Greek euro exit looms closer as banks crumble

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International business editor. Telegraph.co.uk
7:50PM BST 16 May 2012

Original source

Economists warned that the Greek financial system could crumble within weeks or days unless the European Central Bank steps up support.

President Karolos Papoulias told party leaders that banks had lost €700m in withdrawals on Monday alone as citizens rush to pre-empt capital controls and a much-feared return to the Drachma.

He cited central bank warnings that "great fear" might soon escalate to panic. The leaked details lend credence to claims that capital flight by both savers and firms have reached €4bn a week since the triumph of anti-bailout parties on May 6.

Steen Jakobsen from Danske Bank said outflows are becoming unstoppable, not helped by open talk in EU circles of 'technical' plans for Greek withdrawal.

"This has a self-fulfilling prophecy built into it and I don’t think we can get to June. The fuse is burning and the only two options now are a controlled explosion where Germany steps in to ensure an orderly exit, or an uncontrolled explosion," he said.

Read more

Capital Account - Jim Rickards on Europe's Bank Run and why JP Morgan was late to "Puke the Trade"

May 16, 2012 by CapitalAccount

Gerald Celente - Brian Sussman KFSO - May 15, 2012

May 16, 2012 by GeraldCelenteChannel

Go to http://geraldcelentechannel.blogspot.com for more.

FBI Launches JPMorgan Probe, Clawbacks Possible

Probably the best Young Turks report this year. Cenk Uygur, normally a Barry Soetoro supporter even acknowledges Barry is a sycophantic joke when it come to talking about banksters.

May 15, 2012 by TheYoungTurks 

Greek depositors withdrew €700 million from the country's banks on Monday

From WSJ.com

Original source

Greek depositors withdrew €700 million ($898 million) from the country's banks on Monday, fueling fears of a bank run amid the growing political disarray.

With deposits falling, Greek banks become even more dependent on the European Central Bank to meet their funding needs, exposing the central bank to potentially huge losses if Greece leaves the euro area.

Greek President Karolos Papoulias told the country's political leaders that bank withdrawals plus buy orders received by Greek banks for German bunds totaled some €800 million on Monday, a transcript of his comments said. A central bank official confirmed the figures.

"The strength of banks is very weak right now," Mr. Papoulias said, citing a conversation he had with Greek central-bank Gov. George Provopoulos.

Monday's deposit withdrawal far outpaced Greek banks' steady decline in deposits since the start of the country's debt crisis in 2009, as depositors withdraw cash and transfer funds overseas. In the past two years, deposit outflows have generally averaged between €2 billion and €3 billion a month, though in January they topped €5 billion.

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If you are Australian you better sit down before you read this post

This series of charts puts the Greece situation into prospective. As for Australia a Japanese economic collapse is the greatest potential Black Swan we face. Japan is the world's third largest economy and more importantly Australia's second largest trading partner (China is the largest), with more than twice the dollar amount of trade than with our third largest trading partner South Korea (trade stats source)

From ZeroHedge.com

Original source

By now everyone has seen some iteration the following chart of relative sovereign debt/GDP values, in which Japan is an outlier:

As well as this chart of sovereign interest to revenue, in which Japan is also an outlier:

And certainly this chart showing Japan's straight diagonal line of debt/GDP:

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But how many have seen this chart showing global sovereign debt as a percentage of total government revenues? 

Is there now any doubt after seeing this why the proverbial four horseman are really just one giant black swan, only not one of failed bond auctions or something quite as dramatic, but something as simple and mundane as the smallest uptick higher in rates which would blow up the entire global financial farce, starting with the most imbalanced domino of all - the land of the rising sun?... And that at least Greece is not Japan?

Brother JohnF's Silver Update - Silver Update - Collapse Coming

May 15, 2012 by BrotherJohnF

Capital Account - Is JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon the "World's Funniest Financier?"

May 15, 2012 by CapitalAccount  Follow @  http://twitter.com/laurenlyster  http://twitter.com/coveringdelta

Gold: Just another commodity

No you Pommie Git, paper is a commodity, Gold is Money.

Click on the image to watch the video.

The report mentions the dramas in the Eurozone and that no protection is being offered in Gold. To prove the point they present a graph of Gold in US$ - WTF?  Well at this blog I realise that 96% of the world's population doesn't buy their Gold in US$. Here is a gold price chart in Euro, looks better than Euro trash to me.

Hollande sworn in as president of France

May 15, 2012 by AlJazeeraEnglish