Oracle offered the EU's antitrust regulator a set of new terms over the weekend intended to curry favour for its acquisition of Sun Microsystems. But sources close to the deal say Oracle's "public remedies" are unlikely to satisfy the EU's original objections to the deal. At a two-day hearing in Brussels last week, Oracle, alongside customers such as mobile phone maker Ericsson, made its case for the Sun deal to go ahead. The EU executive issued a statement of objections to Oracle's planned acquisition in mid-November, arguing that the group is already a dominant database distributor and that its potential ownership of MySQL would distort the market.
At a two-day hearing in Brussels last week, Oracle, alongside customers such as mobile phone maker Ericsson, made its case for the Sun deal to go ahead.
The EU executive issued a statement of objections to Oracle's planned acquisition in mid-November, arguing that the group is already a dominant database distributor and that its potential ownership of MySQL would distort the market.
The European Commission today approved aid given by the UK government to Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) during the financial crisis. The decision means that RBS will not have to pay back the £60 billion-£100bn (€67bn-€111bn) that the Commission estimates it received, the largest amount that any government has given a single company in the history of the EU. RBS was rescued by the UK government, and part-nationalised, in October 2008 after a collapse in its share price.
The decision means that RBS will not have to pay back the £60 billion-£100bn (€67bn-€111bn) that the Commission estimates it received, the largest amount that any government has given a single company in the history of the EU.
RBS was rescued by the UK government, and part-nationalised, in October 2008 after a collapse in its share price.
Abu Dhabi, the oil-rich governing emirate of the United Arab Emirates, surprised investors on Monday by pledging to provide $10 billion to Dubai, easing fears about an outright debt default by the smaller, struggling emirate. The move will allow repayment of a $4.1 billion bond issued by Nakheel, a property developer owned by Dubai World, the emirate's flagship investment company and creator of the iconic palm-shaped islands that have come to epitomize Dubai's construction boom. The bond matured Monday. Stock markets in Europe, Asia and the United States rose on the announcement. In Dubai and Abu Dhabi, stocks of beaten down banks and real estate com panies rallied sharply.
The move will allow repayment of a $4.1 billion bond issued by Nakheel, a property developer owned by Dubai World, the emirate's flagship investment company and creator of the iconic palm-shaped islands that have come to epitomize Dubai's construction boom. The bond matured Monday.
Stock markets in Europe, Asia and the United States rose on the announcement. In Dubai and Abu Dhabi, stocks of beaten down banks and real estate com panies rallied sharply.
Part of the statement today strongly suggests that the powers that be did not want to risk the deal proceeding to court with the rules that had been in place. From Reuters: Dubai has announced a bankruptcy law that it said could be used in case Dubai World and creditors failed to reach an agreement on debt maturing in the future. "Dubai will announce a comprehensive reorganization law, a framework that is based upon internationally accepted standards for transparency and creditor protection," Sheikh Ahmed said. "This law will be available should Dubai World and its subsidiaries be unable to achieve an acceptable restructuring of its remaining obligations." (Emphasis added.) The US had an analogous situation with the first major default of a company that had a lot of credit default swaps written on it, the parts maker Delphi. The CDS contracts provided that the CDS holder needed to present a bond to the protection writer and would then get 100 cents on the dollar (up of course to the amount of protection purchased). The problem was that far more CDS had been written than there were Delphi bonds, by a factor of about 8, if memory serves me right. ISDA did not want the market to fail its first major test. So a protocol was invented, contrary to the terms of the CDS contracts, to allow for cash settlement of the CDS (ie, a protection buyer did not have to present a bond to get his CDS payment). Now with the benefit of hindsight, it would have been better for the CDS market to have suffered then, who knows, we might have been spared synthetic CDOs and the AIG rescue. But the Delphi case also illustrates that those who insist on the sanctity of contracts are more than a bit naive. Contracts are modified all the time...provided the stakes are high enough. Clearly, saving millions of individuals from foreclosure doesn't rates, since none of them individually has any clout. (Emphasis added.)
Dubai has announced a bankruptcy law that it said could be used in case Dubai World and creditors failed to reach an agreement on debt maturing in the future. "Dubai will announce a comprehensive reorganization law, a framework that is based upon internationally accepted standards for transparency and creditor protection," Sheikh Ahmed said. "This law will be available should Dubai World and its subsidiaries be unable to achieve an acceptable restructuring of its remaining obligations." (Emphasis added.)
"Dubai will announce a comprehensive reorganization law, a framework that is based upon internationally accepted standards for transparency and creditor protection," Sheikh Ahmed said.
"This law will be available should Dubai World and its subsidiaries be unable to achieve an acceptable restructuring of its remaining obligations." (Emphasis added.)
The US had an analogous situation with the first major default of a company that had a lot of credit default swaps written on it, the parts maker Delphi. The CDS contracts provided that the CDS holder needed to present a bond to the protection writer and would then get 100 cents on the dollar (up of course to the amount of protection purchased). The problem was that far more CDS had been written than there were Delphi bonds, by a factor of about 8, if memory serves me right.
ISDA did not want the market to fail its first major test. So a protocol was invented, contrary to the terms of the CDS contracts, to allow for cash settlement of the CDS (ie, a protection buyer did not have to present a bond to get his CDS payment).
Now with the benefit of hindsight, it would have been better for the CDS market to have suffered then, who knows, we might have been spared synthetic CDOs and the AIG rescue. But the Delphi case also illustrates that those who insist on the sanctity of contracts are more than a bit naive. Contracts are modified all the time...provided the stakes are high enough. Clearly, saving millions of individuals from foreclosure doesn't rates, since none of them individually has any clout. (Emphasis added.)
While, in the US, when the first test of credit default swaps comes along and it is discovered that the number of CDSs written on Delphi bonds exceeded the number of bonds by eight times, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association changes the rules so even those who had no insurable interest get a payoff. Why do I suspect that it was the US taxpayer who footed the bill and not the ISDA? As I was long ago advised: "Other Peoples Money! the only way to go!" If anyone has knowledge of that particular fiasco I would appreciate a comment. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
Greece will use its worst debt crisis in decades to rebuild itself, Prime Minister George Papandreou pledgedtonight as he unveiled reforms to set right the parlous state of the nation's public finances.In a televised address in which he acknowledged the "reasonable concerns" that the economy has caused for Greece's EU partners, Papandreou outlined "a road map" of change to shore up competitiveness, combat corruption, crack down on tax evasion and overhaul the public sector."There are certain moments in the history of a nation when the choices made define the decades to come," the socialist leader said. "Today is such a moment. It is time to address and resolve, once and for all, deep-rooted problems that are holding the nation back."
Greece will use its worst debt crisis in decades to rebuild itself, Prime Minister George Papandreou pledgedtonight as he unveiled reforms to set right the parlous state of the nation's public finances.
In a televised address in which he acknowledged the "reasonable concerns" that the economy has caused for Greece's EU partners, Papandreou outlined "a road map" of change to shore up competitiveness, combat corruption, crack down on tax evasion and overhaul the public sector.
"There are certain moments in the history of a nation when the choices made define the decades to come," the socialist leader said. "Today is such a moment. It is time to address and resolve, once and for all, deep-rooted problems that are holding the nation back."
video
Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
my burning question is ...
"Why would anyone care?"
Especially at at $3,799.75 over two years.
A notebook computer and cell phone will cost half that with triple the functionality.
I don't get it.
hmmm, lemme see... The business press game narrative is "GOOG Takes on iPhone." (One NYT article I'd the misfortune of reading contains many hilarious tactical absurdities engendered --if you will-- by JVs among the competitors. For example Schmidt "recusing" himself from numerous Apple board meetings.)
The paid-early-adopter narrative --valiantly dramatized in the spot-- is "GOOG is da bomb." (Manifould entendre intended.)
But the beauty of either story is, of course, the unsung moral, "You don't have to get it." Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
John Williams, who runs the popular counter government data manipulation site Shadowstats, has thrown down the gauntlet to deflationists, and in an extensive report concludes that the probability of a hyperinflationary episode in America over the next year has reached critical levels. While the debate between deflationists and (hyper)inflationists has been a long and painful one, numerous events set off in motion by the Bernanke Fed (as a direct legacy of the Greenspan multi-decade period of cheap and boundless credit) may have well cast America as the unwilling protagonist in the sequel of the failed monetary policy economic experiment better known as Zimbabwe. Williams does not mince his words: The U.S. economic and systemic solvency crises of the last two years are just precursors to a Great Collapse: a hyperinflationary great depression. Such will reflect a complete collapse in the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar, a collapse in the normal stream of U.S. commercial and economic activity, a collapse in the U.S. financial system as we know it, and a likely realignment of the U.S. political environment. The current U.S. financial markets, financial system and economy remain highly unstable and vulnerable to unexpected shocks. The Federal Reserve is dedicated to preventing deflation, to debasing the U.S. dollar. The results of those efforts are being seen in tentative selling pressures against the U.S. currency and in the rallying price of gold. .... The crises have been generated out of and are centered on the United States financial system, triggered by the collapse of debt excesses actively encouraged by the Greenspan Federal Reserve. Recognizing that the U.S. economy was sagging under the weight of structural changes created by government trade, regulatory and social policies -- policies that limited real consumer income growth -- Mr. Greenspan played along with the political and banking systems. He made policy decisions to steal economic activity from the future, fueling economic growth of the last decade largely through debt expansion. The Greenspan Fed pushed for ever-greater systemic leverage, including the happy acceptance of new financial products, which included instruments of mis-packaged lending risks, designed for consumption by global entities that openly did not understand the nature of the risks being taken. Complicit in this broad malfeasance was the U.S. government, including both major political parties in successive Administrations and Congresses.
Williams does not mince his words:
The U.S. economic and systemic solvency crises of the last two years are just precursors to a Great Collapse: a hyperinflationary great depression. Such will reflect a complete collapse in the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar, a collapse in the normal stream of U.S. commercial and economic activity, a collapse in the U.S. financial system as we know it, and a likely realignment of the U.S. political environment. The current U.S. financial markets, financial system and economy remain highly unstable and vulnerable to unexpected shocks. The Federal Reserve is dedicated to preventing deflation, to debasing the U.S. dollar. The results of those efforts are being seen in tentative selling pressures against the U.S. currency and in the rallying price of gold. .... The crises have been generated out of and are centered on the United States financial system, triggered by the collapse of debt excesses actively encouraged by the Greenspan Federal Reserve. Recognizing that the U.S. economy was sagging under the weight of structural changes created by government trade, regulatory and social policies -- policies that limited real consumer income growth -- Mr. Greenspan played along with the political and banking systems. He made policy decisions to steal economic activity from the future, fueling economic growth of the last decade largely through debt expansion. The Greenspan Fed pushed for ever-greater systemic leverage, including the happy acceptance of new financial products, which included instruments of mis-packaged lending risks, designed for consumption by global entities that openly did not understand the nature of the risks being taken. Complicit in this broad malfeasance was the U.S. government, including both major political parties in successive Administrations and Congresses.
....
The crises have been generated out of and are centered on the United States financial system, triggered by the collapse of debt excesses actively encouraged by the Greenspan Federal Reserve. Recognizing that the U.S. economy was sagging under the weight of structural changes created by government trade, regulatory and social policies -- policies that limited real consumer income growth -- Mr. Greenspan played along with the political and banking systems. He made policy decisions to steal economic activity from the future, fueling economic growth of the last decade largely through debt expansion.
The Greenspan Fed pushed for ever-greater systemic leverage, including the happy acceptance of new financial products, which included instruments of mis-packaged lending risks, designed for consumption by global entities that openly did not understand the nature of the risks being taken. Complicit in this broad malfeasance was the U.S. government, including both major political parties in successive Administrations and Congresses.
