European Union

We just posted a comment on the situation in the EU, where financial repression is still increasing.  Big concern from my perspective is that negative rates and central bank market intervention seem to be frightening investors and convincing savers to abandon the financial system.  Look at the earnings reports from UBS and the other large EU banks.  Banks are 80% of the EU balance sheet and virtually all are shrinking.  It is hard to envision how this situation does not end in tears for the nations of Europe given the policy mix.

A few years ago President Barack Obama urged members of the European Union to admit Turkey. Now he wants the United Kingdom to stay in the EU. Even when the U.S. isn’t a member of the club, the president has an opinion on who should be included. Should the British people vote for or against the EU? The answer isn’t up to America.

What began in 1957 as the European Community (EC), or the Common Market, was a clear positive for the European peoples. It created what the name implied, a large free trade zone, promoting commerce across the continent.

Authored by Eric Zuesse,

"248 pages of leaked Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiating texts” show that the American negotiating position, as Greenpeace put the matter, allows "No place for climate protection in TTIP,” and, though "We have known that the EU position was bad, now we see the US position is even worse.”

Submitted by Judith Bergman via The Gatestone Institute,

• According to France's Defense Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, 800,000 migrants are currently in Libyan territory waiting to cross the Mediterranean.

Are Central Bankers delusional?

Over the weekend, Benoît Cœuré, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, penned a piece defending the ECB’s policies from the criticism that NIRP hurts savers.

The first paragraph reveals, quite clearly, just how lost the ECB is regarding the efficacy of its policies.