No seamy comments.

WikiLeaks wins case against VISA -- RT

The Reykjavík District Court has ruled that Valitor, formerly known as VISA Iceland, violated contract laws by blocking credit card donations to Wikileaks, according to a press release posted on the whistleblowers' Twitter account.

The court also ordered that the donation gateway should be reopened within 14 days otherwise Valitor will be forced to pay a fine of  $6,200 daily.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

Twitter / baddogOTM: Don't blame it on the suns

Don't blame it on the sunshine Don't blame it on the moonlight Don't blame it on the good times Blame it on the Tories

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Today there have been spontaneous demonstrations of public sector workers around Madrid. It is being reported that policemen and firefighters among others are demonstrating in the vicinity of the Parliament and also or the PP headquarters. And that "the government delegate [in charge of public order] in Madrid claims she will not allow Madrid 'to become Athens'".

If you are not convinced, try it on someone who has not been entirely debauched by economics. — Piero Sraffa

Marshall Auerback: The Growing Pain in Spain (Credit writedons, 12 JULY 2012)

Yiagos Alexopoulos at Credit Suisse estimates that Spanish capital outflows are currently running at an annualised rate of 50 per cent of GDP. No question, the bank run is clearly accelerating, and one can easily understand why. The country is turning into a Little House of Economic Horrors. The alleged "rescue" of Madrid's banks is a non-starter. 100 billion euros won't begin to cover the scale of the problem on any honest accounting or "stress test" (and that's before we get to the next phase of announced austerity measures).

...

To help fund these bailouts, Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy is continuing to propel the country toward national economic suicide via more ruinous fiscal austerity measures. He has just increased the sales tax from 18% to 21%. This in a country with 25% unemployment, 50% youth unemployment and collapsing retail sales.

That will raise a ton of revenue, NOT!

Who needs to get the Troika to force fiscal austerity on you, when you've got Spanish quislings perfectly happy to do the job themselves?

...

If so, the euro should fall precipitously despite today's unprecedented spec short position. The recent adverse price action in the euro suggests the capital outflow from Europe may be intensifying because market participants are coming to realise that the odds of a euro exit by one or more countries are increasing and political obstacles will probably prevent an effective policy response like deposit insurance to arrest Europe's bank run and capital outflow.

If you are not convinced, try it on someone who has not been entirely debauched by economics. — Piero Sraffa

Lunch over.  Back to work.

Try not to crash the EU and eurozone while I'm gone.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Craig Murray » Blog Archive » The Impossibility of Rest

Occasional shafts of humour penetrate the stygian murk. Chloe Smith is revealed as completely inadequate by Jeremy Paxman. We could have told him that - at the Norwich North byelection the Conservative Party were desperate never to allow her to face questioning, and on this blog I offered a cash reward to anybody who spotted her with less than five minders. It was never claimed.

What really made me laugh was the report in the Guardian that she was given her ministerial position in the Treasury by David Cameron in the mistaken belief that, as she had worked for Deloitte, she must know something about finance. Why this is really funny is that the only job she ever had at Deloitte was not, as variously reported in the mainstream media, in PR or human resources, but in fact to be seconded to the Conservative Party. Chloe never had any job except as Conservative Party staff. She was then taken on by Deloitte and instantly seconded back to the Conservative Party; her working for Deloitte at all was a fiction. Whether this was to evade political donation rules or just to burnish her CV as a parliamentary candidate, I have no idea.

That the experience Cameron thought qualified her as a Treasury minister was actually a secondment to the Tory Party by one of those lobbying major corporate financial interests - and Deloitte was the Royal Bank of Scotland's auditors - is so rich it moves beyond satire. I can scarcely believe it myself. In fact it gave rise to such paroxysms of bitter laughter that I found the strength to blog again. Thank you Chloe and Dave for that, anyway.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.