Socgen and credit agricolerate cut, few day before they were divesting, was it a call ? Criticism of greek debt accounting rules takes its toll.

Edel Tully, precious metals strategist at UBS, wrote in a note to clients that the drop in lease rates suggested there was a lot of interest in exchanging gold for dollars.

After ban on short sales, London sues ECB in European Court of justice against decision to locate clearing houses such LHC.Clearnet in EU single currency countries. Paris and Frankfurt in pole position. Currency wars intensify when EU wants more control of crisis. Prophecy of Lagarde coming true ? Now we understand why , it s politics stupid ! 2010 quite different from Clinton motto , iot's the economy stupid ! British diplomats have long feared Paris was trying to rig market rules in an attempt to shift the centre of gravity for financial services to continental Europe. The UK fought off French attempts to make an EU directive require clearing houses to have access to central bank liquidity – in effect confining most euro-denominated clearing to the eurozone

Germay, FDP, currently low in opinion polls, may walk out of CDU coalition and become a eurosceptic party, grand coaliution with SPD would be a boost for euro. . Iif , global association of banks attacks european leaders weakness.

Eurobonds would have every economic merit but they hurt Germany which, having been left on its own to finance reunification, is understandably cold towards die Transfer-Union.......URGENCY OF LEVYING TAXES : It consists in coercing taxpayers to lend to their government. California did this in 2009 when it added a premium to the income tax withheld from paychecks, to be repaid the following year. In France, the first Mitterand government forced rich taxpayers to fund a two-year bond issue – and both the US and UK have used moral suasion in patriotic sales of war bonds. Compulsory lending is an unconventional weapon but it is high time it be used, even on a small scale, to remind investors that sovereigns are not private borrowers: they need never default because they can always force-feed debt issues to their own residents. GABRIELE GALATERI DI GENOLA, PRESIDENT OF GENERALI

Beware a Hegelian touch of regulatory hubris

Gillian Tett , THE ANHROPOLOGIST WRTING ON REGULATION, HEGEL AND BUREUCRATS. The conflict of interest in free news on Page 9 of Thursday, September 15, 2011

Two centuries ago, the philosopher Georg Hegel popularised the idea that history proceeds with pendulum swings. First there is a “thesis” (a political movement or idea); then “antithesis” (a violent reaction); finally – if you are lucky – a “synthesis”, or resolution.

This swing is not surprising; banker hubris was costly. But an age of bureaucrat hubris creates new risks.

ON MICHAEL ARINGOTN FORMER AOL EDITOR IN CHIEF OUSTED BY ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, how he set a new blog, techcrunch, where blatantly claims a conflict of interest to gain intelligence from the venutre deal community. Interesting analyogy w/ end of official paid investor research and advent of company paid research w/ IPO's frenzy in the 1990s

« The news business is experiencing a similar evolution to investment banking after deregulation on Wall Street in 1975, and in the City of London in 1986. The abolition of fixed commissions led to a squeeze on investment research, for which institutions had paid, and a search for a new source of revenue. Eventually, ignoring the conflicts of interest, investment banks came up with the idea of getting companies rather than investors to pay for the analysts by using the latter to market initial public offerings. That culminated in the IPO research scandal when the 1990s internet bubble burst.... » His argument is essentially the same as that of Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street banks: “Yes, we have enormous conflicts of interest but being on different sides of deals gives us privileged information flow that benefits our clients. And you can trust us to manage the conflicts, since we are decent people.”

Inera pro business president forced to heal the social gap created by economiuc growth

Banks use gold to get dollar funds , Fears of European liquidity crunch , Metal’s leasing rates at record lows By Jack Farchy in London

European banks are rushing to use their gold to access much-needed dollar funding, in the latest sign of the growing liquidity crunch for the continent’s financial institutions.

Gold dealers and analysts said that there had been a strong move to lend gold in the market in exchange for dollars in the past week, accelerating in recent days.

Edel Tully, precious metals strategist at UBS, wrote in a note to clients that the drop in lease rates suggested there was a lot of interest in exchanging gold for dollars.

report on amercian economy, sme hit hardly.

Ft shortlisted books A shortlist that looks beyond the financial crisis on Page 10 of Thursday, September 15, 2011, barry eichengreen exorbitant priviledge short listed on usd hegemony and its future

THE LEX COLUMN on Page 12 of Thursday, September 15, 2011

The European Central Bank can ease banks’ liquidity problems. But the best tool to address solvency concerns is the European financial stability facility; it would make bank risk a collective problem. It should take stakes in vulnerable banks equal to their sovereign writedowns. The model is the US troubled assets relief programme of 2008, which succeeded by shifting its focus from liquidity to solvency. It is time to launch euro-Tarp for eurozone banks.

CHF strength hits many in Eastern Europe

According to a comprehensive study by the Swiss National Bank

(2009), Swiss franc loans chiefly affected three countries in Eastern Europe:

Hungary, Poland and Croatia — which accounted for 95% of total CHF

lending in Eastern Europe. Based on the data from national banks the

outstanding amount of CHF loans in these three economies was around CHF

80bn at the end of 2010,

Jeffrey sachs on Germany German hotheads are close to destroying the euro on Page 9 of Thursday, September 15, 2011 USUAL STUF

Policymakers still face the next four stages of grief , Jerome Booth : NICE ARTICLE ON EXPLANATORY POTENTIAL OF BEHAVIORAL PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPOLOGY , The well-known Kübler-Ross model of grief has five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Could these five, overlapping, stages be seen in reaction to other psychological shocks, including the prospect of significant economic hardships ahead? ....Jerome Booth is head of research at Ashmore Investment Management

Europe turmoil triggers rush for Yankee issuance ,France Telecom and Daimler lead dash across the Atlantic, say Robin Wigglesworth and Nicole Bullock ....“We’ll definitely see more Yankee issuance,” says Richard Dryer, head of European credit at Aberdeen Asset Management in London. “The dollar market is just so much healthier. Generally issuers prefer to tap stickier national or regional money rather than international markets, but if you need funding right now you can’t be too picky.”

One driver of the European Yankee bond rush is the level of the basis swap rate, which reflects the cost for European banks of swapping euros into dollars. This week the gauge slumped to the lowest since the wild fluctuations that followed Lehman’s collapse.