponsables. Tout au long de la progression des négociations sur la dépréciation de la dette grecque, une question décisive planait sur les marchés. publicité Rappelons que la vague de faillite qui a déferlé sur les Etats-Unis en 2008 (vague qui a nécessité une intervention massive de l’Etat) fut en grande partie imputable à AIG, qui s’était vu incapable de payer les CDS qu’il avait vendus. En Grèce, ces problèmes ont tout simplement été escamotés. Aussi volontaire qu'un aveu arraché à un prisonnier de Guantanamo Faisons le bilan de 2008 Revenons au présent. Eliot Spitzer Devenez fan sur
So then Who in the Hell Are We? “This is not a reflection of who we are or what we stand for.” -- Jeff Gearhart, Wall-Mart general counsel, on the firm’s Mexico bribery [Torture] “is not the norm.” -- Mike Pannek, Abu Ghraib prison warden. “This is not who we are.” -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the US massacre of 16 Afghan villagers. “This is not who we are.” -- General John Allen, commander of forces in Afghanistan, on Koran burning “This is not who we are.” -- Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on troops posing with enemy body parts “This is not who we are.” -- Secretary of State Clinton, also on troops posing with enemy body parts Spying by the New York Police on Muslims in Newark, NJ, which the Newark Police Chief was alerted to, is “not who we are” -- Newark Mayor Cory Booker “I can tell you something all of you know already - that using pepper spray on peaceful protesters runs counter to our values. “You can't say, well, we developed trade and the economic relations first and the disregard of human rights.
Obama’s Goldman-Sachs surrender Rarely does one see a more perfect illustration of the Obama administration’s tortured relationship with Wall Street. On August 9, the Justice Department and the SEC both announced the end of investigations into potential criminal behavior related to Goldman’s handling of mortgage-backed securities in the runup to the financial crisis. That same day, the Center for Responsive Politics reported that Goldman’s employees had switched from giving 75 percent of their campaign donations to Democratic candidates in 2008 to giving 70 percent of their donations to Republicans in 2012. That’s called having your mortgage fraud cake and eating it too. And misdeeds there were, as the 635-page Levin-Coburn report on the financial crisis, which was released in April 2011, makes clear beyond any reasonable doubt.
The Greediness of Brain Drain The phrase “brain drain” used to mean, in the 1950s and ‘60s, the flight of professionally-trained people from dictatorships to find opportunity in the U.S. and other Western countries. Now “brain drain” is used in American media to mean an active U.S. government policy to attract foreign entrepreneurs, scientists, physicians, nurses and other skilled laborers in short supply to the U.S. Behind this push for a “great sucking sound” are companies like Intel, Google, Microsoft, and Pfizer, with their media cheerleaders like Tom Friedman of the New York Times, and members of Congress like Kansas Republican Congressman Jerry Moran and Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner. The arguments for a deliberate “magnet brain drain,” are porcine. Our companies need these skills. Also, what about having ready and able specialists here who may have to be paid more than their overseas counterparts? Now we see the grossest of contradictions.
Anglo-Saxon media out to sink us, says Spain | World news It is the only economy in Western Europe still in recession: property prices are crashing, unemployment has risen to more than 4 million, and some are already muttering that it could end up with a financial crisis worse than Greece's. But at least Spain now has someone to blame: the country's intelligence services are investigating the role of British and American media in fomenting financial turmoil, the respected El País daily reported . The newspaper said the country's National Intelligence Centre (CNI) was investigating a series of "speculative attacks" against the Spanish economy amid bond market jitters about the country's growing national debt. "The (CNI's) economic intelligence division … is investigating whether investors' attacks and the aggressiveness of some Anglo-Saxon media are driven by market forces and challenges facing the Spanish economy – or whether there is something more behind this campaign," El País said.