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About $229 billion, three fourth of Greece's debt, is now held by the European Central Bank, the IMF and the European Commission. This is taxpayer money and the governments are making sure that they get back bailout loans in the form of interest payments. About two thirds of the $177 billion given to Greece as bailout loans since May 2010 actually came back to the ECB, IMF, and the EC, in the form of interest. The ECB is keen on recovering taxpayer money. The money route has been setup with an escrow account in Greece for bailout loans so that interest payments get paid, and this money cannot be used for any other purpose. Banking experts say this is a practice in risk management, and with Greece's poor record in finances the controls have been put in place to recover money the ECB invested in Greek bonds in an effort to calm nervous financial markets and now gets about 10% in annual interest payment. Under earlier debt restructuring for private creditors to Greece a haircut of over 50% on Greek bonds was taken, with the ECB insisting on receiving full payment. If Greece were to repudiate the loans under a new elected government losses would have to be taken by the ECB, IMF, and EC, and by private creditors. The ECB has Greek bonds in the range of $44 billion to $69 billion, and the European Financial Stability Facility $88 billion, by some estimates. Greece's exit from the euro would result in losses on these bonds .for the ECB and the EFSF, ultimately European taxpayers. It would also make the new bonds to private creditors under the restructuring of little value which is why European banks would not favor that outcome. Greece's tax receipts at some point, possibly 2013, would exceed basic operating expenses of the government, at which point a future Greek government might decide to exit the euro and stop interest payments on debt in its best interest....

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Slower growth for luxury car sales in China in 2013. German carmakers BMW, Audi and Mercedes are strong in this segment.

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The National Front party of Jean-Marie Le Pen received over 20% of the vote in the first round of the presidential election in France. Socialist candidate Hollande received 27% and Sarkozy 25%, with about 80% of the votes counted. Jean-Marie Le Pen campaigned on the economy and fears of economic decline, as well as in favor of French national identity. She called for France to leave the EU.

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Blackberry uses its strengths in mobile security to jointly develop a security focussed tablet with IBM and Samsung in 2015. The tablet will be piced at about $2380. The tablet uses Secusmart unit of Blackberry's encryption technology, is based on Samsung's Galaxy Tab S 10.5, and uses IBM technologies to separate work applications from personal apps.

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The ECB stands ready to act with the unanimous support of its 25 member governing policy, says Mario Draghi, president of the ECB. Draghi said that "if oil feeds into other prices, that could generate exactly what we want to avoid, namely a spiralling downward phenomenon" for wages and prices. Mark Carney of the Bank of England, says he will see "how things evolve." The U.S. Federal Reserve might slow planned rate increases in 2016, if inflation remains well below the target of 2%, and conditions indicate adverse effect on the economy.

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Luis Almagro, president of the Organization of American States, from the small South American nation of Uruguay, says he has decided to speak up on Latin American issues, for respecting the sentiments of the people and democratic process. This is a welcome trend and more Latin American voices need to be heard, for Latin Americans to make their own assessment of the needs of the people, the problems and how to tackle them. More dialogue is needed between the government and the opposition parties to come up with better approaches and throw light on problems. The effort of Mr. Chavez however well intentioned, following neglect of social spending and needs of neglected groups under previous administrations, has gone to the other extreme leading to isolation from the rest of the industrialized world's economies- something no country can afford to do today because of the pace of technological change, much less smaller oil or commodity dependent economies. Large petroleum subsidies need to be addressed in Venezuela, as Mr. Maduro now says, and opening of a dialogue with the opposition parties is one result of Mr. Almagro's efforts. At some point a transition is needed with support of all political parties to bring Venezuela back into the global economy. Inflation of 141%, and contraction of the economy by 10% hurts all Venezuelans. Not even faint traces of the Monroe doctrine that asserted U.S. dominance in South America exists today, and it is upto Latin Americans to tackle problems of corruption, misguided policies, lack of emphasis on innovation and education. The Washington Post's deputy editorial page editor Jackson Diehl, does a service to Latin America by calling attention to such voices for dialogue and problem solving....