How the world sees Greece
georges batzios proposes an entirely straw-made cultural center in greece (above) exterior view all images courtesy of georges batzios architects georges batzios architects has proposed for the new cultural centre ‘konaki averof’ in greece an ...
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The second exhibition in a series of temporary exhibitions at the Acropolis Museum, titled “Oracle of Dodona,” kicks off on June 20 and runs through to January 20. The display casts light on the oldest Greek oracle, that of Dodona, tracing the way it functioned, its role and its importance in the ancient world while
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The Greek Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute returned to the Antikythera Shipwreck from May 22 through to June 11. The results were interesting, with part of a bronze spear connecting to the one that was recovered in 2014 and four parts from marble sculptures where a left wrist was discerned. A
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A special application lets you find out how safe the beach where you intend to dive is. The free application, which can be downloaded in Greek and English, has been created in collaboration with the Safe Water Sports and Greek Coast Guards. “We have documented more than 3,000 beaches around the country, adding all features
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[PIMCO CEO Doug Hodge.] Pimco, the giant investment firm, is cutting jobs and closing six funds worth $260 million in assets. The cuts amount to 68 jobs, or about 3% of the workforce, according to an internal memo that just went out. Here are the main takeaways: * The dividend team will be let go, as the firm converts its equity exposure from its active "dividend" strategy to the "research affiliates equity income" strategy. Pimco says this will lead to more consistent performance and lower the risk profile of the funds. * Brad Kinkelaar, who was the portfolio manager on the dividend strategy, is leaving. * The changes are also being made because of changing investor demand for different investment products, with an increase in demand for Pimco's nontraditional strategies. * Eligible employees in the US will be offered voluntary severance. In a separate statement, Pimco said that it is closing six funds that represent less than 1% of the firm's equity strategy assets. Pimco manages about $1.5 trillion. The news comes as Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. also announced job cuts of about 10% of its 650-person staff, Bloomberg reported. GMO has seen its assets drop about 20% over the past two years, to $99 billion, according to the report. We'll update this story as we get more information. In the meantime, here's the Pimco memo in full: _Colleagues,_ _Earlier today the Executive Committee directed a series of steps to ensure that our business is better structured to serve our clients in this fast-changing asset management industry landscape. We want to share this news with you now that we have connected with our colleagues who are affected._ _As a primary step, we have taken the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by 68 people. We have always strived to hire top talent, so those who are now leaving are colleagues who have given tremendously to PIMCO and our clients. We pride ourselves on being a lean organization with a special culture, so that only makes this decision even more difficult and personal for us as a firm. While this reduction represents just 3 percent of our workforce, the changes are especially painful given the close bonds that all of us forge with one another as colleagues and friends. We thank all those who are leaving for their many contributions and we will miss them._ _Secondly, we will be offering voluntary severance to eligible employees in the US. Those eligible will be contacted later today by HR. Separation terms will be determined by reference to local custom and regulations._ _Finally, we have decided to restructure our active Dividend strategies by converting the equity exposure to Research Affiliates Equity Income (RAE Income). While our Dividend team colleagues have made important contributions to the firm, we believe this conversion is a better outcome for clients as we seek consistent performance with a lower risk profile, while delivering on the objectives of high current yield and long-term capital appreciation. As a result, the dividend team will be among our colleagues referenced above who are leaving the firm._ _Here is why we are taking these measures: We remain committed to first caring for the assets that clients have entrusted to us. We also see growth potential in a range of areas including alternatives, private credit, solutions, client analytics, and regionally in many parts of the world, not to mention the increasing investor demand for many of our non-traditional strategies. We know that the role of active management has never been more important to client portfolios. The competitive demands of this industry require that we continually adapt and innovate to meet evolving client needs. Therefore, everything we do is focused on providing investment performance, innovative solutions for clients and outstanding client service._ _Of note, as we collectively move forward as a firm, we will continue to build out teams and hire the best talent globally and manage our staff levels through attrition, hiring, repositioning of resources and through promotion and compensation. We have undertaken an extensive benchmarking exercise this year to compare our compensation with competitors and will use this to remain a top payer in our industry._ _Taking these actions today positions all of us for the future. We will use our substantial resources to invest in you and add to our already remarkable talent where necessary._ _Today is a difficult day for all of us at PIMCO, but most importantly, for those affected by these decisions. The firm is providing support to those affected and we thank them again for their contributions._ _We thank you all for your continued commitment to our clients and the firm as we move forward._ _Dan, Doug and Jay_ Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: FORMER GREEK FINANCE MINISTER: How I dealt with stress when Greece nearly defaulted
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According to data collected by Pew Research, more respondents from Greece (65%), Italy (52%), France (46%), and the UK (40%) seemed to think that their nation plays a less important role in the world today compared to 10 years ago, rather than a more ...
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Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, with the Parthenon in the background, presented the government’s plan for change, in a speech titled “Greece 2021” at the Acropolis Museum. Government Spokeswoman Olga Gerovasili prologued the speech, with greetings ...
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… for an historic gathering in Crete which although diminished by some … , Poland, Greece, Cyprus and Egypt were still converging on the Greek island …
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… new international airport of Heraklion, Crete, in Kasteli will be submitted … island economy, besides tourism." Greece has made several fruitless attempts … with GEK-Terna, officials from the Greek companies have told Reuters. China …
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The new disbursement will provide "oxygen" for the GREEK economy, said EU Economy Commissioner Pierre Moscovici. "We are on the right track," he ...
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(PG-13; 94 minutes; Gold Circle): Fourteen years after “My Big Fat GREEK Wedding” became a box office smash, we're being served another helping of ...
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Sources from the within the National Bank of Greece have also mentioned to SigmaLive GREEK that although reports of Lebanese investors interested ...
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NEW YORK – Nicholas G. Tsoucalas, a federal judge on the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT), was honored on June 13 at the Kellari Taverna in Manhattan by current and former colleagues, family, and friends. The 90-year-old Greek-American is officially retiring in August, after a 30-year term as a federal judge and a total
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Along with great GREEK food, the 30th-annual Holy Trinity GREEK Festival has a variety of vendors. The Colossus Gift Shop is where Angie Mahfood, ...
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Tucked away in a little building off Route 1 in Old Saybrook is a family business that has been making pizza in their own special way since 1977, which has not gone unnoticed. The Pizza Palace received the most votes for the best Greek pizza on the Shoreline.
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Greece has fulfilled all the necessary measures to receive a new slice of bailout money from its international creditors. The progress was announced following a meeting of the board of governors of the European Stability Mechanism in Luxembourg. .ESM_Press ...
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But access to electricity can be hard to find in overcrowded camps, nor is it always free in cafes where young and old crowd together over a socket, waiting anxiously to phone home. A team of students from Edinburgh University is hoping to change that ...
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It was a week that saw three companies bring in headline GREEK singers to entertain their guests, other smaller outfits striving for — and achieving ...
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FINDLAY, Oh. (WNWO) - Life's Better Here Summer Tour is on the move and the next stop is Findlay where you can find the delicious Greek Garden. Beau Thompson is the owner of Greek Garden for seven years; however, he says the restaurant has been around for ...
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[writing] Wall Street stock analysts have a language all of their own. First, there is the technical language. There are buy upgrades, neutral ratings, and very occasionally an underweight rating, or sell. There are all the financial terms that come with analyzing public company financials. Take this nugget from a BMO Capital Markets report that landed in my inbox on Wednesday for example: SYF surprised the market negatively this morning with new credit guidance; provisions are expected to be higher (than previously guided), following a decline in late-stage cure rates. Specifically, management now expects NCO rates to rise 20-30 bps over the next 12 months, and consequently, the allowance coverage ratio to jump 20-30 bps starting in 2Q16 (relative to 1Q16 levels). The stock is Synchrony. I'm going to be honest and say I don't really know much about Synchrony, and I don't know what this means, though I hope the money managers who follow Synchrony do. Then, there is the coded language — the bits where money managers have to read between the lines. That is even more difficult to understand. Unless you're a computer, that is. In an interview on computer-driven investing on Goldman Sachs' regular podcast, Armen Avanessians, chief investment officer of Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s quantitative investment strategies team, said that it's possible to figure out what analysts really mean from their notes, before they've even made a change to a rating. Here's a transcript (emphasis ours): ARMEN AVANESSIANS: There’s a lot more data out there. I mentioned the analyst reports. Before we stripped out the numbers like you said. Today, we read the entire report. WE READ FOR THE CHANGE IN AN ANALYST TONE. I MEAN, WE KNOW THAT ANALYSTS, YOU KNOW, BEFORE THEY CHANGE THEIR RECOMMENDATION, A VERY FORMAL PROCESS, YOU’LL PICK UP THAT THEY’RE JUST STARTING TO GET MAYBE A LITTLE MORE NERVOUS, THEY’RE JUST STARTING TO USE MORE HEDGING TERMS. JAKE SIEWERT: So you’re actually looking at the adjectives? ARMEN AVANESSIANS: You’re looking ... exactly, at the tone that the analyst uses. And we can train the computer to pick up on tone in the same way that a human has been trained to pick up on tone. We also pick up on the themes that the analysts talk about. SO, FOR EXAMPLE, WHEN AN ANALYST IS ASKING QUESTIONS AT AN EARNINGS CALL, WELL, THE ANSWERS MAY NOT BE AS IMPORTANT AS THE QUESTIONS. You know, when they’re asking questions of several different companies, well, those are probably key themes we should take note of. The background here is that quant funds used to have computers analyze research reports looking for numbers and rating changes like buy, sell or hold recommendations. Now the analysis is going a lot further, with algorithms noting changes in tone that could indicate an analyst getting nervous about a company. Humans could read the reports and look for the same changes in tone, of course. But there is a limit to how many stocks a human can keep track of. Computers can do this for every stock out there. Here is Avanessians (emphasis ours): A human has a certain limit to how many companies they’re going to keep track of and the number of themes and connections they can find, they personally can find, is limited by what they personally can go through. THE SET OF COMPUTERS CAN LOOK FOR CONNECTIONS ACROSS EVERY COMPANY IN THE UNIVERSE. It can read every research report on every company, every earnings transcript and find themes that you normally wouldn't be looking for. We've written before about how quant funds are now in fashion, and how funds are using alternative data sets (think Twitter, web traffic or satellite imagery) to try and get an edge. According to Avanessians, we're still in the very early stages of this shift towards using big data in investing: I think we’re in the third inning. You know, the game has really just begun. There are players out there, there’s some people behind, some people ahead, but I would say that we’re just getting into the rhythm. The game has got a long way to go. And by the way, I think that we’re in the third inning of what’s going to be a seven-game series. SEE ALSO: WALL STREET IS ONLY JUST FIGURING OUT THE ANSWER TO AN INCREDIBLY BASIC QUESTION Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: FORMER GREEK FINANCE MINISTER: How I dealt with stress when Greece nearly defaulted
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_[bi graphics 9 decades of shareholder activism]Jeff Gramm is a hedge fund manager who teaches value investing at Columbia Business School. He is the author of “Dear Chairman: Boardroom Battles and the Rise of Shareholder Activism.”_ In 1927, Benjamin Graham pressured Northern Pipeline Company to distribute its excess cash to shareholders. When the company refused, he ran a proxy fight to put himself on the board of directors. Graham later became famous as Warren Buffett’s mentor and the father of value investing. But at the time he was taking a path untrodden as an obscure fund manager intervening in a public company’s governance. Graham later explained that Wall Street in the 1920s was an elite insiders’ club that viewed pushy stockholders as extortionists. “In the early days, the business of Wall Street was largely a gentlemen’s game, played by an elaborate set of rules. One of the basic rules was, ‘No poaching on the other man’s preserves,’” he wrote. Graham believed investors treated corporate management teams far too kindly, and he had no qualms about fighting companies on behalf of shareholders. For the rest of his career, he battled with overcapitalized corporations and argued for an “energetic attitude by stockholders toward their managements.” Benjamin Graham’s Northern Pipeline campaign was a guerrilla affair that took the board of directors by surprise. But by the 1950s, many boardrooms doubled as war rooms. When the U.S. economy began to expand after the end of World War II, a group of aggressive young men dubbed the Proxyteers targeted underperforming companies, including household names like Montgomery Ward and Twentieth Century-Fox. The most famous Proxyteer was Robert R. Young, who railed against Wall Street’s “goddambankers” and ran a carefully orchestrated proxy fight against the New York Central. The Proxyteers won the support of individual holders—“Aunt Janes,” as Young called them—with populist rhetoric promoting shareholder rights. “I’ve broken up some clubhouses that were being run on stockholders’ money, and I’ll break up some more,” said Louis Wolfson, the most magnetic of the Proxyteers. The 1960s saw a more aggressive corporate raiding tactic replace battle by proxy: the hostile tender offer. Why lobby for the support of other shareholders if you can buy them out quickly, as “Jimmy Ling the Merger King” did in his $425 million hostile tender for Jones & Laughlin? Such corporate raids peaked in the 1980s when Michael Milken used his network of high-yield debt buyers to create a liquidity boom for “takeover artists” like Ron Perelman and Nelson Peltz. SHAREHOLDERS FIRST Thirty years earlier, the Proxyteers challenged the country’s ideas about capitalism and its societal impact. America was wary of these young men in a hurry elbowing their way into the boardroom with a rallying cry that shareholder profits come first. Most people believed that companies should prioritize the welfare of their workers and communities over profits. By the 1980s, such public company “stakeholders” were being marginalized. The era of “shareholder primacy” had arrived, and profit-seeking financial investors were Hollywood material—“Masters of the Universe” like Carl Icahn, who allegedly told a target company’s CEO, “I’m only in this for the money.” [Graham_Memoirs]To understand the emergence of shareholder primacy, we need to look beyond the activists, to the passive investors behind the scenes that hold most of the votes in corporate America. When Benjamin Graham started his Wall Street career in 1914, many public companies were controlled by a small handful of insiders holding large blocks of shares. In the 1950s, public company ownership broadened as these blocks of stock were fed piecemeal to a new generation of investors eager to participate in America’s growth. Following the diffusion of stock ownership that culminated in the Proxyteer movement, there was a long and slow re-concentration of voting power. This time it gathered in the hands of large institutions—professional fiduciaries, such as pension funds and mutual funds, managing money for a broad constituency of underlying investors. In the 1960s these institutional investors ruled the markets, in the troubled ‘70s they were at its mercy, and in the early ‘80s they were exploited in the battles between corporate raiders and entrenched managers. After suffering several years of egregious greenmails and opportunistic hostile raids, institutional investors were teetering on the edge of rebellion. General Motors’ buyout of Ross Perot in 1986 drove them into the abyss at 55 miles per hour. Perot served on GM’s board and was a relentless critic of the company’s strategy. He cast the first dissenting vote in the GM boardroom since the 1920s and wrote an angry letter to CEO Roger Smith stating, “In the interest of GM, you are going to have to stop treating me as a problem and accept me as a large shareholder [and] an active board member.” Perot was incredulous when GM paid him $700 million to walk away. He said, “I’ve alerted the stockholders that if they accept this, then they deserve what they get.” Ross Perot’s battle with General Motors became a turning point in public company governance in the United States. Large pension funds that had held GM stock for years without making a peep were aghast that a company would spend so much money to _weaken_ its board of directors. CalPERS CEO Dale Hanson complained, “As owners for the last 30 or 40 years, we’ve been asleep at the switch.” Today, large institutions like CalPERS, Vanguard, and TIAA-CREF hold a 70% ownership stake in U.S. equities. As these entities have become engaged, voting owners, corporate America has focused on the bottom line. The most vivid proof is the marginalization of communities as stakeholders in public companies. In the 1960s, the Chicago Cubs successfully fended off shareholders who argued for installing lights at Wrigley Field. The Cubs knew that night baseball would increase profits, but feared it would dramatically alter Wrigleyville. For the benefit of its community, the company refused to install lights. [The price of profits description]Today, public companies routinely forsake their communities for the pursuit of profit. Businesses from GE to Jamba Juice have uprooted themselves for economic reasons. The emergence of hedge fund activism, perhaps the most visible sign of shareholder primacy, is another result of the stiffening resolve of large institutional investors. Activist investors make the headlines, but large pension funds like CalPERS have cultivated a symbiotic relationship with hedge funds that allows them to quietly pressure companies. In every bitter dispute between an activist and a management team, the big passive investors act as arbiter. If you have fundamental grievances with capitalism, it’s frustrating to hear angry shareholders pressure companies to cut costs, rather than use resources to pursue some higher purpose that benefits society. As public corporations become more efficient capitalists, the results can be chilling. One particularly grim example is Pacific Lumber. When a corporate raider took control in the 1980s, he fired most of the staff, scrapped the company’s sustainable harvesting schedule, and clear-cut thousands of acres of old-growth redwoods for a quick profit. There’s a popular narrative in academic circles that Milton Friedman ushered in a new era of shareholder primacy with his _New York Times Magazine_ article, “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits.” The reality is more complicated. Behind the rise of the shareholder is a fascinating history shaped by remarkable characters like Ross Perot, California Treasurer Jesse “Big Daddy” Unruh, Martin Lipton, a brilliant lawyer who invented the poison pill, and even Warren Buffett, who in 1964 defended American Express from activist shareholders. Buffett was the same age his mentor Ben Graham was when he first engaged Northern Pipeline. By then, poaching on the other man’s preserves was quickly becoming fair game. _"The Price of Profits," our series with Marketplace, looks at what happens when profits become a company's product. For more, visit PriceOfProfits.org._ TO SEE MORE FROM "THE PRICE OF PROFITS" FIND THE WHOLE SERIES HERE Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: FORMER GREEK FINANCE MINISTER: How I dealt with stress when Greece nearly defaulted
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ATHENS: Greece on Thursday moved to speed up the processing of asylum seekers by setting up new committees to decide which of the migrants should be sent back to Turkey, in line with a deal between the EU and Ankara. The reform comes after the 20 current ...
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“Orthodoxy is a part of our country’s history, of the identity of most of our citizens, and the Foreign Ministry and the Greek state are contributing in every way towards the unity and love of, and care for, the people and cooperation of the Orthodox Churches, of all the churches and of the secular.”
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… Jewish heritage of the Greek island of Crete and the Etz Hayyim … Embassy of Canada in Greece. Jewish history on Crete dates back more … 265 Jews of Crete, along with several hundred Greek and Italian prisoners …
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June 16 (SeeNews) - GREEK wind farm operator Eltech Anemos SA (ATH:ANEMOS) on Wednesday reported a net profit of EUR 5.43 million (USD ...
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The World Championships of the Tornado class in Lindau (Lake Constance) were continued on Wednesday with fifth race. GREEK defenders Iordanis ...
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A prominent GREEK businessman and the head of a new political party in Athens said he and his fellow GREEKS are “frightened” of the prospect of ...
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Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement is sighting growth in the GREEK market at a time when a generational shift is showing a changing attitude towards ...
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After almost four years of informal enquiry, the European Union (EU) is set to launch a formal investigation into Greece's shipping tax regime, with a ...
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Luxembourg (AFP) - Eurozone finance ministers agreed on Thursday to unlock 7.5 billion euros ($8.4 billion) in urgently needed cash for Greece, saving Athens financially for a few months. "This is a welcome breath of oxygen for the Greek economy," said the ...
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Euronews' Monica Pinna takes you on a walk around Elliniko II "temporary" refugee camp, close to Athens, during her filming for Aid Zone in Greece.…
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Trust in news is highest in Finland and lowest in Greece, a new report on digital news consumption by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism finds. And news via social media is all the rage.
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This week actor Theo James travelled to Greece on his first visit with UNHCR ahead of World Refugee Day. Theo James spoke with Rafia, a 17 year old boy from Syria who had been involved in a bomb attack Theo has a very personal story that connects him to ...
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From the EU to the UN. Diliff and UN via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA Those advocating for a UK exit from the European Union claim that Britain would be “taking back control” from Brussels if it left the EU. But their arguments about sovereignty and “control” appear to conveniently forget that many laws exist internationally. Often, these laws are created in ways that are far less democratic than the way the EU makes its legislation. While the chorus of those claiming Britain needs to get its sovereignty back gets louder, few would advocate a withdrawal from, say, the United Nations. This is for good reasons, among them the value of international cooperation. But the same reasons also apply to the EU, whose democratic and judicial accountability is actually further evolved than that of the UN and other international organisations. Undoing the EU as a more advanced system of international law would be a significant set-back for international cooperation. Today, international cooperation spans a broad range of everyday life activities from travel by air, to trade and the internet. It also covers global issues such as environmental protection, terrorism, arms control and nuclear non-proliferation. Such cooperation happens through a complex web of international agreements, and has happened for a long time. International treaties predate the modern nation state and go back to antiquity, such as peace treaties of Ancient Greece or Rome or treaties conferring reciprocal privileges on foreigners or traders in a territory. At the end of World War I in 1918, it was then-US President Woodrow Wilson in his famous Fourteen Points who proposed international integration to obtain “just and secure peace”. The League of Nations was founded on these ideas, but it took another world war for states to face the reality that there was no alternative to cooperation. In 1945, in San Francisco, 50 countries founded the United Nations. Since then, the legal framework established by international law, including specialised treaties and organisations has increased tremendously. Requirements of integration and changing perceptions about good governance and the rule of law have given rise to numerous human rights treaties since 1945 and which have put the individual more at the centre of international law. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s database UK Treaties Online contains over 14,000 treaties involving the UK. EU: A LAB FOR INTERNATIONAL LAW But the international legal framework remains rudimentary and incomplete in comparison to a country’s domestic laws, both from the perspective of accountability – the rule of law – and of democracy. There are two main consequences of this. First, an enforcement gap: international rules frequently cannot be enforced in the same way as laws within states. This means states and international organisations are less likely to be held to account if they breach the law. Second, a democracy gap: international law tends to be made by national executives, and the governance structure of international organisations tends to be less democratic than that of states. On both counts, the EU and its law-making scrubs up much better than other international law and international organisations, including the UN. The EU’s legal framework holds to account both its own member states on the international stage and the EU itself – and empowers individuals to do the same. It is the most powerful but also the most accountable international organisation there is today and may even be considered as a model or “laboratory” for other areas of international law. Such accountability contrasts sharply with the picture elsewhere in international law. UN peackekeepers have been criticised for human rights abuses. UN missions such as UN’s Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo have extensive powers over individuals, but mechanisms to hold international organisations such as the UN to account either do not exist in the first place or are weak and only developing slowly. In contrast, EU law has allowed individuals to review far-reaching interference with their rights. For example, people who were (at times erroneously) listed as terrorists have been able to review the restrictions imposed on them by EU – and indirectly UN law – such as the complete freezing of access to their bank accounts. More than that, the EU has influenced the UN, which realised that it had to give individuals a means of challenging UN sanctions decisions made against them. This provided an impulse to create the Office of the Ombudsperson. QUESTIONS OF LEGITIMACY In the context of decision-making on foreign policy issues, accountability is “thinned” out, although not totally eliminated. A government’s action within the UN Security Council, for example, is made by representatives of its national government. A global model for cooperation. Pack-Shot/www.shutterstock.com In contrast, through the EU treaties EU member states have created significant mechanisms which are capable of conferring more direct democratic legitimacy – including a democratically-elected European Parliament and the involvement of national parliaments in legislative procedures. These mechanisms help to compensate for a general “loss of control” that occurs in foreign policy areas. Although the procedures may not be perfect, the biggest challenge to democratic legitimacy results from the lack of participation of European citizens – one of the consequences of the picture painted of the EU by national governments. The pro-Brexit argument that “taking back control” would “reinstate our sovereignty” is disingenuous. International interdependency and laws are here to stay, and need to stay, as two world wars have shown. We need cooperation both for peace and the environment, and for the more anodyne practicalities of our lives. It’s also disingenuous because international cooperation in other contexts than the EU, such as bilateral trade agreements that have been proposed as an alternative to EU membership, would be far less accountable and democratic. Leaving the EU and contributing to its potential downfall puts much more at stake than a few rules we don’t understand or like and may want to legitimately criticise. Leaving threatens international integration as a principle and would cripple the most democratic and most accountable international integration project in recent history. The EU needs to continue to provide a model of international cooperation in the future. For that it needs to be developed, not trashed. [The Conversation] _Katja Ziegler received funding from the British Academy (Mid-career Fellowship) in 2014-15. _
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Skaramangas is one of the 35 Greek refugee camps. Nearly 3,000 migrants have found shelter in this unusual site, which is the location of an Hellenic Naval base. The number of migrants arriving here might reach 7,000 within the next few months. This is ...
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[great depression conversation 1938] Let's start with a quick history lesson. Coming out of the depth of the Great Depression, the late 1930s ushered in a time when the US seemed to be back on stable footing. The New Deal, a massive stimulus plan from president Franklin D. Roosevelt, had spurred growth and dropped unemployment from startling highs. Unfortunately, private investment was struggling and inflation remained on the low side. Psychologically scarred by the economic drop-off, people decided to pay down debt in their ledgers rather than go out and spend. Encouraged by the seemingly strong economy, the government began to back off the fiscal stimulus and tighten financial policy. Sound familiar? Well it should, says the Morgan Stanley global strategy team of Chetan Ahya, Elga Bartsch, and Jonathan Ashworth. In fact, the team said in a note to clients Wednesday that nearly the same situation that occurred in 1937-38 is currently happening in the US. "The critical similarity between the 1930s and the 2008 cycle is that the financial shock and the relatively high levels of indebtedness changed the risk attitudes of the private sector and triggered them to repair their balance sheets," wrote Ahya, Bartsch, and Ashworth. "During the deleveraging process, the private sector becomes risk-averse and shifts its attention towards restoring health to its balance sheets." And how did this cautious, low demand attitude end in the early 20th century? Disastrously, in fact, as the private investment couldn't replace public investment, inflation expectations plummeted and deflation rocked the economy into a double-dip recession. Unemployment rose again, and the economy went back to struggling. "In 1936-37, the premature and sharp pace of tightening of policies led to a double-dip in the US economy, resulting in a relapse into recession and deflation in 1938," the Morgan Stanley team wrote. "Similarly, in the current cycle, as growth recovered, policy-makers proceeded to tighten fiscal policy, which has contributed to a slowdown in growth in recent quarters." [Screen Shot 2016 06 16 at 10.33.34 AM] This same atmosphere is happening today as the federal government has tapered its support of the economy, and the Federal Reserve is beginning on a path of higher interest rates. This path forward so far, the team said, has shown all of the wobbles of the late 1930s. "The sluggish private demand and weakening inflation expectations are signs that the repair process for the private sector’s balance sheets is not yet complete," the note said. "If global growth stays weak for longer, the corporate sector will have to continuously adjust down its return expectations, leading to a negative feedback loop." All is not lost for the people of today, according to the strategists. In fact, a few simple policy solutions could be implemented to avoid the mistakes of the past. For one thing, the incredibly easy monetary policy that is currently in place should be boosted by fiscal stimulus. Thankfully, both presumptive presidential nominees have advocated such policies to help push the economy along. "Activating fiscal policy, particularly at a time when the monetary policy stance is still accommodative, could lead to a virtuous cycle where the corporate sector takes up private investment, and sustains job creation and income growth," the strategists wrote. To make sure that these policies have taken hold, the Morgan Stanley team said that inflation expectations have to recover. Currently, most forward-looking measures of inflation — from the University of Michigan's household survey to the five-year/five-year inflation expectation — are trending downward. Even yesterday, Fed Chair Janet Yellen was asked about these perpetually low and falling expectations, and she said she was watching them closely. According to Ahya, Bartsch, and Ashworth, Yellen and the rest of the government have a lot do to to raise them, or we could end up repeating a sad part of US economic history. SEE ALSO: THERE'S A 'BLACK HOLE' IN THE MARKET Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: FORMER GREEK FINANCE MINISTER: The single largest threat to the global economy
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.businessinsider.com |
… attending a Pan-Orthodox council in Crete that to mend fences for … , according to Russian and English-language Greek media. A total of six …
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Euro-area finance ministers approved the payment of 7.5 billion euros ($8.5 billion) of aid for Greece, ending months of wrangling over the nation’s economic reforms. The finance chiefs endorsed the disbursement at a meeting of the European Stability ...
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.bloomberg.com |
The eurozone’s top official says Greece is on track to get 7.5 billion euros ($8.4 billion) in bailout funds from international creditors.
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.washingtonpost.com |
The annual Greek festival at St. Catherine Greek Orthodox Church, 119 Common St., Braintree, opens for a four-day run. Greek music, food, dancing, church tours. Hours are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, noon to 9 p.m ...
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Want to enjoy a taste of the Mediterranean in Melbourne but don’t know where to go for great Greek eats? Let’s take a look at the diverse options for Greek dining that the city offers with this list of the top 10 Greek restaurants in Melbourne.
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[Disneyland Shanghai] Here is what you need to know. THE BANK OF JAPAN KEPT POLICY ON HOLD. Japan's central bank voted 7 to 2 in favor of keeping its benchmark interest rate unchanged at -0.1%. Additionally, members voted 8 to 1 in favor of expanding the monetary base at an annual pace of about 80 trillion yen. In its statement, the BOJ said: "Global financial markets have remained volatile. Therefore, due attention still needs to be paid to the risk that an improvement in the business confidence of Japanese firms and conversion of the deflationary mindset might be delayed and that the underlying trend in inflation may be negatively affected." The Japanese yen is stronger by 1.6% at 104.28 per dollar. THE BANK OF ENGLAND HOLDS. The BOE left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at a record-low 0.50% for an 87th straight month. The central bank also held its asset-purchase program at £375 billion ($530 billion). The inaction was expected with the vote on whether to leave the European Union taking place June 23. In its statement, the BOE warned that a Brexit could have a negative economic impact and put pressure on the British pound. The pound is weaker by 0.6% at 1.4118. LEAVE HAS SURGED TO A 6-POINT LEAD IN AN IMPORTANT BREXIT SURVEY. A new Evening Standard newspaper poll, conducted by the reputable polling firm Ipsos MORI, shows that 53% of respondents favor Leave while 47% favor Remain. This was the first time a poll conducted by Ipsos MORI poll had favored Leave. FOREIGNERS SOLD A RECORD AMOUNT OF TREASURYS. Foreign investors sold $74.6 billion worth of US Treasurys in April, according to US Treasury Department data. The outflow was "the largest since the US Treasury Department started recording Treasury debt transactions in January 1978," Reuters says. China ($1.2443 trillion) and Japan ($1.143 trillion) remained the two largest holders of US Treasury debt. BOND YIELDS ARE SINKING TO RECORD LOWS. Money is rushing into the safety of high-quality sovereign debt amid growing fears of a British exit from the European Union, or Brexit, and uncertainty in the global economy. Thursday's buying pushed 10-year yields in Australia (1.999%), Germany (-3.6 basis points), Japan (-20.9 bps), and the UK (1.09%) to all-time lows. As money moves into safer sovereign debt it's leaving peripheral Europe. Yields in Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain are all higher. GOLD IS SURGING. Gold trades up 1.5% near $1,308 an ounce after reclaiming the $1,300 level for the first time since August 2014. Thursday's gains come amid growing fears of a Brexit and after the Fed held interest rates steady at Wednesday's meeting. Silver is higher by 1.2% at $17.71 an ounce. DISNEYLAND DEBUTS IN SHANGHAI. The theme park, which cost $5.5 billion and took five years to build, opened its doors on Thursday. Disney hopes it can tap into China's growing middle class, as 330 million people live within a three-hour drive or train ride from the park. The company has called this its greatest opportunity since Walt Disney purchased land in central Florida in the 1960s, Reuters says. STOCK MARKETS EVERYWHERE ARE LOWER. Japan's Nikkei (-3.1%) trailed in Asia, and Germany's DAX (-0.6%) lags in Europe. S&P 500 futures are lower by 7.25 points at 2,064.50. EARNINGS REPORTS TRICKLE OUT. Kroger and Rite Aid report ahead of the opening bell, while Oracle and Smith & Wesson release their quarterly results after markets close. US ECONOMIC DATA IS HEAVY. Initial claims, CPI, Philly Fed, and the current account balance will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET. Then, at 10 a.m. ET, the NAHB Housing Market Index crosses the wires. Finally, natural-gas inventories are due out at 10:30 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is down 1bp at 1.56%. Join the conversation about this story »
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Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem confirmed that Greece has met all the prior actions that will allow the disbursement of a 7.5 billion euro loan tranche, upon his arrival at a European Stability Mechanism (ESM) board of governors meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday. Greece seems to have done all the work, he noted, apart from four
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The economic crisis and the strict austerity bound to the loan agreement kill. They kill Greeks. The Bank of Greece may not write it in such a melodramatic way on its Monetary Policy Report 2015-2016. However, the conclusions in the chapter about “Reforms in health, economic crisis and impact on […]
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.keeptalkinggreece.com |
The new development law was voted in principle by the Greek Parliament on Thursday. 152 deputies of SYRIZA and Independent Greeks voted for the bill while all the other political parties voted against (101 votes) and the deputies of the Democratic Alliance ...
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT greece.greekreporter.com |
BRUSSELS (Sputnik) — Greece has completed all the measures needed to receive a new tranche of bailout from its international creditors, Eurogroup head Jeroen Dijsselbloem told reporters on Thursday. "They seem to have done all the work on the prior ...
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The move was part of a preliminary probe investigating allegations of tax evasion by hundreds of wealthy GREEKS whose names appeared on a list ...
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… ) Get short URL BRUSSELS (Sputnik) — Greece has completed all the measures … for Greece could be approved at the Eurogroup meeting on Thursday. Greece … as other changes to the Greek legislation. The new tranche of …
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… Mediterranean menu includes gyros. souvlaki, greek salads, baklava and more. And … Guest gift certificates to Little Greek Fresh Grill. The $30 gift … more information, CLICK HERE. Little Greek Fresh Grill Shelbyville Road Plaza …
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Real estate prices in Greece will continue to drop in the next few quarters, a Bank of Greece report says. The central bank’s report on monetary policy predicts that prices and demand will continue to slide, albeit at a lower rate. According to the ...
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