Showing posts with label Europe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Europe. Show all posts

Monday, 4 April 2011

US, Europe Continue Increasing Trade with Iran Despite Sanctions

TEHRAN (FNA)- The latest figures and statistics revealed that not just the different members of the EU, but the US itself has boosted trade and economic transactions with Iran during the last year despite the UN sanctions and the extra unilateral embargos imposed by the US and its European allies against Iran.

The value of Iran’s trade exchanges with the members of the European Union increased to 12.7bln euro in the second half of 2010 despite all the western sanctions and the extra embargos imposed by the EU against the country over the latter’s peaceful nuclear program.

According to a report citing Eurostat website, the recent statistics show a 7% increase in trade exchanges between Iran and 27 members of the EU in the second half of 2010 compared with the first half of the same year.

The report also mentioned that the trade exchanges between the two sides were worth 11.8bln euro in the first half of the last year while the number increased to 12.7bln euro in the second half of 2010.

Meantime, EU’s imports from Iran were worth 6.9bln euro in the second half of 2010, which indicated a 12% growth compared with the first half of the same year.

Despite the hostile policies and moves of the United States and its European allies, Iran has shown a promising trend of growth in area of economy.

[more at english.farsnews.com...]

Bill Bard says:

Proof that it’s all fucking BOLLOCKS.

Bookmark and Share

View the original article here

US, Europe Continue Increasing Trade with Iran Despite Sanctions

TEHRAN (FNA)- The latest figures and statistics revealed that not just the different members of the EU, but the US itself has boosted trade and economic transactions with Iran during the last year despite the UN sanctions and the extra unilateral embargos imposed by the US and its European allies against Iran.

The value of Iran’s trade exchanges with the members of the European Union increased to 12.7bln euro in the second half of 2010 despite all the western sanctions and the extra embargos imposed by the EU against the country over the latter’s peaceful nuclear program.

According to a report citing Eurostat website, the recent statistics show a 7% increase in trade exchanges between Iran and 27 members of the EU in the second half of 2010 compared with the first half of the same year.

The report also mentioned that the trade exchanges between the two sides were worth 11.8bln euro in the first half of the last year while the number increased to 12.7bln euro in the second half of 2010.

Meantime, EU’s imports from Iran were worth 6.9bln euro in the second half of 2010, which indicated a 12% growth compared with the first half of the same year.

Despite the hostile policies and moves of the United States and its European allies, Iran has shown a promising trend of growth in area of economy.

[more at english.farsnews.com...]

Bill Bard says:

Proof that it’s all fucking BOLLOCKS.

Bookmark and Share

View the original article here

Friday, 1 April 2011

Twenty-Nine Wars Against Europe

moslemsm


Over on the rock solid site called Gates of Vienna, they have posted a video speech made in Amsterdam by the German Journalist Michael Mannheimer.


In his talk, Michael gives a brief history of Islam and describes its bloody history of aggression and conquest in Europe that continues today.  This is a war against civilization and the west that has gone on for five hundred years – sadly and fatally for the western world – we are losing.  Unless our people wake up soon there is no future.


You can watch the video in full over on the Gates of Vienna but a couple of people, including Guy Leven-Torres have been kind enough to transcribe the speech for the rest of us to read.  Please take the time to read the full speech – you will thank me – you will also or should be frightened to death.


The Michael Mannheimer Speech in Amsterdam October 2010


Welcome. We are now in the year 2010 in the midst of the biggest threat to Europe in history.


We are in the midst of the third attack of Islam against Europe. The first attack took place shortly after Muhammad died, and the Muslim conquerors conquered Spain, and the Spanish Islamization took six hundred years and ended in 1492 with a big Reconquista. In spite of what in many books is written and written again, despite the “peaceful Cordoba Islam”, the truth was very different.


The truth was that the Muslims killed millions of Christians and Jews and destroyed churches, and it should be known that the second attack of the Ottoman Empire began with the conquest of Constantinople, and ended after the First World War, 1918. During this 455 years of Ottoman attacks against Europe, millions of people, millions of innocent Christians and Jews were killed under unbelievably cruel conditions.


Turkey, as the father of the Ottoman Empire, led altogether twenty-nine wars. Twenty-nine wars against Europe during these 455 years. And it is now undertaking its thirtieth war, because Turkey is now one of the leading Islamic countries in the world, on a par with Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.


In Turkish political circles they do not speak about Germany as “Germany”. They speak about “West Turkey” already. And we have seen how Erdogan came to Germany like a Caliph who wanted to control everything that is happening, and going on as if he wanted some kind of Islamization. But now we have a far bigger threat than ever in history of Europe. Much bigger even than the threats of Hitler and of communism. The difference is the following:


Hitler had a country of about 75 million people, and Hitler had an overall history of thirteen years in power. But the Muslims have had much greater experience, 1,400 years of Islamization on different fields. They are much better organized. They are worldwide, and they have 1.4 billion people behind them. The consequence of that power of the umma we see everyday. We saw it last time, very dramatically with the Mohammad cartoons in Denmark.


The difference is also that the frontier of this attack doesn’t lie along the borders of Europe. We don’t see the enemy as an enemy. The enemy is among us. The enemy is the system of Islam, and not necessarily the Muslim people. But thus far they are Muslims. In the same way they are fulfilling the main aim of Islam, which is conquering the world, as were the peace-loving among the Germans, who were a majority of 80% during the Hitler system, too.


Even with their lesser numbers they make the rest of Islam, a very bad power, strong. And they make it strong also by failing to criticize the bad things in their religion. Why don’t they criticize it? They don’t criticize it because it brings a death sentence to criticize Islam. This is an order by Mohammed. And this is the only religion in the world that does that; I have been in all religions.


I lived in Buddhist countries sixteen years. I lived in Hindu countries many, many years. I know the Christian and the Jewish. This is unique. No other country has an order to kill those who criticize their religion. And there is another order: killing those who abandon their religion, meaning Islam. So both these things are far and away against the human rights of Europe. The human rights of free speech and the human rights of free choices of human individuals to choose what they want. And this has nothing to do with the freedom of religion, which also involves the freedom having no religion.


[disturbance in the background] Ok, ok, ok… can you please bring this man away?


Some data about the third wave of attack. I will mention now, first, the demographic data:


1945 there were only 645,000 Muslims in Europe


Now in the year 2010 we already have 55 million Muslims, a number which is growing by one million immigrants from Muslim countries every year, and we will even get more by the Lisbon treaties, which demand more, one hundred million.


I repeat, one hundred million Muslims by the year 2030. Of all immigrants since 1990, in the twenty years up to today the portion of Muslim immigrants was 90%. This is the information which you cannot read in the newspapers, and you will not hear that from politicians. In Sweden alone, in the capital of Sweden, there are twenty suburbs that have over 70% Muslims; by their increasing numbers, in five years most of them will have 100% Muslims.


The population growth of the Muslims in Europe is unique too. Every ten years, the number of Muslim doubles. This is by far the highest increase of population in history of mankind. This would mean that we would have about 6.5 billion more people worldwide in the year 2020. Thirteen billion people worldwide. We have a birth jihad. Imams in all mosques are demanding that their believers to make as many children as they can. I call it a birth jihad. So you see one of the results is Mohammed is already the first name most selected in Sweden, Norway, England and Holland. So listen, of all newborn, male children in those countries Mohammed is the most frequently given first name.


[Another disturbance.]


Ladies and gentlemen, the new fascism is showing up under the name of anti-fascism. You see that clearly here. The fascistic are the Left and Green parties all over Europe. They betray their own people concerning the facts of Islamization, and they have brought millions of Muslim people into Europe without asking their own peoples. They are betrayers of their own peoples. You have seen here one of the attacks… as have been done over the last ten years.


In Great Britain, in the last thirty years, the Muslim population grew from 82,000 to 2.5 million. That is 40 times more in the last thirty years. In Holland, over 50% of newborns are already Muslims. And in the year 2025, fifty percent of the population will be Muslim. In Belgium, 25% of population is already Muslim and 50% of all newborns are Muslim. In Germany, there is a government paper which says [three] things which I will translate into English.


The fall of the German population is unstoppable.


The downward spiral is irreversible.


In 2050, Germany will be an Islamic State.


This is an internal paper of the German government. You can find it in Google and read it. The social cost and criminal cost are always things which the media and politicians keep secret from their own populations. And so the media behave the same way as if they were oppressed by an outer power. They suppress their data. The real information and the truth, they have themselves controlled the information.


I’ll tell you some interesting facts about the social and criminal costs for Europe. In Switzerland, 80% of all social costs go to the 9% of immigrants. Now, politicians say, “we once installed the social system for keeping the original Swiss people from falling down, but now we just support Muslims.”


In Berlin, Germany — 70% of the intensive criminals in Berlin are Muslim. And listen: 90% of all criminals in Berlin are Muslims. 75% of all Turkish immigrants could not finish school, and 73% of all immigrants don’t work and are supported for life by the German social system. In France, 70% of all prisoners are Muslims but they are only 12% of the population.


Ladies and gentlemen, these are facts which nobody can deny. I never was accused by my enemies when talking about the facts ,because it was proved by trial that those facts were right.


[Interruption by security cautioning attendants to move back away from stage for the safety of the speakers. Mr. Mannheimer requests for a policeman on his side — potential altercation not visible on screen]


In Norway, more than 50% of all social benefits go to Muslims. In Sweden €6.7 billion in social costs for Muslims. And their high [inaudible] rates like never before in the history of Sweden, the incidence of rape is now four times bigger than twenty years ago. Parallel to a four times higher Muslim population. In Oslo, in the year 2009, 100% of all rapists were non-indigenous people of Norway — they were Muslims.


The number of no-go areas in Europe is dramatically increasing, with over 1,000 no-go areas already. Imams in all mosques invite their believers not to pay tax anymore to the system, because this will bring the breakdown of Europe, will push it forward. They also pray: kill all homosexuals. They also pray: make as many kids as you can, you can make them and go to the social system. In mosques all over Europe they hold courses on how to get social money.


And, now listen: we have no “immigrant” problem in Europe. We have a problem only with Muslim immigrants. We have no problem with non-Muslim immigrants. 


[applause — BRAVO]


And what is never said and never written, never in talk shows on TV or in newspaper, is that in the law of Islam, the Qur’an forbids Muslims under the threat of death to integrate into a non-Muslim country. I cite Qur’an Sura 5, Verse 51: “Oh, believers! Don’t make friends with Christians and Jews who are your neighbors. If you do that, you are no Muslims anymore and you will be treated worse than the unbelievers.” Ladies and gentlemen, this is being prayed in the mosques, which are pushed in the way of many politicians.


In Spain, an imam wrote a book: how to beat your wife properly. This book sold 800,000 copies and it goes back to the Sura for which says to the Muslims to beat their woman.


But, ladies and gentlemen, the real opponents, the real enemies aren’t the Muslims. No Muslims packed up their baggage and came here by foot. They were invited by the politicians by the millions and millions.


Never have they asked the people of their countries to have it so. We have four supporters of Islamization. One is politicians. The second are the tripart of the churches. The third are the media, and the fourth are the intellectuals.


I’ll give you some examples. Left-wing and Green politicians always say in their speeches that Europe needs more and more Muslims in order that Europe will survive the next years. This is, ladies and gentlemen, one of the biggest lies in the present day. Because the real reason can be read in the book by Joschka Fischer — he wrote it in 1994 — The Risk Germany.


[ISBN 3462023411 Risiko Deutschland. Krise und Zukunft der deutschen Politik (Sondereinband) Joschka Fischer (Autor)]


They [the Greens] wrote it in order to bring future voters for their party because the native people did not vote the way they wanted in number. Fischer also said in this book that we have to put out our indigenous population and fill it with immigrants so that we can take power. To repeat, a German minister one of the leaders of the Green Party says: “I am happy if Germany disappears from the world map.”


This, ladies and gentlemen is the same as…


[break]


Muslims can beat their daughters very heavily to prevent them from integrating into the Western style in Italy. So, in Germany, in churches make rules that Muslim pupils don’t need to join class excursions from school, don’t need to take part in swimming lessons, and don’t need to take part in the gymnastic lessons. This, ladies and gentlemen is a general attack on indigenous Europeans from highest positions, against their own constitutions. This is a betrayal of most powerful people against their own country, and against the tradition and history of our great and free continent. If nothing else, a revolt from the top against their people.


What can we do against it?


I come now to the end. Accuse them, if you know those who are judged as breaking the law. Accuse him and bring him for trial. I propose that we remember all the names who are giving help and support to the Muslims, for a second Nuremberg trial which must be held in ten or twenty years. This is my deep belief. We cannot let those betrayers, those co-workers with one of the biggest — I say one of the biggest — totalitarian repressive systems, Islam, to get off without paying that which they have to pay.


Don’t vote for those parties who want to bring Muslims to power and bring more Muslims and more and more again to Europe.


Don’t buy those newspapers which lie about the real situation.


And I say, may this day be the beginning of a European and worldwide Reconquista of our Western values, and let us defend these values by all means, and with our lives.


Thank you very much.


http://www.thebritishresistance.co.uk/the-editor/367-twenty-nine-wars-against-europe


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Twenty-Nine Wars Against Europe

moslemsm


Over on the rock solid site called Gates of Vienna, they have posted a video speech made in Amsterdam by the German Journalist Michael Mannheimer.


In his talk, Michael gives a brief history of Islam and describes its bloody history of aggression and conquest in Europe that continues today.  This is a war against civilization and the west that has gone on for five hundred years – sadly and fatally for the western world – we are losing.  Unless our people wake up soon there is no future.


You can watch the video in full over on the Gates of Vienna but a couple of people, including Guy Leven-Torres have been kind enough to transcribe the speech for the rest of us to read.  Please take the time to read the full speech – you will thank me – you will also or should be frightened to death.


The Michael Mannheimer Speech in Amsterdam October 2010


Welcome. We are now in the year 2010 in the midst of the biggest threat to Europe in history.


We are in the midst of the third attack of Islam against Europe. The first attack took place shortly after Muhammad died, and the Muslim conquerors conquered Spain, and the Spanish Islamization took six hundred years and ended in 1492 with a big Reconquista. In spite of what in many books is written and written again, despite the “peaceful Cordoba Islam”, the truth was very different.


The truth was that the Muslims killed millions of Christians and Jews and destroyed churches, and it should be known that the second attack of the Ottoman Empire began with the conquest of Constantinople, and ended after the First World War, 1918. During this 455 years of Ottoman attacks against Europe, millions of people, millions of innocent Christians and Jews were killed under unbelievably cruel conditions.


Turkey, as the father of the Ottoman Empire, led altogether twenty-nine wars. Twenty-nine wars against Europe during these 455 years. And it is now undertaking its thirtieth war, because Turkey is now one of the leading Islamic countries in the world, on a par with Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.


In Turkish political circles they do not speak about Germany as “Germany”. They speak about “West Turkey” already. And we have seen how Erdogan came to Germany like a Caliph who wanted to control everything that is happening, and going on as if he wanted some kind of Islamization. But now we have a far bigger threat than ever in history of Europe. Much bigger even than the threats of Hitler and of communism. The difference is the following:


Hitler had a country of about 75 million people, and Hitler had an overall history of thirteen years in power. But the Muslims have had much greater experience, 1,400 years of Islamization on different fields. They are much better organized. They are worldwide, and they have 1.4 billion people behind them. The consequence of that power of the umma we see everyday. We saw it last time, very dramatically with the Mohammad cartoons in Denmark.


The difference is also that the frontier of this attack doesn’t lie along the borders of Europe. We don’t see the enemy as an enemy. The enemy is among us. The enemy is the system of Islam, and not necessarily the Muslim people. But thus far they are Muslims. In the same way they are fulfilling the main aim of Islam, which is conquering the world, as were the peace-loving among the Germans, who were a majority of 80% during the Hitler system, too.


Even with their lesser numbers they make the rest of Islam, a very bad power, strong. And they make it strong also by failing to criticize the bad things in their religion. Why don’t they criticize it? They don’t criticize it because it brings a death sentence to criticize Islam. This is an order by Mohammed. And this is the only religion in the world that does that; I have been in all religions.


I lived in Buddhist countries sixteen years. I lived in Hindu countries many, many years. I know the Christian and the Jewish. This is unique. No other country has an order to kill those who criticize their religion. And there is another order: killing those who abandon their religion, meaning Islam. So both these things are far and away against the human rights of Europe. The human rights of free speech and the human rights of free choices of human individuals to choose what they want. And this has nothing to do with the freedom of religion, which also involves the freedom having no religion.


[disturbance in the background] Ok, ok, ok… can you please bring this man away?


Some data about the third wave of attack. I will mention now, first, the demographic data:


1945 there were only 645,000 Muslims in Europe


Now in the year 2010 we already have 55 million Muslims, a number which is growing by one million immigrants from Muslim countries every year, and we will even get more by the Lisbon treaties, which demand more, one hundred million.


I repeat, one hundred million Muslims by the year 2030. Of all immigrants since 1990, in the twenty years up to today the portion of Muslim immigrants was 90%. This is the information which you cannot read in the newspapers, and you will not hear that from politicians. In Sweden alone, in the capital of Sweden, there are twenty suburbs that have over 70% Muslims; by their increasing numbers, in five years most of them will have 100% Muslims.


The population growth of the Muslims in Europe is unique too. Every ten years, the number of Muslim doubles. This is by far the highest increase of population in history of mankind. This would mean that we would have about 6.5 billion more people worldwide in the year 2020. Thirteen billion people worldwide. We have a birth jihad. Imams in all mosques are demanding that their believers to make as many children as they can. I call it a birth jihad. So you see one of the results is Mohammed is already the first name most selected in Sweden, Norway, England and Holland. So listen, of all newborn, male children in those countries Mohammed is the most frequently given first name.


[Another disturbance.]


Ladies and gentlemen, the new fascism is showing up under the name of anti-fascism. You see that clearly here. The fascistic are the Left and Green parties all over Europe. They betray their own people concerning the facts of Islamization, and they have brought millions of Muslim people into Europe without asking their own peoples. They are betrayers of their own peoples. You have seen here one of the attacks… as have been done over the last ten years.


In Great Britain, in the last thirty years, the Muslim population grew from 82,000 to 2.5 million. That is 40 times more in the last thirty years. In Holland, over 50% of newborns are already Muslims. And in the year 2025, fifty percent of the population will be Muslim. In Belgium, 25% of population is already Muslim and 50% of all newborns are Muslim. In Germany, there is a government paper which says [three] things which I will translate into English.


The fall of the German population is unstoppable.


The downward spiral is irreversible.


In 2050, Germany will be an Islamic State.


This is an internal paper of the German government. You can find it in Google and read it. The social cost and criminal cost are always things which the media and politicians keep secret from their own populations. And so the media behave the same way as if they were oppressed by an outer power. They suppress their data. The real information and the truth, they have themselves controlled the information.


I’ll tell you some interesting facts about the social and criminal costs for Europe. In Switzerland, 80% of all social costs go to the 9% of immigrants. Now, politicians say, “we once installed the social system for keeping the original Swiss people from falling down, but now we just support Muslims.”


In Berlin, Germany — 70% of the intensive criminals in Berlin are Muslim. And listen: 90% of all criminals in Berlin are Muslims. 75% of all Turkish immigrants could not finish school, and 73% of all immigrants don’t work and are supported for life by the German social system. In France, 70% of all prisoners are Muslims but they are only 12% of the population.


Ladies and gentlemen, these are facts which nobody can deny. I never was accused by my enemies when talking about the facts ,because it was proved by trial that those facts were right.


[Interruption by security cautioning attendants to move back away from stage for the safety of the speakers. Mr. Mannheimer requests for a policeman on his side — potential altercation not visible on screen]


In Norway, more than 50% of all social benefits go to Muslims. In Sweden €6.7 billion in social costs for Muslims. And their high [inaudible] rates like never before in the history of Sweden, the incidence of rape is now four times bigger than twenty years ago. Parallel to a four times higher Muslim population. In Oslo, in the year 2009, 100% of all rapists were non-indigenous people of Norway — they were Muslims.


The number of no-go areas in Europe is dramatically increasing, with over 1,000 no-go areas already. Imams in all mosques invite their believers not to pay tax anymore to the system, because this will bring the breakdown of Europe, will push it forward. They also pray: kill all homosexuals. They also pray: make as many kids as you can, you can make them and go to the social system. In mosques all over Europe they hold courses on how to get social money.


And, now listen: we have no “immigrant” problem in Europe. We have a problem only with Muslim immigrants. We have no problem with non-Muslim immigrants. 


[applause — BRAVO]


And what is never said and never written, never in talk shows on TV or in newspaper, is that in the law of Islam, the Qur’an forbids Muslims under the threat of death to integrate into a non-Muslim country. I cite Qur’an Sura 5, Verse 51: “Oh, believers! Don’t make friends with Christians and Jews who are your neighbors. If you do that, you are no Muslims anymore and you will be treated worse than the unbelievers.” Ladies and gentlemen, this is being prayed in the mosques, which are pushed in the way of many politicians.


In Spain, an imam wrote a book: how to beat your wife properly. This book sold 800,000 copies and it goes back to the Sura for which says to the Muslims to beat their woman.


But, ladies and gentlemen, the real opponents, the real enemies aren’t the Muslims. No Muslims packed up their baggage and came here by foot. They were invited by the politicians by the millions and millions.


Never have they asked the people of their countries to have it so. We have four supporters of Islamization. One is politicians. The second are the tripart of the churches. The third are the media, and the fourth are the intellectuals.


I’ll give you some examples. Left-wing and Green politicians always say in their speeches that Europe needs more and more Muslims in order that Europe will survive the next years. This is, ladies and gentlemen, one of the biggest lies in the present day. Because the real reason can be read in the book by Joschka Fischer — he wrote it in 1994 — The Risk Germany.


[ISBN 3462023411 Risiko Deutschland. Krise und Zukunft der deutschen Politik (Sondereinband) Joschka Fischer (Autor)]


They [the Greens] wrote it in order to bring future voters for their party because the native people did not vote the way they wanted in number. Fischer also said in this book that we have to put out our indigenous population and fill it with immigrants so that we can take power. To repeat, a German minister one of the leaders of the Green Party says: “I am happy if Germany disappears from the world map.”


This, ladies and gentlemen is the same as…


[break]


Muslims can beat their daughters very heavily to prevent them from integrating into the Western style in Italy. So, in Germany, in churches make rules that Muslim pupils don’t need to join class excursions from school, don’t need to take part in swimming lessons, and don’t need to take part in the gymnastic lessons. This, ladies and gentlemen is a general attack on indigenous Europeans from highest positions, against their own constitutions. This is a betrayal of most powerful people against their own country, and against the tradition and history of our great and free continent. If nothing else, a revolt from the top against their people.


What can we do against it?


I come now to the end. Accuse them, if you know those who are judged as breaking the law. Accuse him and bring him for trial. I propose that we remember all the names who are giving help and support to the Muslims, for a second Nuremberg trial which must be held in ten or twenty years. This is my deep belief. We cannot let those betrayers, those co-workers with one of the biggest — I say one of the biggest — totalitarian repressive systems, Islam, to get off without paying that which they have to pay.


Don’t vote for those parties who want to bring Muslims to power and bring more Muslims and more and more again to Europe.


Don’t buy those newspapers which lie about the real situation.


And I say, may this day be the beginning of a European and worldwide Reconquista of our Western values, and let us defend these values by all means, and with our lives.


Thank you very much.


http://www.thebritishresistance.co.uk/the-editor/367-twenty-nine-wars-against-europe


You are about to flag this comment as being inappropriate. Please explain why you are flagging this comment in the text box below and submit your report. The blog admin will be notified. Thank you for your input.


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Thursday, 31 March 2011

Why You Shouldn’t Be Ignoring Europe

Traders are concerned about the nuclear fallout in Japan, along with the conflict in Libya and North Africa; but, for whatever reason, the debt and growth issues in Europe appear to have been pushed to the backburner. In my view, this is dangerous.

While there are issues with jobs and housing in the U.S., my advice is that you should not ignore the massive debt and deficit problems plaguing Europe.

Without renewal in Europe and other foreign markets, we cannot expect a sustainable recovery. This is basic economic analysis.

First we had the massive bailouts of Greece and Ireland. Now there is speculation that Portugal may be next to seek emergency funds to stay afloat. When the country is paying out an enormous 7.9% on its 10-year bond, this cannot be good. Yet, the high rate is required to attract investors due to the high risk of holding Portuguese bonds.

Portugal’s Prime Minister Jose Socrates recently resigned after failing to get an austerity program approved. The government is scrambling to find solutions to the mounting issues.

The problem is that Portugal is broke and cannot continue to pay out high-yielding bonds. The country will need to reorganize its financial structure and try to renew its economy and finances. Standard & Poor’s cut its view on the country’s five biggest banks.

While Portugal is not a significant player in the European Union, weakness there could impact other countries, including neighbor Spain. The latter also needs to raise more capital and remains in a risky position. The problem that is Spain is a major global player, with its economy being the ninth largest in the world.

Take a look at the comparative growth rates. In Europe, there are concerns with the slow growth there. In Germany, the gross domestic product (GDP) growth in 2011 is estimated to fall to 1.4%. In comparison, the U.S. economy is predicted to grow about 2.4% in 2011.

I feel that Europe may continue to underperform the global markets in 2010 and 2011.

In Europe, the 27-member European Union (EU) is critical to the global economic recovery. There are over 500 million people in the EU, accounting for about 28% of the world’s GDP in 2009, according to data from the International Monetary Fund.

The problem is that the big countries such as Germany and France are supporting the weaker members that cannot survive on their own at this time without capital infusion. This is not good, and it will hamper growth in Europe. The trillion-dollar austerity measures will take away from investing in the country’s growth and economic renewal.

The last thing the EU wants is weak members dragging the member group down, especially at a time when the region is trying to rebound from the global recession.

The reality is that the global economies are interlinked and problems in one region of the world will have a domino effect on countries and regions thousands of miles away.

The bottom line is that sustained growth in America cannot be achieved without renewal in the major world economies, which is why Europe should not be ignored.

George is a Senior Editor at Lombardi Financial, and has been involved in analyzing the stock markets for two decades where he employs both fundamental and technical analysis. His overall market timing and trading knowledge is extensive in the areas of small-cap research and option trading. George is the editor of several of Lombardi’s popular financial newsletters, including The China Letter, Special Situations, and Obscene Profits, among others. His trading advice on stocks and options is also found on his daily trading site, Daily Profits. He has written technical and fundamental columns for numerous stock market news web sites, and he is the author of Quick Wealth Options Strategy and Mastering 7 Proven Options Strategies. Prior to starting with Lombardi Financial, George was employed as a financial analyst with Globe Information Services.

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Saturday, 19 March 2011

This Is Europe, and It’s 1912…

[With debt spinning wildly out of control and the States threatening to revolt against the tyranny of Washington, we asked some frequent contributors to the Rick’s Picks forum how they thought the economy would look five years from now.  In the essay below, Tom Waldenfels asserts that it wouldn’t take as much as a “black swan” event to tip an already destabilized economic system into chaos. In the meatime. he finds it baffling that so many people evidently cannot see this disaster coming. RA]

A smoldering ruin.

What’s that you say?  Well, Rick asked me to give my outlook for how the world might look in five years from an economic standpoint.   That’s easy.  A smoldering ruin.  I mean that figuratively … I think.  The whole world?  Maybe, but I’m thinking primarily of the U.S., Europe, and Japan.

Look, the readers of these missives are very smart and well-informed, so I don’t feel the need to catalog all the problems we face. You know what they are.  The biggest are the ocean of debt we’re floating on that has gone bad or is going bad; the extreme amounts of leverage still in the system; the mountain of derivative contracts extant that can’t possible be honored when the SHTF (Think AIG); a corrupt and insane government that does precisely the wrong things; and the uberputzen at the Fed, who are hell bent on destroying the clownbuck.  The problem underlying all of this?  Phony money.  They’ve managed to maintain the fiat money scam for decades now, and what a party we’ve had.  But when the money goes bad, look out.  And it’s starting to go bad in a big way.

My view, for what it’s worth, is that we’re looking at unimaginable systemic disorder once the patches being administered by the Fed, the Feds, FASB, et al. are no longer sufficient to keep us limping forward and a breakdown occurs.  I take this as a given.  The die has been cast.  2008 was just a warm-up. Will the meltdown look more like Japan on steroids, or Argentina on steroids — or perhaps both in alternating fashion?  That’s the big question in my mind.  I dunno, but it’s likely to unfold along one of those primary lines.

When will it happen?  Oh, how I wish I knew.  Being early is so much like being wrong, and I’m often early, but the Powerz have been delaying the inevitable reckoning for a very long time.  Could they keep it up another five years?  Yeah, I suppose.  Inertia is a powerful force, but I think about the disappearance of the USSR.  Took forever to happen.  But once the system started to collapse, it was over in the blink of an eye.   I fear it’ll be sooner rather than later, but who knows.  Experience suggests otherwise.  They can drag out the endgame for a long time.  (Whatever you think of the Bernanke, he has given us the time to prepare, not to mention huge gains in gold and silver.)

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Mass Delusions

What interests me more than what’s going to happen or when or why is how people can be so blind to the threat.  How is it possible for the mass of people to delude themselves into thinking the problems aren’t that serious or that the consequences won’t be that severe?

The simple reasons are that they believe the disinformation that spews forth from the MSM, economists, the government, and the Fed, plus they’re engaging in simple garden-variety denial.  But I think what’s really at work here are the normalcy bias and the recency bias.  Put simply, for most of us, life in the USA. has been good for our entire lifetimes and our recent experience suggests we can dodge whatever bullets come our way.  Very few of us have ever seen a collapse or lived through really tough times, so we can’t even really imagine that a major breakdown could occur, much less what shape it might take.  Even if it’s unspoken, the usual response to my haruspications, when I share them with others, is something like, “That couldn’t happen here.”  You wanna bet?

Time to Prepare

Call me a pessimist if you like, but I think that’s just a silly label used to discredit the analyst who comes to disturbing conclusions.  The system that allows us to live the way we do is incredibly complex, and the more complex the system, the more at risk and given to instability it is.  In other words, the more complex a system, the more robust it needs to be.  The system is not robust.  It’s a house of cards.  It won’t take much to destabilize it.  It’s time to prepare for some wild action.

You know, there’s been a lot of chatter about Black Swans and the potentially devastating effects of events you can’t anticipate.  The warning is clear.  You can get totally blindsided while thinking you actually knew the risks you were facing.  Well folks, we don’t need no stinking black swan to take us down.  There are plenty of perfectly, screamingly obvious risks that are poised to manifest themselves very shortly.

If you want an analogy, this is Europe … and it’s 1912.

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Thursday, 10 March 2011

Persecution slowly invading Europe

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Persecution slowly invading Europe

Message to Angelik Caruana
Island of Malta
January 16th, 2011

Are you still not realizing ?
Are you not coming to grips with what is taking place all around you in the world ?
Do you not notice what is taking place abroad, away from your shores ?

Floods, storms, severe rains, violence, wars, fighting – are you not seeing this, my children ?
What else do you need so as to open your eyes and understand ?
Never forget that you too form part of this world.

These islands are not more special than others.
My children, OPEN YOUR EYES WIDE AND TAKE STOCK OF THE SITUATION.
It is not just a matter of saying: “What a pity !” or “Look !
See what happened to them !” and then moving on.
Never forget that you too might go through what others are facing.
I repeat that you are not more special than others.

Tonight I also ask you, my children, to go to the priests.
My children, YOU TRULY NEED THE PRIESTS.
They are the sons of my heart.
I love them dearly.
I respect them deeply.
Yes, my children, show them respect.
And if any one of them happens to slip, do NOT push him further into the mud, but rather be of assistance to him.

Indeed, my children, LOVE PRIESTS GENUINELY AND PRAY GENEROUSLY FOR THEM.
In truth, you stand in great need of them.
In other countries, that are far from your own, they are being tortured and killed.
THIS WAVE OF ANTAGONISM AGAINST PRIESTS IS ALSO SLOWLY INVADING EUROPE, my children.

And there are those who WISH TO TOTALLY ANNIHILATE THEM.
There are those who WANT TO DESTROY THEM and CHRISTIANS AS WELL.
Do NOT ALLOW THIS DARK CLOUD TO COVER YOU over as well, possibly not even by its shadow.
DO NOT ALLOW IT.


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Sunday, 6 March 2011

THE GREAT WALL OF EUROPE?

According to RSM Tenon, the accountancy group, the year 2011 will shortly see the highest levels of personal insolvency on record. In particular, it seems, the elderly are being hardest hit. Mark Sands, the Head of Bankruptcy and Personal Insolvency, says:

The 66-plus age group seems to have been hit the hardest in these difficult times. Personal insolvencies in this age group show a total increase of 20 percent in 2010 compared with 2009. In the last quarter of 2010, the 66-plus age group showed the smallest drop in personal insolvencies year-on-year as well, not showing much in the way of improvement with a six percent fall compared with 19 percent over all age groups.

Now all you need to do is insert boilerplate references to hypothermic grannies, energy costs and windmills. In addition we have already seen this year two million people using their credit cards to pay the rent or the mortgage. Both of these phenomena were predictable – and predicted.

Next to come will be petrol hikes for spurious reasons based on minor, and largely irrelevant scuffles in third world basket cases near to the Middle East. Then comes the lower middle classes working only to eat and fill up the car in order to get to work.

Following that will come mass council tax defaults, as have already been reported, with figures from the City of Lincoln Council showing 421 liability orders made against residents last month. This along with today’s report that Bristol council is issuing 62 summonses a day, even while its own councillors are taking the piss. This on the same day we find yet another half-million pound parasite on council books.

Following that, one thing helping to keep inflation down, cheap consumer goods, is about to come to an abrupt end. We are reaching a crunch point where for many, work will not only be futile in order to stay out of debt, but actually not affordable without cutting corners on things like car insurance, a problem that will not go away even with the new draconian measures. We are reaching a point where the so-called coping classes are not coping. They are being criminalised by way of not making ends meet. The County Court claims offices are going to be busy little bunnies.

Following this will come an upsurge in broken homes, domestic abuse and doorstep violence, undoubtedly involving state licensed thugs receiving head traumas and stab wounds. This, after all attempts at getting actual justice have failed.

What is puzzling is why people are not taking to the streets, firebombing their council offices and petrol bombing the local branch of Natwest. But that is to come. The worm is turning. Today we have this and interestingly, this:

Vodafone refused to speculate on whether the break-in could be linked to several high-profile controversies involving the company. It was recently the subject of protests over claims that the firm was let off paying part of an outstanding UK tax bill.

Maybe the saboteurs have got the wrong target, but if not, we can expect more, especially if they keep piling on the bills while their noses are as firmly entrenched in the trough. Enough will soon be enough. The growing sentiment, from groups that would normally be considered quite restrained, is that they have to be taught a lesson outside the corporate box.

Many are hopeful that this is precisely that, and that it will be the first of many. For the moment, too many people have too much to lose to risk joining in. But, in a year or two, as the system strips people to their  bare essentials, sentiment could change dramatically. Then, as they say, we shall have some serious fun. There is nothing quite so dangerous as a man with nothing to lose. As for the women – don’t even think about it.

COMMENT THREAD

 

Booker on wind energy in The Daily Mail. “Why the £250bn wind power industry could be the greatest scam of our age – and here are the three ‘lies’ that prove it,” runs the title.

“Only in Britain is our political class still so imprisoned in its infatuation with wind that it is prepared to court this dangerously misguided pipe dream”, says Booker. Well worth the read. In the old days of steam journalism, this would have been one to cut out and keep.

Meanwhile, The Guardian is bitching about the Tories ditching a key element of their “green” policy – the green ISAs. Hailed by the child Osborn, he told his admirer in 2008 that: “Green ISAs will engage the public in a new way in the issues around climate change and show them very clearly the economic benefits of green investment.”

This either makes the Tories hypocrites about as big as Charlie Boy, or suggests that they might be seeing the light. The former is more probable, reflecting the simple truth that greenery is costing them money we haven’t got.

COMMENT THREAD 

 

The Daily Mail tells us a story about an Englishman’s home being his castle, or so the saying goes.

However, after squatters moved into John Hamilton-Brown’s new £1million five bedroom home he has been forced to beg them to get out through his letterbox. Yet the group of foreigners who have taken possession, have been granted legal aid to fight an eviction order – while Hamilton-Brown has been forced to represent himself.

The father-of-two was having the property renovated for his wife and two young daughters before they moved in when a dozen people from France, Spain, Poland and England sneaked in during the night. The occupants are part of a growing army of squatters banding together and seeking out empty homes.

And now we come to the money quote. The group occupying Mr Hamilton Brown’s home qualified for legal aid because they are EU citizens and unemployed.

Sometimes words are not enough. But for the moment, they are all we have got. We can only record, therefore, that this is what happens when you break down national barriers and lose control over making your own laws. If these people were not given legal aid, they could sue for compensation under EU law.

You will not get many saying this in the media, but it exemplifies why we must leave the EU. The other day, talking to the MP person as I was, I suggested that if this sort of thing continued (I gave different examples), we (generic – not necessarily EU Ref readers) would eventually start killing people.

He did not turn a hair. A few years back, I would have politely been shown the door. They know … we know. This cannot continue.

COMMENT THREAD 


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Record Gasoline Prices in Europe, Over $8 in UK, Italy, Germany; California Faces $4; Reflections on "Inflation"

Bloomberg reports Record Gasoline Grips Europe, California Faces $4 a Gallon.

Gasoline prices are setting records across Europe and exceeding $4 a gallon in California as the rise in crude oil caused by the conflict in Libya punishes companies and consumers.

Households are cutting back on travel, cinema visits and groceries in the U.K., where prices jumped to 130.68 pence a liter ($8.06 a gallon) yesterday, according to research from the Automobile Association, Britain’s largest motoring organization. Prices set records in the Netherlands and Italy today. The current average U.S. gasoline price is near a two-year high at $3.81 a gallon, according to the AAA website.

The impact on consumer prices may push European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet to raise interest rates as soon as next month to discourage higher wages and head off the threat of an inflationary spiral.

“Rising fuel costs are negative because they push inflation up and slow the economy down,” said Philip Shaw, chief economist at Investec Securities in London. “It is essentially energy costs that have resulted in ECB putting its finger on the interest rate trigger.”

In Italy, gasoline prices reached 1.544 euros a liter and diesel climbed to 1.438 euros a liter ($8.17 a gallon), according to a chart published by web energy daily Quotidiano Energia. Gasoline prices in the Netherlands reached a record 1.697 euro a liter from 1.692 euro in June 2008, according to Paul van Selms, head of UnitedConsumers, a lobby group for consumers in the Netherlands.

The average price for super-grade gasoline in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, was 1.55 euros per liter today, close to the 1.58 euro record from 2008.
Reflections on Inflation

I do not know if Trichet hikes short-term interest rates soon or not. It is conceivable it is the correct move.

However, the idea that something needs to be done in the face of a supply shock on top of overheating in China and peak oil constraints is ridiculous. Supply shocks are anything BUT inflationary.

If Europe or the US was on a rampage with credit expanding wildly it would be a different matter. However, credit expansion is not happening in the US or Europe.

Dumb things happen (in both directions) when central-planning jackasses view inflation in terms of prices rather than money supply and credit, then take (or fail to take) action because of prices.

For example, Greenspan ignited an enormous housing bubble by failure to consider reckless credit expansion. Instead, Greenspan foolishly focused on the CPI which suggested low inflation.

Such policies have central bankers forever-chasing their tails.

Where Should Rates Be?

Nothing above implies agreement with central bank rates set near zero.

The free market, not a bunch of bureaucrats, should set interest rates. None of the central bankers saw this crisis coming, so how the hell do they think they know what interest rates should be?

I don't know where they should be and they sure don't know either. At least one of us is smart enough to admit it.

For more on this line of thinking, please see Goldman's Blood-Sucking Leeches Model, Money Multipliers, Macroeconomic Dark Ages, the Taylor Rule, and Nonsense from Trichet.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

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