The Daily Telegraph reports today that the Troika is suprised by the true situation in Cyprus: European Commission representative Maarten Verwey told the Cypriot Government:
“What we have seen is that your fiscal system is worse than we expected … prospects for growth are lower than what we expected, and as a result, there is a huge gap between your income and expenditure.”
“And no roofs, we are noticing also. We demand to know how and when these disappeared. What will you do when it rains? These pillars do not conform to EU Safety standards, and appear to have no insulating materials or glass between them. The reconstruction programme will cost millions and yet you have made no provision for it. We shall be reporting back to Brussels in a most negative tone.”
EU Commissioner for Economic Monetariness and Austere Fiscal Growth Olli Rehn said, “This is the same all over Cyprus: they half-build stuff and then go bankrupt without paying their taxes. It is typical. I am Finnish and there we finish everything, perhaps even the eurozone. This was joke, thank you.”
The link to the Telegraph doesn’t work.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9455790/Debt-crisis-Troika-finds-Cyprus-in-worse-state-than-expected.html
“You cannot maintain your present lifestyle if this continues” continued Verwey.
Oh, I dont know….
<blockquote.These pillars do not conform to EU Safety standards, and appear to have no insulating materials or glass between them. The reconstruction programme will cost millions and yet you have made no provision for it.
This situation does not seem to be new, judging by the photographs accompanying this article.
I have often said that the situation in Greece (etc) should have been looked at by the EU bigwigs long before it all came to a head. Was ist die Meinung von Herrn Blanketstein, unsere sog. Frankfurter Bankier?
Mind you … he probably is a frankfurter.
Construction embezzlement doesn’t only happen in Cyprus, London is much closer to home.
The IMF released a transcript of a conference call regarding the 2012 spillover report, it contained this gem of a paragraph (in the context of ‘uneven bars’)
‘I don’t want to repeat the results. It’s easy enough for you to scan. The report is relatively short, and it has a lot of pictures; you can kind of get the gist from those.’
This is the transcript.
http://www.imf.org/external/np/tr/2012/tr080212b.htm
This is the 2012 Spillover Report (with the easy reader words and pictures)
http://images.derstandard.at/2012/08/03/Spillover%20Report.pdf
That “gem of a para” is simply summing up the entire document, not with reference to deleveraging of UK and euro area banks.
btw BR thanks for posting these links- very interesting.
The spillover report is a summary of the Article IV reports (the asymmetrical bars version)
here is the UK version, it relies heavily on the BoE reports (particularly Survey of Agents)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2012/cr12190.pdf
this should be two comments down, following on from the Article IV link.
Here is the link to the ‘Agents’ Summary of Business Conditions’ from the BoE
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/agentssummary/default.aspx
’77.9% Of Spanish Voters Polled Have Little Or No Confidence In Rajoy’
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/779-spanish-voters-polled-have-little-or-no-confidence-rajoy
‘However, the complete U-turn his Administration begun only days after taking office has left many feeling betrayed. Broken promises aside, his distant and elusive manners have only added to the detriment of his public image.’
Don’t we know a prime minister that fits that description?
“Distant and elusive’ is also a term which has been used on Obama since his election.
Happens to them all once they get into office and discover what’s *really* going on.
Does half Finnish construction actually count as deconstruction or is it just b8ll8cks?
the link does not work for me
By the time of his inaugural speech Obama seemed to have aged overnight, he looked grey. Strange really given his major financial backers- he should have known the score.
As far as the Uk coalition are concerned, they surprisingly seemed to hit the ground running, as if they had been given a mandate by TPTB. Since when they have done nothing of substance, they appear to be waiting…..for their next instructions?