News Links: Will Spain spark an EU anti-austerity crusade?

Editor’s note: In the past, I have offered up a links post on the most important news items of the day like this one. That post is going away and being replaced by a more robust offering that also includes my news commentary in addition to the links. I hope this will put those links in context for you and give you a chance to ping me with specific comments about market and economic news issues you are seeing. This product will retail for $2.99 per month, which is a much lower price threshold than the more comprehensive premium products and it also gives you an ad-free environment here at the site. Obviously, given the price point, this isn’t a huge money maker for me. Instead, my hope is that it gives more of you a chance to get into the membership and provides a vehicle for us to talk more about the markets and the economy.

This is the last post in the old format. What I intend to do going forward is put up the links post for a couple of days in the new format for free to give you a feel for what the news commentary will initially look like. Then, soon afterwards, I will start the Bronze Membership.

• Will Spain spark an EU anti-austerity crusade? – The Globe and Mail

  Greece had utterly failed to combine growth with austerity. As the German-inspired cutbacks became more severe, Greece’s economy had sunk ever deeper into recession. The prime minister feared that Spain’s recession would also deepen if his government hacked away at the deficit with impunity. On Friday, Mr. Rajoy revealed his decision: Spain would breach its 2012 budget-deficit targets in defiance of the European Union’s new deficit regime.

• European Commission warns Spain deficit slippage is ‘serious’ and ‘grave’ – Telegraph

  Spain risks being fined under new EU rules for a "grave" breach of budget limits, the European Commission warned on Monday, despite Jose Manuel Barroso stating that he was confident the country would fulfil its commitments.

• Android’s Now On Top For Mobile Browsing and Search, But Still A Challenger Elsewhere | TechCrunch

  Android is currently the most popular platform in smartphone sales, and that domination is slowly but surely making itself felt in other aspects of the mobile experience – just as Google would have wanted it to be.

• Fed Shrugged Off Warnings, Let Banks Pay Shareholders Billions – ProPublica

  In early November 2010, as the Federal Reserve began to weigh whether the nation’s biggest financial firms were healthy enough to return money to their shareholders, a top regulator bluntly warned: Don’t let them.

• Manager buys Donegal hotel on market for €6m in 2008 for €650k – Commercial Property, Business – Independent.ie

  A FIFTY-FIVE-BEDROOM hotel overlooking the Donegal coastline stole the show at a cut-price property auction yesterday when it went under the hammer for just €650,000. Paul Diver (46), who has managed the Sandhouse Hotel in Rossnowlagh for the last 20 years, jumped for joy when his reserve-price bid was accepted with surprisingly little competition.

• Social Security, the Financial Crisis & Modern Monetary Theory – US Business News Blog – CNBC

  how will we produce enough to keep our elderly population living a more-or-less dignified life

• Venizelos Says Debt Swap Is Best, Only Offer for Investors – Bloomberg

  Greece expects bondholders to accept a one-time offer to write off about 100 billion euros ($140 billion) of Greek debt and is ready to force them to participate if necessary, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said.

• Yelp soars in market debut on Facebook optimism | Reuters

  Consumer review website Yelp Inc made a sparkling market debut on Friday, buoyed by optimism ahead of Facebook’s public listing and hopes for further successful public listings by Internet companies down the road.

• A million-dollar mortgage goes unpaid for years while couple fights foreclosure – The Washington Post

  The eviction from their million-dollar home could come at any moment. Keith and Janet Ritter have been bracing for it – and battling against it – almost from the moment they moved into the five-bedroom, 4,900-square-foot manse along the Potomac River in Fort Washington. In five years, they have never made a mortgage payment, a fact that amazes even the most seasoned veterans of the foreclosure crisis.

• Days Are Numbered for Unlimited Mobile Data Plans – NYTimes.com
• New Apps Seek to Help Phone Users Track Data Use – NYTimes.com

  Cellphone carriers are forcing customers to think about how much data they are slurping up as they watch YouTube and stream music from Pandora. In the United States, customers with unlimited plans who use a lot of data have found themselves forced into a network slow lane.

• ECB liquidity is not a free lunch | Gavyn Davies | Insight into macroeconomics and the financial markets from the Financial Times – FT.com

  With LTRO II completed last week, over €1tn of liquidity has been injected into the eurozone’s financial system. Private banks were permitted to bid for any amount of liquidity they wanted, the collateral required was defined in the most liberal possible way, and the loans will not fall due for three years. Any bank that might need funds before 2015 should have participated to the hilt, thus eliminating bankruptcy risk fora long time time to come. What can there possibly be not to like about this? A few things.

• Debt Crisis: Ireland likely to need second bailout warns rating agency Moody’s – Irish, Business – Independent.ie

  IRELAND is likely to need another bailout when the current €67.5bn from the EU/ECB/IMF programme runs out, according to ratings agency Moody’s. The agency also warned that a ‘no’ vote in the upcoming fiscal compact referendum would block Ireland receiving further funding from the European Stability Mechanism which replaces the existing European Financial Stability Facility.

• Chris Cook: The Ghost of Enron Past Explains Oil Market Manipulation « naked capitalism

  the oil market price has been inflated twice by passive (inflation hedgers) investors, albeit with short term speculative spikes from active (speculators) investors: once from 2005 to June 2008; and again from early 2009 to date. In attempting to ‘hedge inflation’ passive investors perversely ended up actually causing it, and allowed oil producers to manipulate and support the oil market price with fund money to the detriment of oil consumers.

• Weidmann gains traction with policy pushback | Reuters

  A German-led faction at the European Central Bank is leading a riposte against the bank’s unprecedented loosening of lending policy and may be pushing at an open door this time after a string of setbacks that left the ECB deeply divided last year.

• Greek default fears as debt deal deadline looms – Telegraph

  Investors in Greek debt have just four days to sign up to the largest debt restructuring in history and save the country from default.