The Irish Independent post below on how Germany blames Ireland and its regulators for the bank lending debacle there is sure to cause a storm of protest. The Germans are doing an effective job of playing the bad guys here and I think this will come back to haunt them later. After I did the links, Stephen Kinsella wrote a tweet calling attention to an article he did rebutting this view in January. Here is the link.
News links for 3 March 2013
Tegenlicht – De toekomst van Europa volgens Beppe Grillo
This is a Dutch article from three years ago that outlines Beppe Grillo’s positions at the time, well before the recent Italian general elections. His themes are the same then as they are today.
Italy paralysed as Grillo plots exit route from euro – Telegraph
“In an interview with a German magazine, Mr Grillo warned that “if conditions do not change” Italy “will want” to leave the euro and return to the lire. The 64-year-old comic-turned-political activist also said Italy needs to renegotiate its €2 trillion debt.
At 127 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), it is the highest in the euro zone after Greece. “Right now we are being crushed, not by the euro, but by our debt,” he told Focus, a weekly news magazine. “When the interest payments reach €100 billion a year, we’re dead. There’s no alternative.””
Analysis: A trimmer, sharper Groupon seen in the post-Mason era | Reuters
“Groupon Inc under a new chief executive should look a lot trimmer with a sharply reduced international arm, a more focused business – and minus its large and once internally celebrated editorial staff, analysts and investors say.”
Content economics, part 2: payments | Felix Salmon
“Apologies for the delay between part 1 and this: I wanted to wait until Amanda Palmer’s TED talk appeared online, because it’s an important part of the other big aspect of content economics. Part 1 was about the ability of publishers to sell readers to advertisers; part 2 is about the ability of publishers to persuade readers to pay the publisher directly.
There are basically three ways to go about this. You can put up a paywall; you can ask for donations; or you can sell non-digital things to your digital audience.
On its face, Palmer’s talk is about the second strategy, but in fact it’s about all three.”
“Security and caching service CloudFlare was down for close to an hour due to an issue with its edge routers. It’s now all back up and running. As the service adds a layer between 785,000 websites and their users in order to speed up traffic and prevent DDoS attacks and other security issues, all of those websites were affected — 4chan was one of them.”
Beppe Grillo veut renégocier la dette italienne – Libération
This French-language article outlines some of the recent pronouncements coming from Beppe Grillo regarding the political situation in Italy.
Scale of sequestration cuts becomes clear as Obama attacks Republicans | World news | guardian.co.uk
“Office of Management and Budget report outlines extent of $85bn cuts triggered by failure to reach deal by Friday deadline”
Great article on the wave of Spanish youth emigration as a whole generation of Spaniards is forced to leave the country in order to find viable employment
Ben Affleck’s Film ‘Argo’ Is ‘Weak,’ Iranian Envoy Says – Bloomberg
““I think the producer of the film, that is known as a ambassador of peace, as I heard, should be ashamed of producing such a film as that,” Khazaee said, according to a transcript of the program, scheduled to air today.”
U.S. Has 7th Highest Cancer Rate in the World
“The U.S. ranks 10th in the world for cancers in men and 8th for cancer in women, the report shows.”
“So far Groupon has not turned out how many may have hoped it would, especially for its venture capital investors. This is a very good way to roll with it — and show off a newer portfolio company in the meantime. Well played, Marc and Ben.”
The Germans say it’s all Ireland’s fault – Independent.ie
“Wolfgang Schauble, Germany’s powerful federal minister for finance, has said it is all Ireland’s fault its banks collapsed, plunging the economy into a deep recession, and absolves reckless European bondholders of all blame.”
The Economist vs Italy’s “Clowns” | Zero Hedge
“Given the power of unelected technocrats, it is easy to forget that sovereignty in Europe still resides with the nation state as expressed through elections. The problem for those unelected officials who conspired to capture the political system – think Jacques Delors, Jean Claude Trichet or Mario Monti – is the obvious failure of their great project. For the first time a majority of electors has decisively voted against the euro and rejected policies imposed by technocrats.”
Greece reclassified to ’emerging market’ from developed – Telegraph
“A major fund manager has reclassified Greece from a developed to an emerging market, in an unprecedented move reflecting the “unfortunate economic tailspin” of the Greek economy, which has threatened the future of the euro.”
Marine Le Pen demande à Hollande un référendum sur la sortie de l’Union européenne
Marine Le Pen has requested that French President Francois Hollande call a referendum on French membership in the EU in January of next year. It won’t happen and she knows it. But the request is purely for rhetorical benefit.