Brexit without a signed agreement looks increasingly likely as I suggested all along.
EU documents reveal “Painstaking Brexit Detail” down to the smallest item demanded by every nation.
The document also demands arbitration by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). These are both non-starters from the UK side.
Just 10 days before the general election, the EU published two documents that will affect every person living in Britain for years to come. Despite being dropped into the maelstrom of an election caused by Brexit, there was hardly a murmur.
The documents were the most detailed positions yet from the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, on the upcoming divorce talks with the UK.
In two policy papers, the bloc has elaborated its stance on the Brexit bill and citizens’ rights.
The 10-page paper on the bill does not put a price on the divorce, but sets out in painstaking detail all EU bodies with a vested interest in the spoils – 40 agencies, eight joint projects on new technologies and a panoply of funds agreed by all countries, from aid for refugees in Turkey to supporting peace in Colombia.
No detail is too small. Britain is even on the hook for funding teachers at the elite European schools that educate EU civil servants’ children.
On citizens’ rights, the EU spells out in greater detail the protections it wants to secure for nearly 5 million people on the wrong side of Brexit – 3.5 million EU nationals in the UK and 1.2 million Britons on the continent.
In a red rag to hardline Brexiters, the document stresses the European court of justice (ECJ) must have full jurisdiction for ruling on disputes about citizens’ rights, while the European commission ought to have full powers for monitoring whether the UK is upholding the bargain.
“On the side of the 27, people are a little cross and they have hardened their positions,” said Jean De Ruyt, a former EU ambassador. “It is a dangerous situation when you harden positions and you cannot do anything [because formal talks have not begun].”
The divide is stark on the Brexit bill. The European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, was shocked after May told him the UK had no obligation to pay anything on leaving the bloc.
Diplomats on the EU side say they cannot contemplate scaling back demands on the divorce. EU civil service pensions will not be bartered away to secure the UK’s post-Brexit contribution to the union’s seven-year budget, known as the multiannual financial framework (MFF), the EU diplomat said.
“I think our priority is that the UK will pay for everything,” they said. “Everything is a priority – we cannot trade pensions for the MFF.”
Ridiculous Demands
Britain’s Brexit Secretary David Davis has mocked the European Union over divorce talks after Brussels published its position papers for talks with the UK on crucial issues.
PressTV reports UK describes EU Brexit demands as ‘ridiculous’.
Davis said on Tuesday that the EU’s demands to protect its citizens’ rights in the UK were “ridiculously high”, giving its citizens greater rights in the UK than Britons have.
“Art of the Deal”
“Art of the Deal” tactics by the EU are not going to work.
The EU exports more to the UK than vice versa. Fishing rights in UK waters are in play. The lower British Pound will temper cost of any tariffs the EU places on UK exports. EU imports to UK will collapse.
It’s hard to imagine a worse negotiating stance than that taken by the EU.
Once again I repeat: Brexit Negotiations: Why Bother?
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Yes, UK always wins this deal. Sink any EU fishing boats in UK waters, halt the luxury imports, and EU goes down the drain in a hurry…
UK to EU: Must unfortunately inform you your offer is D.O.A.
I guess it’s a great deal if you can get it. Join a group that runs up a whole lot of debt, then declare you’re out, owing nothing. Sweet.
Care to share a balance sheet?
That’s the way things ought to be. Not one Briton (nor citizen of anywhere else for that matter) whose personal signature is not on those loan contracts; has any obligation whatsoever to make a bunch of banksters who contributed to some overgrown government whole; unless they specifically, and individually, want to. Out of the imbecility of their hearts.
Can you explain the exact legal basis for demanding the UK pays zillions to this silly project ?
The UK is not part of the Euro, so the Euro debt nightmare has nothing to do with the UK. The UK is, however, the 3rd largest contributor to the EU budget so they have for years funded the retards who created the Euro mess to the tune of 80 billion a year
I don’t understand why the UK doesn’t just draw up a document that states the date they are leaving and BTW the way we aren’t paying anything so please go F yourself. I think that would pretty much cover it. And if they would like to freeze trade go ahead and make my day.
Does the EU in any possible lifetime think the UK would succumb to those ridiculous demands,
http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/139/698/bd0.jpg
Great Fire of London, has happened before and we’re still here. Don’t like London. It’s not the UK, not the real world of ordinary citizens. Half the problem is power concentrated their and bulls hitting politicians who have done little else.
The only way Britain will see economic growth for the entire country, instead of a few thousand parasites in the financial industry, is to leave the EU. Ticking off Germany and France is just icing on the cake.
UK doesn’t need to. There isn’t a legal basis for the EU to demand huge sums for everything it can think of. The EU should read their own treaties once in a while. Personally I think the UK should never have embarked on the 2 year negotiation. It should have repealed the 1972 Act and then just left at a date it chose.
Better still, repeal the Union with Scotland Act 1707 and leave Scotland in the EU while doing an “Exit.”
Two birds with one stone.
Three birds … I forgot you can also spin off Charles and his spawn to be the future monarchs of Scotland and spare yourself the reign of King Charles III and finally bring an end to the expensive monarchy.
😉
I hate to be the first to comment. To use a few a few pages from Eric Berne’s book, Games People Play, what we have here from the EU is the Green Stamps game. That is, the Eu has saved its perceived hurts as S&H Green Stamps (sorry all you youngsters, please consult Wikipedia) to be proffered for some specified item in the catalog. In this case it is the money it believes due it. To this I would suggest to Ms May the counter game of “Try and Stop Me”, where she and her country exits the EU without the slightest hint of permission. For those of you not familiar with Dr Eric Berne, I suggest you read him. Given our state of local libraries, you may have to go to Amazon and order a copy. But I can tell you, it is worth the reading.
All I can say in defense of the EU, what were they drinking?
The whole point of the EU as originally envisioned was to promote ties that would leave wars like WW-I and WW-II in the past. At some point those ties turned toxic, so the UK decides to leave, whereupon — just like Versailles — the great, but hurt, powers of Europe decide to punish the troublemaker by saddling it with massive debts. We all know how that turned out.
We can blame De Gaule for this mess. The failure of the French Army to hold the Germans in 1940 was more than an embarrassment to their pride, it was the final death blow to the Third Republic. The fact that France was beholden to the British, their historic enemy, and worst of beholden to the US, their natural ally, was too much for the French to take in stride. De Gaule wanted a union for Europe with France at the head, the rightful leader. He also wanted to exclude the Germans. So first came the trade union which sort of worked. We should be able ti imagine the trouble if we did not have any interstate trade laws and each state collecting tariffs at its borders. Oh, that’s right, that happened after we won our independence but before we wrote a federal constitution. That ten year period of history is almost forgotten.
The French also opted for a strong central government, or at least stronger central government than their neighbors. Compared to our and the Brits, they give their departments more freedom of action than we do with our states. In the US, the “states’ rights argument was finally lost with the introduction of the amendment that made US Senators directly elected officials. Prior to that, the individual states picked their Senators and it was usually by political party in control of the governor’s seat or the state legislature or both. Senators could be recalled and replaced if they did not “vote right”. So our federal government has usurped many of the rights that had been reserved for the states. History is a funny thing, it doesn’t always agree to what reality is suppose to be.
For France and the other nations in the Common Union, the fear of another great war such as the one they just went through was bound up with a resurgent Germany. France was greatly upset with the Americans because we were pushing to rebuild Germany, or at least the non communist half, into an industrial nation again. As a matter of geography, the western half of Germany had developed as its industrial engine because that is where the resources were, the eastern half was always the bread basket. This is why the German Constitution was dictated by the US and the UK and they made sure that the central government was weak. If you have ever wondered why Germany can’t seem to get their political act together, you now know where the blame lies. But even as we made sure that Germany would no longer pose a threat due to the rise of another dictator, France has always remained cool to the idea of the Germans joining their common market. And they were against the reunification of the two German states.
Once an European Union was established before German reunification and before the UK joined, the union worked ok but it always had its squabbles. Modern agricultural machinery made farming profitable to the point that it outed the small family and village farmer. Here in the Haute Marne we have lots of farmland, but only a few farmers using lots of big machinery. Where you might have had a few hectares to farm in your village or commune, now you just have your village house and maybe a plot of ground for vegetables. Bu the way, there are very few American style farms and farm houses, farmers all lived in a village in row houses with common stone walls, it is the national building material, or was. In Mexico it’s cement.
So a British exit was inevitable. Britain has always been the natural foe of the continent. Yes, it has a history of cooperation at times with the Dutch and Flemish ( I uses the old terms to match the historical records), but there has always been an antipathy towards both groups from wars to trade to industrialization. The British have always seem themselves as alone in the world no matter how global Tony Blair declared them to be. Actually one could look at Blair’s globalization out look and plans as a return to the old British Empire. So much for socialism.
Blair = Bliar.
He was and is dangerous to all associated with him.
He was NOT pro-Britain.
He sent youngsters to kill or be killed whilst his wife cried on TV because their son had to go to University, away from home, in a pad they bought for him and that raised awkward questions. Other kids died at the stroke of Blairs pen.
That man is a blot on our country and history.
How many 100’sk died because of the dodgy dossier?
I’m ashamed he was ever a British PM.
I agree with you that Blair was and still is a disgrace. Of course the start of the EU problem was created long before Blair. But once in office a bigger mess of it and really damaged the British nation. The EU autocratic bureaucracy got worse with Blair’s help. and let us not even talk about migration and refugees. Blair is a globalist just as Bill and Hillary Clinton are and saw himself and others as the elite leaders of the world. I don’t think Joe Stalin ever had such a fantasy.
Brexit vindication one insane demand at a time
Oh God.. are we still on this?
No one cares what Brussels thinks. I don’t even care when I am half as drunk as Juncker is all the time.
Theresa May will dance around and go through the motions for diplomacy’s sake, but we all know Brexit already happened and there won’t be a deal with Brussels.
We need to move on and ask which EU member state is next: Italy? Spain? Germany? France (as macron is already a failure)? Greece? Netherlands? All the above?
Will the EU dissolve suddenly and violently (as sometimes happens in history books), or will the EU just fade into total irrelevance as every member state continues doing what is in their own interests (which is already happening)?
Merkel doesn’t have the money to hold the EU together. We all know it. Juncker knows it too, despite being drunk off his rear end.
Lets move on
http://facts4eu.org/news.shtml
ANNEX 1 – LISTS OF BODIES OR FUNDS
INCLUDED IN THE FINANCIAL SETTLEMENT
A. ENTITIES IN THE CONSOLIDATED ACCOUNTS
1. Institutions and consultative bodies
European Parliament
European Council European
European Commission
European Court of Auditors
Court of Justice of the European Union
Council of the European Union
Economic and Social Committee
Committee of the Regions
European Ombudsman
European Data Protection Supervisor
European External Action Service
2. EU Agencies
2.1. Executive Agencies
Education, Audiovisual & Culture Executive Agency
Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises
Consumers, Health, Agriculture and Food Executive Agency
Innovation & Networks Executive Agency
Research Executive Agency
European Research Council Executive Agency
2.2. Decentralised Agencies
European Maritime Safety Agency
European Food Safety Authority
European Medicines Agency
European Railway Agency
European GNSS Supervisory Authority
Community Plant Variety Office
European Chemicals Agency
European Fisheries Control Agency
Fusion for Energy (European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy)
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction
Eurojust
European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL)
European Institute for Gender Equality
European Police Office (EUROPOL)
European Agency for Safety and Health at Work
European Aviation Safety Agency
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
European Network and Information Security Agency
European Environment Agency
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights
European Centre for the Development of Vocational training
European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority
European Agency for Cooperation of Energy Regulators
Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union
European Banking Authority
European Securities and Markets Authority
European Asylum Support Office
European Training Foundation
Office for the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communication
European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions
European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex)
European Union Intellectual Property Office
EU-LISA (European Agency for the operational management of large-scale IT systems in the area of freedom, security and justice)
The Single Resolution Board (SRB)
3. Other entities
European Coal and Steel Community (in liquidation)
European Institute of Innovation and Technology
B. JOINT VENTURES
SESAR Joint Undertaking
Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking
Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking
ECSEL Joint undertaking
Clean Sky 2 Joint Undertaking
Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking
Shift2Rail
Galileo Joint Undertaking in liquidation
C. ASSOCIATES FUNDS IN THE ACCOUNTS
European Investment Fund
D. FUNDS NOT IN THE CONSOLIDATED ACCOUNTS
European Development Fund
Facility for Refugees in Turkey
E. TRUST FUNDS
European Union Trust Fund for Central African Republic “Bêkou EU Trust Fund”
European Union Regional Trust Fund in response to the Syrian crisis, “the Madad Fund”
Emergency Trust Fund for stability and addressing root causes of irregular migration and displaced persons in Africa
Trust Fund for Columbia (sic)
F. BODIES NOT IN THE CONSOLIDATED ACCOUNTS
European Central Bank
European Investment Bank
European Defence Agency
European Union Institute for Security Studies
European Union Satellite Centre
European Schools
ANNEX 2 – LIST OF BASIC ACTS – PROGRAMMES
EFSI
EGNOS & Galileo
ITER
Copernicus
ND-BG-SK
ND-LT
H2020
Euratom
COSME
Erasmus+
EaSI
Customs 2020
Fiscalis 2020
Hercule III
Pericles 2020
AFIS
CEF-Energy
CEF-Transport
CEF-ICT
ESP
FINSER
ISA
ICFS
WIFI4ALL
ERDF
ESF
CF
CEF-CF
YEI
FEAD
EAGF
EAFRD
EMFF
SFPAs
LIFE
AMIF
ISF
SIS
VIS
EURODAC
JUSTICE
RIGHT
UCPM3
E4CITIZEN
FOOD
HEALTH
CONSUMER
CREA
IES
IPA II
ENI
DCI
PI
EIDHR
IcSP
HUMA
CFSP
INSC
MFA
GF
UCPM4
EUAV
EFSD
TCC
GRLD European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI)
European satellite navigation systems (EGNOS and Galileo)
International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)
European Earth Observation Programme (Copernicus)
Nuclear decommissioning assistance programmes in Bulgaria and Slovakia
Nuclear decommissioning assistance programmes in Lithuania
Horizon 2020
Euratom Research and Training Programme
Competitiveness of enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises (COSME)
Education, Training and Sport (Erasmus+)
Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI)
Action programme for customs in the European Union (Customs 2020)
Action programme for taxation in the European Union (Fiscalis 2020)
Programme to promote activities in the field of the protection of the European Union’s financial interests (Hercule III)
Exchange, assistance and training programme for the protection of the euro against counterfeiting (Pericles 2020)
Anti Fraud Information System (AFIS)
Connecting Europe Facility-Energy
Connecting Europe Facility-Transport
Connecting Europe Facility-Information and Communications Technology (ICT)
European statistical programme (ESP)
Specific activities in the field of financial reporting and auditing
Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations, businesses & citizens
Enhancing consumers involvement in EU policy making in the field of financial services
Wifi For All
European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)
European Social Fund (ESF)
Cohesion Fund (CF)
Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) – CF contribution
Youth Employment initiative (specific top-up allocation)(YEI)
European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD)
European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) — Market related expenditure and direct payments
European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD)
European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF)
Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreements (SFPAs)
Environment and climate action (LIFE)
Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund
Internal Security Fund
Schengen Information System (SIS)
Visa Information System (VIS)
Comparison of fingerprints for effective application of the Dublin Convention
Justice
Rights, Equality and Citizenship
Union Civil protection Mechanism
Europe for Citizens
Food and feed
Health
Consumer
Creative Europe
Instrument for Emergency Support within the Union (IES)
Instrument for Pre-accession assistance (IPA II)
European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI)
Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI)
Partnership instrument for cooperation with third countries (PI)
European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR)
Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace (IcSP)
Humanitarian aid (HUMA)
Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)
Instrument for Nuclear Safety Cooperation (INSC)
Macro-financial Assistance (MFA)
Guarantee Fund for external actions (GF)
Union Civil Protection Mechanism
EU Aid Volunteers initiative (EUAV)
European Fund for Sustainable Development (EFSD)
Instrument of financial support for encouraging the economic development of the Turkish Cypriot community (TCC)
EU Cooperation with Greenland
http://www.aproplan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Priority-trap-1080×6001-1080×600.png
Too many Generals, not enough soldiers. No wonder the EU can never be effective
Yes, but according to EU the Generals are the countries themselves.
After financially, politically and socially melting down the continent they hope to manage sovereign debt issuance directly. Previously all they had was wet paper Maastricht and any influence on the ECB, now they will push Eurobond light :
From the ft ( sorry, it is the only text so far on a quick search)
“Definitely not eurobonds: one of the report’s most striking recommendations is for the eurozone to move towards financial engineering with the creation of a market for “sovereign backed securities” or “safe assets”. These would see existing eurozone government debt bundled up and sold in a bid to help deepen capital markets in Europe, diversify risk for banks, and begin to resemble something like the US Treasury market. But, anticipating fierce objections to any prospect of risk-sharing or the dreaded “eurobonds”, the report adds: “There would be no debt mutualisation between Member States”.”
Which if you think about it means only one thing – they WILL publicly mutualize the yield in these offerings ( as opposed to privately via ECB as now), the risk will be shared in the yield, not in obligation to later cover default by participants. The move is psychological in part, but more to the point EU will be the handler, the agent…and if you move outside of it likely yields will be higher. As handler it will create space for itself to manage the distribution, even if it is just an account from which sovereigns must draw from to access their share of the proceeds. It goes on… but Germany sees a bad deal, yet only rejects it using the words that EU assures are not applicable to this route…
ABS buyers learned the hard way that CLOs and CDOs (which is what the ECB is now proposing) does not actually reduce risk. Depending on the structure, it might (not necessarily) shift some risks out of senior tranches and concentrate them in junior tranches.
In plain English: right now you can buy a mix of German and Greek debt (supposedly low risk, plus a splash of higher risk / higher yield trash). Its no different than buying a portfolio of 80% US Treasuries, 20% high yield bonds. Any retail investor can do this already, if they are willing to assume that risk profile.
After some slick bankers put both into a CDO, you won’t know what you are getting. Smart portfolio managers will look at the underlying collateral (and the EU is back to square one, see above). Idiots will think the risk has been engineered away and they will lose their shirts (and/or their clients shirts).
The one and only difference between the 80% Treasury / 20% junk bond mix that a retail investor can make … and a CDO… is that the CDO has had a lot of cash taken out in investment banker fees — leaving investors with a decidedly higher risk / lower return profile.
Now given that any half-wit retail investor can already make a mix portfolio out of two mutual funds (80% Treasury, 20% high yield), and given that the CDO is going to siphon off lots of cash to pay the investment banking fees… I have to ask what kind of idiot institutional investor is going to buy these CDO? hmmm?
The kind that wants to get sued for breach of fudiciary duty, that’s who.
If retail investors are shifting money into low cost index funds, an actively managed fund is not going to justify their own fees by paying huge investment banking fees that are embedded in CDO debt.
I understand the EU / ECB is trying to hoodwink investors, but active portfolio managers in Europe are supposedly smarter than retail investors. If the pros are not smarter than retail, how long will it be before an “unsophisticated” retail investor replaces the “professional” with a combo of two index mutual funds?
Draghi will try his financial alchemy, but CDOs are not a new concept. The embedded costs and fees are very high. The liquidity isn’t there.
And its too easy to get the same risk profile via index funds and ETFs — without all the fees.
MISH???
Last week I deliberately included some cursing in a comment HOPING to get it put into the awaiting moderation queue…
Now this comment, no curses at all, gets held up in moderation?
” I have to ask what kind of idiot institutional investor is going to buy these CDO? ”
Those who have to cowtow to bond ratings. What the investment banks does in return for their fees, is lobby/bribe/jump-through-hoops that results in the entire 80% -good, 20%-trash mixture somehow getting blessed by the anointed as 100% good. It’s all just simpletonian Newspeak, but in progressive dystopias, what else is new?
As Stuki says – big banks/institutions are usually at the front of the queue, the ECB and regulation guarantee the profit…many work in hand with and are close to being a branch of EU monetary policy, hence political policy.
Stuki can play the cynic card and yell about banksters — and he/she might have been correct pre-2008. But Stuki forgets that regulators have spent the last 9-10 years telling banks and bankers that they have a fiduciary obligation to say no, and to tell their clients a deal is too good to be true. And there is also the matter of banks being undercapitalized for “known” losses (before factoring in Greek sovereign debt losses that are obviously coming, but not officially recognized yet).
Whatever a European bank’s PR director is saying in public — behind the scenes every major bank saw this CDO idea for what it is: the ECB cannot afford to realize the losses that are on their books, they need to get this toxic waste off the ECB’s balance sheet…. both Brexit and the impending global economic slowdown that Mish talks about just makes that need more urgent.
Every bank can already get favorable regulatory capital relief buying sovereign debt as it is — they don’t need a CDO wrapper.
Every bank knows the German government is legally prohibited from taking more than EUR160 billion in losses without Bundestag approval, and Merkel stands zero chance of getting such approval. She only gets away with the possibility of EUR160 billon losses because in theory its a potential cost — not a cash expense. There is no reserve set aside. That means when the ECB fails and needs EU sovereign support, Merkel will have trouble raising German taxes enough to cover the existing Eur160B losses, never mind a much higher number… Bundestag will not sign off on certain electoral death.
…and retail cynics like Stuki Moi aside, every big European bank knows Merkel is all talk and no actual resources to cover the ECB’s losses.
Hence the desperate urgency to shift the losses from the ECB to everyone dumb enough to buy “sovereign” (but unsecured) CDOs. Bankers might be greedy and corrupt, depending on which media outlet you listen to. But bankers can smell desperation and a forced sale from hundreds of kilometers away.
The ECB is in trouble, and everyone knows it. The German government can make contingent guarantees, but Merkel will struggle to come up with actual taxpayer money to cover actual losses (without jeopardizing herself, her party and the EU project).
When the &%$@ hits the fan, every banker post 2008 knows the politicians will place 100% of the blame on banks / bankers, and 0% on politicians themselves. Greed might be good, but not if you are in prison. The only safe harbor for bankers is if the EU / ECB takes full responsibility — and if the ECB was willing (or able) to accept responsibility for losses, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Bankers are already talking behind the scenes about this euro-CDO idea. The investment bankers obviously love the fees they will collect, but they are less excited about the criminal liability that goes with it. Portfolio managers see smaller upside than just buying sovereign debt, but unlimited criminal and civil liabilities when (gasp!) it turns out the politicians are lying again.
Face it @Chrysangle — portfolio managers can already buy a mix of German and Greek debt, and they can do so at very very low cost. The one and only reason to obfuscate such purchases inside a not-really sovereign CDO note (and much higher investment costs) is to hide something unethical, probably illegal, and definitely money losing.
@Medex
Banks don’t make decisions about what they invest in. Individual employees of the banks do.
If those emplyees can save even a penny by choosing your 80/20 “good’/”bad” CDO over the 100% “good” individual components required to obtain the same rating, they will do so every time. Simply because the mark-to-model (heck, even mark-to-what-many-call-market-these-days) value of the holdings that goes into calculating their “performance” pay will be unaffected, as long as the rating stays the same.
And those at the bank who are supposed to care, don’t. Since they know from experience, that they can come crying to Daddy Fed and Mommy Government (or are both daddies now, in our age-of-progressive-PC-and-nothing-else…) about “tanks in the streets,” once the game is up anyways. As if government involvement in tanks were somehow worse than government involvement in banks…..
As long as at least 95% of all activity undertaken by the entire FIRE complex, as well as the politicians, bureaucrats, lawyers, laws and judges propping them up, are nothing more than an undifferentiated theft racket; overshooting in the direction of cynicism, is at the same time almost impossible, and even if managed, pretty darned inconsequential.
@stuki moi — you have no idea what you are talking about. Your info is partly outdated, and mostly just media inspired ignorance.
Stuki — “Banks don’t make decisions about what they invest in. Individual employees of the banks do”
Clearly you don’t work at a bank now, if you ever did. The compliance department bullsh!t is absolutely choking whether a bank employee is following rules or not. After the lawyers second guess you, the risk department starts in. Between compliance and risk, traders are outnumbered 5-1 at least… its just safer to buy what is on the compliance departments’ approved list.
@Stuki — “And those at the bank who are supposed to care, don’t.”
As if it wasn’t obvious already, you are just an ignorant outsider parroting what the NYTimes told you to think several years ago. Or maybe you are discredited Barney Frank posting comments under another name. Either way — you make the intolerant and prejudiced assumption that all bank employees are collecting bonuses calculated from accounting performance. If you had any industry knowledge, you would know most bank employees do not — including the compliance and risk groups.
You are just an ignorant whiny socialist who wants to blame everyone else for your central planning failures.
@Medex
“The compliance department’s approved list” is put together largely by ratings agencies. So again, if CDOs obtain an investment grade rating, few aside from the occasional specifically charged, narrow purpose hedge fund or private investor, will treat them as anything but money good.
Not All bank employees are collecting bonuses based on accounting profits, but a very large portion of those who decide whether to buy CDOs vs instead attempting to build a portfolio of it’s components, do. And so do those who hire them. Instead, very few will have their take home negatively affected, as long as the CDO they are holding retains it’s rating. All the way up until the whole house of cards falls down.
And when that day comes, the higher ups come running to Paulson about some scary hobgoblin they believe in, that they call “collapse of the financial system.” Meaning, their own take home is still not affected. Other people;s, called taxpayers’, are.
The Fed, government bailouts, “special treatment” of banks and ratings agencies, any concern at all about so called “collapses” of centralized systems….. That is all nothing but facets of central planning. And yes, they are failures. As are all central planning. Very literally, all. At least to within 95+% of what we currently have of it. We should get rid of all of it, and things would sort itself out just fine. Collapses and all. It’s not like any of the “systems” that have been built, at least since Jefferson, are of any value whatsoever, anyway.
Good god. Don’t let any EU citizens see this list. Or maybe do, put it into a spreadsheet and distribute through e-mail.
Good that they didn’t let Greenland hanging: EU Cooperation with Greenland?!
With its actions and demands, EU gives all the cards to the UK. Making impossible demands and humiliating proud Britons they just enable May and UK politicians to walk away with dignity and applause. I will clap my virtual hands too.
Sami – just to say what you witnessed in Finland and mentioned previously is going on in other counyries too, in slightly different ways. In short the new system is designed to destroy the old ones, to make sure it is the only choice available.
How can the end not be violent when the masses wake-up of some alternative offered is some geographies – possibly extreme?
No one knows. Every step is an incremental capture, life goes on and people organise into what is available, where they turn for traditional support they find an altered support in its place, slowly they forget and become accustomed, are made to feel they have accepted, that if they think they know better then go ahead – but of course they are ex-communicated in the process unless they ultimately accept the establishing system. People are caught between maintaining what they have and losing it all, and socialism is adept at reassuring people that they won’t lose it all, so they don’t tip into confrontation.
You watch what people put up with though, and it is very sad.
It is powerful stuff, and well orchestrated, but there are those who are not accepting , those who are ready to snap out of it too, if there is a shock or loss of momentum, built and forgotten resentment can rise from seemingly nowhere.
I don’t know, there are plenty who have had enough but won’t step out by themselves, factions of authority as well that might decide it were better they step in, and then agitators, rebels, people with a statement to make etc. that might look to push tensions or ‘ruin the show’. No telling – secret or spontaneous, tensions exist.
Great Britain will fold. Just like they did on letting Moslem terrorists invade heir sceptered jewel
As a Brit who indeed voted out and would consider anything other than hard Brexit a failure, I must reluctantly agree with you. Never underestimate the power of politicians to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Of course, things are made worse by the way British diplomats are taught to think (undoubtedly in an angst ridden reaction to the fall of Empire). A French diplomat, for example, typically seeks to gain the greatest advantage while conceding the least, indeed making a successful outright ‘con’ is considered the greatest practice of the diplomatic art, The UK diplomat in contrast believes that there must be no winner or loser and in an event where someone has to lose more than they gain, well, better it be us, the British, who have the firm moral base and maturity to take the hit so no ill-will is generated that might damage future relations.
The EU thinks they can run a Dutch Book on the UK, i.e. leaving it in an overall losing position. What Mish describes … simply walking away … would be the UK running a Dutch Book on the EU. The salient question is whether the UK team is smart enough to understand the difference. There is no win-win here.
A ‘socialist’ mentality always expects everyone else to pay their bills, consent or not, but never its own.
OUT is out, there should be NO more EU jurisidiction after BREXIT.
To imagine the EU can ‘monitor’ UK compliance shows how totalitarian they are.
I despise these globalist parasites.
Why wont the EU just go quietly away in the dark? It has become a complete farce.
So if we get off our “feel good logic” a bit, the situation comes down to a power struggle. Who loses most from a contentious Brexit. The feeling here seems to be “Fish!” and the hardship sad Germans will feel when their frozen fish comes from Chile instead of the North Sea. So that’ and the auxiliary arguments with wonderfully dubious trade statistics in the U.K. favor can safely be consigned to the “it was my tin foil hat day, so sue me” bucket.
One aspect that might be underestimated is the power of the U.K. FSI and their particular strength in London where the big decisions are going to be made.
The FSI might put May’s wrists in some difficult to deal with handcuffs.
Central EU expenses are unsustainable without UK contribution.
UK is 2nd largest net contributor and with largest trade deficit with EU – 100Bn deficit.
Net cost of EU regulations to none exporters to EU is around 36Bn GBP annually.
UK is 2nd net trade contributor to Germany as was employer of last resort to mobile youth from south and east.
UK large net defence contributor.
There is no single market in services. UK strength.
UK out voted multiple times on issues of large national interstitial very many times where outcome was positive for others but negatinve for uk.
Article 50, no legal case for exit bill and EU own lawyers agree.
WTO will add about 12.6Bn annually to uk income off EU imports, some EU industrial groups looking to increase uk exposure to avoid that and 2 EU banks expanding in London. One big American group say jobs lost in finance will be replaced within 3 years due to new global service offerins.
Respected group have said main impact is political and on a long term GDP plot it will be hard to spot Brexit on the graph.
Not easy to make the chsnges but the alternative now is some idiots deciding to become freedom fighters. No one wants that but the EU will encourage it no doubt.
The point I was trying to make is not the impact that Brexit has on the EU – that has already happened, rather the best outcome for both parties from here. Or, more importantly, the perceived best outcome. For the EU, the UK has to be made to feel pain to discourage other exits, so there is a negative thumb on that scale. The EU can afford to be spiteful because most of the EU public have been braced for a negative impact, and so they will not blame their politicians, and nobody likes the English much anyway – they are regarded as retarded, jingoistic, drunk football hooligans in most of the EU.
The UK have been fed a diet ranging from “it is going to be heaven and we get to kick the Poles out” from the Telegraph, etc. to “you ignorant twats, you’ve just destroyed our economy” from e.g. the LSE.
Thus from a public opinion perspective there is less pressure on the EU politicians to cut a deal, especially if the Brits walk away not paying the money they “owe”.
From a trade perspective, Germany has the most to lose, their net trade imbalance is 30B pounds. However this is in an almost 3.2T pound economy, so the Germans will see a small impact, estimates of around 0.25% drop in GDP growth for two years seem to be the common consensus.
If I put myself into the shoes of an EU negotiator, I have two possibilities:
1. the UK stays at the table and I screw them for everything they have
2. the UK walks away and I screw them for everything they have
I can’t see how this will be good for the UK. They have to decide how they want to be screwed, from the front or the back.
I’m in the UK and don’t recognise that description of what has been fed to the population.
Interestingly, I know 2nd generation Poles that voted for Brexit as did those in their Church as well as 2nd and 3rd generation Indians and Afro Caribbeans.
When your main representative is Junker the EU has a problem. He never showed in the UK and was associated with dodgy tax deals and a well utilised drinks cabinet. That’s the head honcho!
Add to that a section of respected Brits that came out against the EU and the result was no surprise. The respected included Lord David Owen, Peter Hargreaves, Anthony Bamford, Gisela Stuart (very reasonable lady) and a hell of a lot others people outside the country wouldn’t have heard off including x-head of armed forces.
“For the EU, the UK has to be made to feel pain to discourage other exits, so there is a negative thumb on that scale.”
In other words, the beatings will continue until morale improves.
Please add in some additional benefits to the UK if we leave.
Being part of the EU meant that the UK couldnt discriminate against non-UK citizens. That means if they came to the UK we had to pay them benefits and give them council housing, and student loans which they never repaid.
Outside the EU we can if we choose, supply welfare only to UK citizens, including housing, stop treating EU nationals on the NHS and stop student loans to non-UK citizens. We can even tax land not owned by UK citizens as well.
We may choose not to do these things but if they were done it would be highly popular. The net boost to the UK citizens in the UK economy would be massive.
Already plans to repatriate prisoners.
We’ll have our miscreants back too.
Moral booster to see planes taking off and prison population/pressure reduced.
About 4600 at last count if I remember correctly.
May stands good chance of losing election.
She’s campaigning as if she wants to lose.
She may be so confident that she is going to win that she wants to be seen as the “statesman” who is above petty political bickering. Fits in with the “no debate” decision, and she looked pretty poised on Monday.
Or, she doesn’t want decimate opposition as that is bad for a parliamentary democracy. My money is partly on that. She knows an opposition is necessary. SNP should learn that lesson if they want what’s best for Scotland.
Mish, you have yet to put a foot wrong here! The EU was a good idea but destroyed by the bureaucracy and neo-liberal policies. If it wants to survive Schauble and all the rest of the neo-liberal dragons need pensioning off. There is only a gnats ass worth of chances to survive otherwise
No pan-european construct has ever survived, Holy Roman Empire, Hasbury Empire etc.
The EU isn’t flexible enough to bend or cope. A monolithic construct will break. A lot like the Euro. Just don’t know when or precisely how.
An ability to flex, bend, is critical. Overarching desires to harmonise, regulate, control and centralise will be disastrous for all concerned in the end. It’s quite painful now for some.
Should read HASBURG not HASBURY.
In an historical context the EU is doomed as are all Empires.
Yes, they do want to be an empire and Super-power, stated by Verhofstadt and Mogerhini between them – 10 year type time frame.
Stuck with 19c thinking and behaviours. Always leads to war, conflict, always.
hapsburg? (habsburg works too 🙂 )
Doh!
Bla bla bla Mish…..
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-30/european-economic-outlook-outstrips-u-s-blackrock-s-fink-says
Would agree but EU debt levels are even higher than US, NIRP and still 60Bn bond buying p.c.m. with a super competitive (low) exchange rate shielding one of the world’s biggest exporters.
Take away NIRP, QE and revalue Euro and then what happens?
Bad things happen. So why ever do it?
They are unlikely to be able to do so, trapped.
i suggest the UK mints a coin denominated in Euro for a trillion euros, and then asks for change from 100 billion euros, the EU is asking for, in pounds.
As a working-class nobody who doesn’t want much more out of life than a job that pays the bills and a little vacation time, I find this stuff incredible. The power and economic influence that governments wield over the general citizenry is unimaginable to me. How does this kind of bureaucratic structure even come into existence? What body of people would have green lighted this? It’s as though the heads of state in Europe (and everywhere else) are no more mature than a group of third graders, yet they’re in charge and taken seriously. What happened?
It seems that stuff like this is what starts wars. Am I wrong?
A double helping of God Complex for the Lords and Masters and a triple helping of gullibility and indifference for the masses.
All served up by Mother Nature.
ALLIED IRISH BANK to IPO in London, 12Bn.
Why not Frankfurt, Paris, Dublin when UK so close to EU exit?
Lloyds Chairman (respected) says City of London can weather no deal exit.
It will force UK to become more Anglo-Saxon, low tax, liberalised and having to fall back on animal competitive instincts to survive. Hard, but not absolutely impossible.
EU has been crowing about ignoring the will of the Dutch people. Example of their anti-democratic beliefs. People vote for one thing, elite vote the other way. Elite always carry the day. Don’t bother voting in the EU.
https://euobserver.com/foreign/138060
Word is the EU will use Brexit as a way to demand political controls in smaller countries before issuing future (reduced because of Brexit) funds.
Do x, y, z or reduced funds.
Also a way to slap Poland and Hungary as they didn’t show enough EU solidarity in migrant re-homing.
EU Observer.
Yes – finally. France + Germany will clean up the Tritbrettfarer (?)
Quite sure calling Poles, Hungarians etc FREELOADERS will go down really well.
True character showing through?
Great way to upset captive customers. My money is on the Poles trouncing Germany in the next 20 years. Better demographics, more cohesive society, cheaper land and labour.
Substantial UK money targeted to go into Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Czech Republic. Have exposure to UK companies already involved in laying out plans now. Easy access to German consumers and industrial base with no barriers and cheaply.
Will take less time to build massive new factory in Poland than expand existing in UK or Germany. German side to be reduced, maintain UK, start Poland from scratch.
Another just picked up a gem of a Czech company dirt cheap, kicking out their German customers to service UK only. This helps UK division that is resource limited and handicaps competition that had access to Czech capacity.
Slovakia – the biggest capital allocation for new plant to service Germany. UK owned.
More in the offing to make use of EU market from withing but UK capital.
This is all going slowly enough that in 10 years it will quietly go away.
Notice how they will use trade and hand-outs to force compliance.
Solidarity or else.
Sinister ?
After Brexit: UK will need to renegotiate 759 treaties (today’s FT)
Good luck to you Brits – you will need a lot of it LOL
Have a read. Already started.
Long story in the below, going back into a few years of preparation behind the scenes.
http://www.lawyersforbritain.org/int-trade.shtml
“No detail is too small. Britain is even on the hook for funding teachers at the elite European schools that educate EU civil servants’ children.”
Versailles, unlearned.
Worth remembering they are not dealing with post WW1 Germany.
UK = Switzerland with nukes.
Also – lots of dirt available on EU politicians, and they know it.
MI5 has been collecting it for years.
You are counting on EU officials having shame. I kindly refer you to the example of Jean Claude Juncker, the man who talks to the leaders of other planets ….
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tR6rPdlr0Z0
i think neither side really want to negotiate – they just want to make it look like the other side’s fault when it goes pear shaped. so we should just walk away and deal with it. it’ll be painful for a few years, but better in the long run. view it as in investment in our future.
Mish,
What does a gnat’s ass go for nowadays.
Agreed, why bother.