Home » Posts tagged 'jean-claude juncker'

Tag Archives: jean-claude juncker

I was looking forward to chilling with family and friends in Sydney this New Years Day, but Phil Dobbieruined it for me with this tweet:

I had forgotten that this was the 20th anniversary of the start of the Euro. But the Eurocrats in Brussels hadn’t. Some hours before the New Year commenced, Juncker and friends put out a press release extoling the virtues of the Euro. Virtues such as “unity, sovereignty, and stability … prosperity”.

Well so much for New Year cheer. With this one tweet, the EU put 2019 on track to be even worse than 2018. Using anyof those words to describe the Euro—apart perhaps from “unity”, since the same currency is used across most of continental Europe now—is a travesty of fact that even Donald Trump might baulk at.

Sovereignty? Tell that to the Greeks, Italians or French, who have had their national economic policies overridden by Brussels. Stability? Economic growth has been far more unstable under the Euro than before it, and Europe today is riven with political instability which can be directly traced to the straitjacket the Euro and the Maastricht Treaty imposed. Prosperity? Let’s bring some facts into Juncker’s fact-free guff.

I’ll start with Phil’s point about Greece. Greece’s GDP has fallen at Great Depression rates since the Eurozone imposed its austerity policies on it, and nominal GDP today is more than 25% below its peak.

Figure 1: Greek GDP and economic growth rate

Now of course that could be blamed on the Greeks themselves, so let’s look compare economic growth in the entire Eurozone to the USA (minus Ireland and Luxembourg, since in the former case their data is massively distorted by data revisions, and the latter has highly volatile data as well, and is so small—under 600,000 people—that it can safely be ignored).

Figure 2: Real economic growth rates

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Juncker Warns ‘The EU Cannot Survive Without Italy’

October 16, 2018

Juncker Warns ‘The EU Cannot Survive Without Italy’

Ignoring warnings from the European Commission, the ECB and the European Commission (as well as practically every other supranational organization in Europe), the populist-led Italian government managed to submit their draft budget to the Commission before a midnight deadline – an outcome that was cheered by BTP traders, who bought back into Italian bonds, once again compressing the spread to bunds, which has blown out in recent months.

But rather than representing a deescalation of tensions between Italy and Brussels, the game of fiscal chicken in which both sides are presently engaged is instead entering its most acute phase, as Brussels now has two weeks to review the budget proposal before it can either accept the plan, or send it back with requests for revisions. And anybody who has been paying even passing attention to the populist government’s denigration of EU budgetary guidelines over the past few months should already understand that Brussels won’t just sit back and accept the budget for what it is.

In fact, European Commissioner Jean-Claude Juncker hinted as much Tuesday morning when he told Italian reporters that accepting the budget would be tantamount to inviting an widespread revolt against the EU, per Italian newswire ANSA and the FT. Juncker also blasted Italy for abandoning the fiscal commitments it made when it joined the EU. However, though they have wavered from time to time, the Italians haven’t kept their intentions to press for a budget deficit equivalent to 2.4% of GDP a secret. Even Giovanni Tria, Italy’s economy minister, defended the draft budget, saying the deficit “would be considered normal in all Western democracies, not explosive.”

Undeterred by the fact that there’s absolutely no political will in the Italian government to back down from their budget stance, despite threats from the ECB to provoke a Greece-style banking crisis if the Italians don’t yield to EU rules.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Are Globalists Plotting a Counter-Revolution?

August 7, 2018

Are Globalists Plotting a Counter-Revolution?

On meeting with the EU’s Jean-Claude Juncker last month, Donald Trump tweeted: “Both the U.S. and the E.U. drop all Tariffs, Barriers and Subsidies! That would finally be Free Market and Fair Trade.”

Did Larry Kudlow somehow get access to Trump’s phone?

We know not. But, on hearing this, Steve Forbes, Stephen Moore and Arthur Laffer broke into the “Hallelujah” chorus of Handel’s “Messiah.”

“Amen,” they thundered in The New York Times.

Trump should declare “total trade disarmament” to be national policy and make free trade his “legacy” to America. Such a proclamation, they wrote, would assure Trump the “moral high ground” in the global debate and transform him from “evil disrupter of international commerce to potential savior.”

For free trade is always and ever a “win-win for trading partners.”

To read the Times op-ed is to appreciate that what we are dealing with here is an ideology, a political religion, a creed, a cult.

For consider the fruits of free trade policy during the last 25 years: the frozen wages of U.S. workers, $12 trillion in U.S. trade deficits, 55,000 factories lost, 6 million manufacturing jobs gone, China surpassing the U.S in manufacturing, all causing a backlash that pushed a political novice to the Republican nomination and into the presidency.

Have something to say about this column?
Visit Pat’s FaceBook page and post your comments….

To maintain a belief in the superiority of free trade to economic patriotism, in the face of such results, is to recognize that this belief system is impervious to contradictory proof.

Still, the enduring enthusiasm of free trade zealots is not the only sign that GOP globalists, having learned nothing and forgotten nothing, are looking to a post-Trump era to resurrect their repudiated dogmas.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trump and Juncker Supposedly Agree to Trade Deal: Lies All Around

July 26, 2018

Trump and Juncker Supposedly Agree to Trade Deal: Lies All Around

The US and EU agree to resolve trade differences. Color me skeptical as to how long this lasts and what happens next.

The Wall Street Journal reports U.S., EU Agree to Resolve Trade Differences.

President Trump on Wednesday declared a “new phase” in the relationship between the U.S. and the European Union, agreeing to hold off on proposed car tariffs and work with the EU to resolve their dispute over metals duties, while also promoting bilateral trade.

Speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House alongside European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Mr. Trump said the U.S. and the EU had agreed to “work together toward zero tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers and zero subsidies on non auto-industrial goods.”

“This was a very big day for free and fair trade,” Mr. Trump said. He said the U.S. and EU would “resolve” the steel and aluminum tariffs he imposed earlier this year and the retaliatory tariffs the EU imposed in response.

He said the EU had agreed “almost immediately” begin buying more U.S. soybeans and that the European bloc had agreed to increase LNG exports [imports?] from the U.S. The EU will be a “massive buyer” of LNG, Mr. Trump said.

“I had the intention to make a deal today,” said Mr. Juncker. “And we made a deal today. “

Lie When It’s Serious

Ahead of the meeting, Juncker said it was not his intent to work out a deal. Now he says it was his intention all along.

In case you forgot, please consider the most honest thing Juncker ever said: “When it becomes serious you have to lie.”

So, is Juncker lying today or was he lying two days ago?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Things Must Be Serious, Everyone’s Lying

March 19, 2018

Things Must Be Serious, Everyone’s Lying

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker had a moment of clarity once. He famously said, “When things get serious, you have to lie.”

Given the state of affairs in his beloved European Union right now Mr. Juncker and company are doing a lot of lying.

It is rare in politics to get that kind of honesty from a politician, especially one currently in office. But, Juncker’s statement shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who is even a semi-serious political observer.

It’s why I find it funny that the Democrats and Antifa-Left get so bent out of shape when Donald Trump exaggerates or outright lies. To him lying’s a tactic. Catching Donald Trump in a falsehood is like trying to ladle water with a sieve.

So, by the Juncker Maxim, things must be getting very serious because the amount and type of lies being thrown around by people who are supposed to know better have been staggering.

To the point that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, “I simply don’t have any normal terms left to describe all this.”

Lavrov has been the world’s most effective diplomat over the past few years, talking to and cutting deals with people who should hate him and Russia’s policies. What it highlights is that Lavrov and his boss, Vladimir Putin, have been so effective simply because they make a deal and keep to it.

They are the opposite of Mr. Juncker. When things get serious they become honest, speaking with one voice.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

100+ Respected Academics Slam EU in Letter to Juncker Citing “Rule of Law”

November 4, 2017

100+ Respected Academics Slam EU in Letter to Juncker Citing “Rule of Law”

On Thursday, over 100 well-respected academics slammed the EU in a letter sent a letter to European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council president Donald Tusk. The academics cited the rule of law.

The open letter , signed by highly-respected academics and members of the European Parliament, cited Spain’s “undisputable abuse of power”.

We are deeply concerned that the EU’s governing bodies are condoning the systematic violation of the Rule of Law in Spain, in particular regarding the Spanish central authorities’ approach to the 1 October referendum on Catalan independence. We do not take political sides on the substance of the dispute on territorial sovereignty and we are cognizant of procedural deficiencies in the organization of the referendum. Our concern is with the Rule of Law as practised by an EU Member State.

The Spanish government has justified its actions on grounds of upholding or restoring the constitutional order.

The Tribunal has violated Constitutional provisions on freedom of peaceful assembly and of speech – the two principles which are embodied by referendums and parliamentary deliberations irrespective of their subject matter. Without interfering in Spanish constitutional disputes or in Spain’s penal code, we note that it is a travesty of justice to enforce one constitutional provision by violating fundamental rights. Thus, the Tribunal’s judgments and the Spanish government’s actions for which these judgments provided a legal basis violate both the spirit and letter of the Rule of Law.

In the days preceding the referendum, the Spanish authorities undertook a series of repressive actions against civil servants, MPS, mayors, media, companies and citizens. The shutdown of Internet and other telecom networks during and after the referendum campaign had severe consequences on exercising freedom of expression.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Spanish Government Threatens to Seize Catalan Finances to Stop Referendum: Juncker in Hot Water

September 16, 2017

Spanish Government Threatens to Seize Catalan Finances to Stop Referendum: Juncker in Hot Water

In its latest move to stop an October 1 independence referendum, the Spanish Government is Poised to Seize Catalan Finances.

Finance Minister Cristóbal Montoro said a mechanism had been approved for the state to take control of the autonomous region’s finances. Madrid is seeking to stop the Catalan government spending public money on its planned independence referendum.

If the deadline is not met, the central government will take over the funding of most essential public services in the region, Mr. Montoro said.

Catalan President Carles Puigdemont launched his campaign for a “Yes” vote on Thursday night in the town of Tarragona, telling a rally at a former bullring: “Vote, and in so doing bring light to darkness that has lasted for too many years.” The crowd shouted back, “Independence”, “We will vote” and “We’re not afraid”, AFP news agency reports.

Public finances are a particularly sore point for Catalans who for years have contributed more to the state budget than they get back in spending on public services.

More than 700 Catalan mayors who have agreed to help stage the referendum now face criminal investigation and police have been ordered by Spanish prosecutors to seize ballot boxes, election flyers and any other item that could be used in the referendum.

The separatists have promised to declare independence within days if, as expected, the Yes vote prevails at the referendum.

Spanish Government Rejects Dialog Request

The Telegraph reports Spain threatens to cut funding for Catalonia over the independence referendum.

The Spanish government on Friday dismissed a letter from Catalan leaders offering talks over their looming independence referendum as “a trap”, and announced it would intervene in Catalonia’s finances to ensure that “not one euro” of public money was used to fund the “illegal” vote.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

New Rules for the Monetary Game

March 21, 2016

New Rules for the Monetary Game

NEW DELHI – Our world is facing an increasingly dangerous situation. Both advanced and emerging economies need to grow in order to ease domestic political tensions. And yet few are. If governments respond by enacting policies that divert growth from other countries, this “beggar my neighbor” tactic will simply foster instability elsewhere. What we need, therefore, are new rules of the game.

Why is it proving to be so hard to restore pre-Great Recession growth rates? The immediate answer is that the boom preceding the global financial crisis of 2008 left advanced economies with an overhang of growth-inhibiting debt. While the remedy may be to write down debt to revive demand, it is uncertain whether write-downs are politically feasible or the resulting demand sustainable. Moreover, structural factors like population aging and low productivity growth – which were previously masked by debt-fueled demand – may be hampering the recovery.

Politicians know that structural reforms – to increase competition, foster innovation, and drive institutional change – are the way to tackle structural impediments to growth. But they know that, while the pain from reform is immediate, gains are typically delayed and their beneficiaries uncertain. As Jean-Claude Juncker, then Luxembourg’s prime minister, said at the height of the euro crisis, “We all know what to do; we just don’t know how to get re-elected after we’ve done it!”

Central bankers face a different problem: inflation that is flirting with the lower bound of their mandate. With interest rates already very low, advanced economies’ central bankers know that they must go beyond ordinary monetary policy – or lose credibility on inflation. They feel that they cannot claim to be out of tools.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The EU Uses Every Crisis To Grab More Power

September 11, 2015

The EU Uses Every Crisis To Grab More Power

Jean Claude Juncker held a speech yesterday that had, oh irony, been labeled a State of the Union. A perfect way of showing how pompous Juncker and his surroundings have become. A perfect way, too, to point out how much the European Union differs from the United States. The gap is so wide it doesn’t need any explaining.

Much of the speech concerned the refugee crisis Juncker and his cronies share a lot of the blame for, and for good measure he managed to get in a vile threat to Greece, in the vein of “Greece must respect the bailout, or the EU reaction will be ‘different’”, and “Greece cannot be kept in the euro at all costs”. In Brussels, democracy is a word fast losing even the last shreds of its meaning.

Juncker’s a very boring speaker -when he’s not been drinking-, but that doesn’t take away from the message. Brussels seeks to use the refugee crisis for the same purpose it uses all crises for: power grabbing. A reaction from Nigel Farage that was dripping with vile bigotry was the best reaction I read about to the speech, and in my not so humble opinion that is desperately sad.

It’s a shame and a disgrace that bigots like Farage, Le Pen, Orban and Wilders will have to decide the future of the EU, but it’s still a mile and a half better than more EU, because the European Union is rapidly turning into a monstrosity the likes of which even Europe has seldom seen in its history, and that’s saying something.

28 separate formerly sovereign nations are coming under the thumb of a de facto occupying force that is squeezing their sovereignty and democracy out of them in boa constrictor fashion, leaving them behind as empty political shells. And every single one of these nations has voluntarily signed up for this treatment, blindly lured by financial promises that the Greek crisis has abundantly exposed as hollow and void.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Greek Contagion Spreads As Several Italian Bank Stocks Failed To Open

June 29, 2015

Greek Contagion Spreads As Several Italian Bank Stocks Failed To Open

While things have normalized since the open thanks entirely to the SNB’s aggressive EUR-buying, CHF-selling intervention (good to see that central banks have read the BIS’ report and have learned from their prior intervention mistakes), earlier this morning we got a snapshot of what happens if and when the SNB, and then the ECB itself, finally lose control when as a result of the Greek crisis the contagion promptly spread a few hundred kilometers west to Italy where as the WSJ reported, “several Italian banks failed to start trading on Monday as fears over a Greek debt default induced many investors to shed peripheral stocks, including Italian, with banks suffering the most.”

As the paper reported sales orders on Italian stocks, in particular financial stocks, piled up before the market opening. At the start, the sales orders were so numerous that the system couldn’t manage to process them, something that often happens when specific news causes a sell-off on a stock.

Theoretical prices for Italian banks–the prices at which they would have started trading–hovered around losses of 8% to 10% at the beginning of the trading session.

UniCredit SpA and Intesa Sanpaolo managed to start trading some time after the market opened, but were suspended immediately, accumulating losses of around 6% compared with Friday’s closing prices.

Ironically, in an attempt to avoid just this kind of selling panic, on Sunday, Italy’s banking lobby head Antonio Patuelli dismissed fears of contagion on Italian lenders, saying the country’s banks’ direct exposure to Greece was less than EUR1 billion.

For now the SNB has stabilized things but how much longer will this artificial “stability” continue especially if the just concluded speech by Jean-Claude Juncker managed to antagonize Greeks even further and pushed all those who were on the fence about this Sunday’s coming Greferendum, solidly into the “No” camp.

“No Deal”: Tsipras Says Creditors Did Not Accept Greek Proposal

June 24, 2015

“No Deal”: Tsipras Says Creditors Did Not Accept Greek Proposal

Who could have possibly foreseen that the IMF would throw up all over the Greek “proposal”… aside from this post here “Why The IMF Will Reject The Latest Greek Proposal In Just Two Numbers” yesterday afternoon of course. In any event, moments ago Bloomberg reported that just as we wrote here yesterday afternoon, there is no deal and that Greek PM Alexis Tsipras told his associates that creditors not accepting equivalent fiscal measures has never happened before, according to a Greek govt official, who asked not to be named in line with policy.

Creditors “not accepting parametric measures has never happened before. Neither in Ireland, nor in Portugal, nor anywhere. This strange stance can hide two scenarios; they either don’t want an agreement or serve specific interests in Greece,” the official cited Tsipras as saying.”

As a reminder, Tsipras is meeting Wednesday with European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in an effort to reach a deal before Greece’s bailout expires and about 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) in payments come due to the IMF on June 30.

Here is the man himself tweeting as much and confirming that the blame game continues:

The repeated rejection of equivalent measures by certain institutions never occurred before-neither in Ireland nor Portugal. #Greece (1/2)

6:32 AM – 24 Jun 2015

This odd stance seems to indicate that either there is no interest in an agreement or that special interests are being backed. #Greece (2/2)

6:32 AM – 24 Jun 2015

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Money is Just Sleeping … Let us Wake it Up!

June 24, 2015

The Money is Just Sleeping … Let us Wake it Up!

J.C. Juncker Sets Out to “Wake Up Liquidity”

In a recent article on the never-ending Greek Kabuki theater, we have come across parts of an interview EU budget commissioner Kristalina Georgieva has given to AFP, in which she explains J.C. Juncker’s cunning plans to “kick-start” the European economy by pumping €300 billion he doesn’t have into infrastructure projects and other assorted white elephants (we have previously discussed this Stalinesque plan, as well as what usually happens when even some of the “best stewards of EU funding” are “investing in in infrastructure” – see The EU’s Ghost Airports for the ghastly details). The interview contained the following gem:

“The Juncker plan is to wake up the liquidity sleeping in our financial system, to give courage to our money, to pump investment into the real economy,” Georgieva said.

Liquidity
The always open spigot, spitting out what is apparently valiumed money.

So the idea is that the enormous mountain of money created by the ECB and depicted below is somehow “just sleeping” and if only someone – ideally JC Juncker – manages to wake it up and give it the necessary courageto get wasted on projects no-one needs or wants, the economy will magically improve. Prosperity is practically around the corner! Riiiiight.

Europe’s huge pile of ECB confetti – just sleeping! The total is the red line, the annualized rate of change the blue line. Yes, that red line is going parabolic, via ECB, click to enlarge.

Apart from the problems with this plan we have already discussed, which consist mainly of the fact that governments cannot sensibly invest, because rational economic calculation is situated somewhere between totally alien and utterly impossible for them, there is another problem with this idea Juncker (and many others) apparently don’t understand.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Presenting The New Plan For A Eurozone Superstate—–Curly, Larry And Moe

June 22, 2015

Presenting The New Plan For A Eurozone Superstate—–Curly, Larry And Moe

Dutch finance chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem, left, with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, center, and President of the European Council Donald Tusk, right, in Brussels last week. ENLARGE

Dutch finance chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem, left, with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, center, and President of the European Council Donald Tusk, right.

By Matthew Dalton

European officials released a plan to address flaws in the eurozone’s makeup that would see its members sacrifice more of their national sovereignty for the economic good of the entire currency bloc.

That will likely take time: The plan released on Sunday envisions its more-ambitious measures, such as a shared budget for the eurozone, possibly taking 10 years to come into effect, reflecting the political obstacles that now stand in the way of drawing the its 19 disparate nations more closely together.

Despite those hurdles, senior European officials who have pushed for the plan say fundamental changes to the eurozone are needed to prevent a repeat of the bloc’s debt crisis, which was caused in large part by wages and prices in the south rising much faster than they did in the north.

The eurozone has proved unable to reverse the loss of competitiveness in the south, leaving those countries grappling with unemployment rates exceeding 20% in some cases and little prospect of a significant recovery soon.

Greece, in particular, remains engulfed in crisis, and is running out of time to reach a deal that would avert its exit from the eurozone.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tag Archives: jean-claude juncker

Content

Post categories

Economic Links

Energy/Resource Links

Environmental Links

Geopolitical Links

Liberty Links

News Links

Other Links

Survival Skills

Post Archives by Category

Latest Posts