Der Teufel steckt im Kleingedruckten, Eine Kolumne von Wolfgang Mnchau, 04.07.2012, Der Spiegel, http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/wol...-a-842488.html

Montis Triumph, Merkels Demtigung? Von wegen! Auf dem EU-Gipfel am Freitag hat die Kanzlerin in Wahrheit keine entscheidenden Positionen preisgegeben. Was auch bedeutet: Die Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass die Whrungsunion zerbricht, ist weiter gestiegen.
France Raises Taxes On Rich, Companies To Narrow Budget Gap, By Gregory Viscusi, Helene Fouquet and Mark Deen - Jul 4, 2012 5:19 AM MT, Bloomberg News, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...udget-gap.html

Frances two-week-old Socialist government unveiled 7.2 billion euros ($9 billion) of tax increases to meet deficit-reduction goals and avoid bond-market punishment.

The 2012 measures, approved at a Cabinet meeting today, presage even larger tax increases and spending cuts next year in an economy thats barely expanding.
Situation et perspectives des finances publiques 2012, Cour des Comptes, http://www.ccomptes.fr/Presse/Commun...publiques-2012

La France sest engage sur une trajectoire de retour lquilibre de ses comptes publics dont le respect est essentiel pour assurer sa crdibilit, la matrise de son destin et pour continuer de peser dans le concert europen. Ce redressement indispensable est exigeant mais possible. Les annes 2012 et surtout 2013 sont des annes charnires.

Pour lanne 2012, laudit dtaill men par la Cour la demande du Gouvernement montre que le respect de lobjectif de dficit public fix 4,4 % exige sans tarder des mesures correctrices, afin de compenser le risque de manque gagner sur les recettes que la Cour value ce stade dans une fourchette de 6 10 Md.

Leffort fournir en 2013 sera beaucoup plus important : dans lhypothse dune croissance de 1%, la Cour lvalue 33 Md de mesures nouvelles, qui devront tre partages entre conomies sur les dpenses et recettes nouvelles. Ces conomies ne pourront tre ralises que si toutes les administrations publiques y contribuent, ltat mais aussi la scurit sociale et les collectivits territoriales, dans le cadre dune nouvelle gouvernance densemble. Les dcisions qui devront tre prises appellent une volution en profondeur des modalits de laction publique, afin de clarifier les responsabilits et de remettre en cause les trop nombreuses dpenses publiques inefficaces.

La Cour publie chaque anne un rapport sur la situation et les perspectives des finances publiques en vue du dbat dorientation que doit tenir le Parlement. Cette anne, ce rapport inclut des dveloppements spcifiques pour rpondre la demande du Premier ministre du 18 mai 2012 dvaluer les risques pesant sur le respect des objectifs pour 2012 et de mesurer les enjeux du redressement pour les annes suivantes.
Libor affair shows bankings big conceit, By Dr. Gillian Tett, June 28, 2012 7:25 pm, FT, www.ft.com

Sometimes in life it feels sweet to say “I told you so”. This week is one such moment. Five long years ago, I first started trying to expose the darker underbelly of the Libor market, together with Financial Times colleagues such as Michael Mackenzie.

At the time, this sparked furious criticism from the British Bankers’ Association, as well as big banks such as Barclays; the word “scaremongering” was used. But now we know that, amid the blustering from the BBA, the reality was worse than we thought. As emails released by the UK Financial Services Authority show, some Barclays traders were engaged in a constant and pervasive attempt to rig the Libor market from 2006 on, with the encouragement of more senior managers. And the British bank may not have been alone.
What’s in a Number?, Donald MacKenzie on the Importance of Libor, Vol. 30 No. 18 · 25 September 2008, pages 11-12 | 4012 words, London Review of Books, http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n18/donald-...ts-in-a-number

On 23 October, Donald MacKenzie writes: My article on Libor went to press just before Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and governments in the US and Europe had to intervene to avert the collapse of much of the global banking system. As the article explains, Libor anchors contracts totalling about $300 trillion, the equivalent of $45,000 for every human being on the planet. It is calculated from banks’ reports of the rates of interest at which other banks are prepared to lend them money. This interbank lending has come close to drying up at each of the peaks of the credit crunch, and the failure of Lehman Brothers and the subsequent banking crisis caused it to do so almost entirely. Libor has therefore been attempting to capture conditions in what has become nearly a non-existent market.

Promises of massive infusions of government capital, and government guarantees that those who lend to banks will get their money back, seem now to have stabilised the international banking system somewhat, although no one imagines the crisis is over. One of the government’s priorities is to get banks lending to each other again, and if they succeed that will help repair the foundations of Libor. There are indeed signs that lending to banks is resuming, and Libor rates have gradually been edging downwards. On 13 October, for example, three-month US dollar Libor was 4.75 per cent; a week later it was down to 4.06 per cent.

The widespread state intervention in the banking system will, however, pose new questions, such as how to treat, when calculating Libor, those interbank loans that are guaranteed by governments. The interest rate on such loans will be lower (perhaps much lower) than loans without that guarantee, and that could affect the value of Libor considerably. For many years Libor was part of the unnoticed infrastructure of financial markets. Now, I expect, it will remain in the spotlight for some time to come.
Banker to the Bankers Knows the Numbers Are Lying, By Jonathan Weil Jun 28, 2012 4:30 PM MT, Bloomberg News, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...are-lying.html

he Bank for International Settlements, which acts as a bank for the world’s central banks, should know fudged numbers when it sees them. What may come as a surprise is how openly it has been discussing the problem of bogus balance sheets at large financial companies.

“The financial sector needs to recognize losses and recapitalize,” the Basel, Switzerland-based institution said in its latest annual report, released this week. “As we have urged in previous reports, banks must adjust balance sheets to accurately reflect the value of assets.” The implication is that many banks are showing inaccurate numbers now.
BIS Annual Report 2011/2012, 24 June 2012, http://www.bis.org/publ/arpdf/ar2012e.htm

The global economy has yet to overcome the legacies of the financial crisis to achieve balanced, self-sustaining growth. In different ways, vicious cycles are hindering the transition for both the advanced and emerging market economies. After reviewing the past year's economic developments (Chapter II), the 82nd Annual Report addresses fundamental aspects of these vicious cycles: unfinished structural adjustments (Chapter III), risks in the current stances of monetary (Chapter IV) and fiscal policy (Chapter V), and the ongoing challenges of financial reform (Chapter VI). Chapter I underscores the themes and policy conclusions of the latter four chapters, and in a special section examines them in the context of problems in Europe's currency union.