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ECB study put out in April 2013 shows household wealth and income in eurozone countries based on 2009-2010 data for 60,000 households throughout the eurozone. The household wealth in southern European countries is higher than that in Germany. The study shows why ordinary Germans oppose bailouts for banks, Greece, and eurozone countries that experienced a boom in the 2000-2010 period, a period in which German workers took small pay raises to improve German competitiveness. Germans also see Portugal and Ireland in a different light compared to Greece, Cyprus, Italy and Spain where real estate speculation, lax accounting, tax evasion and favored treatment of certain groups, has created or aggravated the debt problems. Wealth is defined as total assets, including real estate, vehicles, bank deposits, investments and pensions, minus liabilities for mortgages, credit card debt and loans. By this measure German households had an average of 200,000 euros in wealth, and lower than this in Finland and Netherlands. At the median or midpoint German households had 50,000 euros, the lowest in the eurozone, for Greece the median was 102,000 euros. The impact of home ownership is significant in the report, as home ownership is lower in Germany than in Southern European countries, and mortgage interest is not considered favorably in German tax laws. The decline in value of homes after 2010 is also not reflected. Another indicator for comparitive wellbeing is income, and this is shown in figures released in March 2013 from the European Statistics Agency for GDP per capita. For Germany per capita GDP was 29,000 euros in 2010. The average GDP per capita for the eurozone is about 24,000 euros. By this measure Greece is at 21,000 euros, 24,000 euros for Italy and for Spain. Germany being 18-19% above Spain and Italy. If Germans, Dutch, Finns and Austrians are less well off then the argument favors having the banks, creditors, and including depositors, in a burdensharing arrangement for bailout of troubled eurozone economies. ...

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Siss central will help recapitalize UBS with investment of $5.3 billion for a 9% stake in UBS. Credit Suisse told the central bank that it would raise its funds privtely. It is raising $9 billion privately with help of Quatar Investment Authority. This takes Tier One Capital Ratio to 13.7% for Credit Suisse and to 11.5% for UBS. The governments investment in UBS takes the form of a bond that pays 12.5% coupon and is convertible into a roughly 9% nonvoting stake in the bank. Under the Swiss bailout plan UBS will transfer securities backed mostly by US and European residential mortgages into a special fund, which will borrow as much as $54 billion from the Swiss central bank to finance the holdings. The other $6 billion will come from an equity injection by UBS. The fund will attempt to seel the assets over 8 t 12 years, with the government getting the first $1 billion of any profit and splitting the rest with UBS. In the case of a loss the governemnt would get added stake in the bank. The government intervention will meaqn a reduction in risk taking by the leading Swiss banks. The reason for the governments immediate actionto take the toxic assets off of UBS books was that other banks and institutions wer recently shying away from UBS affecting Switzerland's ability to keep its leading position as a banker for wealth management worldwide. The head of the Siss Federal Finance Administration said that the $60 billion asset purchasing agreement would not lead to losses for the government as the toxic assets had already been aggressively been written down on UBS books. ...

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Thirty minutes after trading started at the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Jan. 6, 2016, circuit breaker mechanisms were triggered following a decline of 7%. This followed a similiar circuit breaker trigerring on Jan. 4, 2016. This time investor anxiety was over a devaluation of the renminbi by the government. This triggered a drop of 3.5% in Germany's DAX index and 2.2% in the S&P 500 index. Faulty communication and confusing signals to markets by the central bank PBOC, and securities regulator CSRC, also played a part in increasing investor anxiety. Similiar problems were seen in summer 2015.

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The Bernanke Fed's low interest rates are hurting seniors and savers who are earning very little on their savings. This is taking money away from millions of savers and reducing consumption spending by seniors and savers. According to the Labor Department average annual investment income for 24.6 million American households headed by seniors over the age of 65 was $2,564 in 2009. This is down significantly from prior years. A survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute shows that one in three retirees have had to dig deeper into their savings to cover basic necessities in 2010. With inflation at an annualized rate of 5.6% in the first quarter 2011, interest rates of 0.24% on savings accounts do little to cover inflation. There is a sense that this is hurting retirees who have lived prudently and worked hard and on savers of different ages. This actually discourages healthy savings that would protect Americans from job losses and build a safer future. American contributions to bank and 401 (k) accounts is only 4% of disposable income in 2010, according to the Fed. Another danger is that the smaller 401 (k) accounts of the average American family after losses in earlier stock market declines, will again be exposed to the fluctuations and risk in the stock market. This could happen as money is shifted to the stock market in the hope of earning better returns. Seniors are an active voting group, and voting patterns show a shift to Congressional candidates who question Fed policy....

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The U.S. Federal Reserve likely to take into account very low inflation in the U.S. and deflationary trends in Europe, as it makes monetary policy in 2015.

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Malpass call sfor astrong dollar policy as the way to prosperity for the US, at atime when other countries are looking to promote domestic consumption for growth by having stong yen in the case of new Japanese policy and a stable but stronger yuan in the case of new Chinese policy. With high levels of debt is easier for the US government to let a weaker dollar reduce the size of its debt, but ith has other bad consequences in promoting jobs and growth in the domestic economy.

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Poland's Finance minister Rostowski, says that Poland will join a trading band pegged to the euro called the exchange rate mechanism 2, for the zloty by the middle of 2009. This should help support the zloty in this difficult period giving the backing of the ECB to its currency. The zloty has lost 35% of its value in the past year. Poland, he said, will keep its deficit below the 3% level of GDP, and will rely more on monetary policy to fight the recession. Rostowski is visiting European capitals to give the message that Poland is different from some other Eastern European countries like Hungary, and it has more trading links to the west. Poland expects to have some growth of 2% in 2009.

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MaC Group, a risk advisor to Spanish banks, says Spanish banks hold about 30 billion pounds of distressed real estate and unsellable land. Prices are down 28% from the peak in 2007, according to a report by the IESE Business School, and are expected to fall a further 15-20 percent in the next 2-3 years by some experts. Much of the bank owned land is far from city centers and there is no demand for this. One Madrid based consultant R.R. de Acuna Asociados, says 43% of bank owned land is poorly located and there may be no demand for unfinished residential units for decades. The new government of Mariano Rajoy plans to take action to cleanup the banking system. Louis de Guindos, director of PricewaterhouseCoopers and IE Business School Center of Finance is expected to become the new finance minister. Guindos says strict rules need to be implemented, with some banks able to handle this and others that won't. MaC Group's Cantos, a managing partner, says the gap is huge between prices offered by banks and what investors will pay- as much as 70%. Prime assets can be sold for 30% discount but the land, residential and commercial real estate will require discounts of 70%. Banks have made provisions for losses of 30%, and are now facing the prospect of another 40% in losses. As a result many of the medium and small sized banks which operate only inside Spain may have to be shut down or consolidated by the government of Mariano Rajoy. Only the larger banks like Banco Santander, Banco Bilbao, La Caxia, and Bankia are likely to surivive....

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The riots in Athens as the Greek parliament voted to support the passage of an EU plan of austerity cuts, including a 22% cut in the minimum wage, pension cuts and large cuts in the number of government employees. The Popular Orthodox Rally party in the governing Greek coalition withdrew its support, 22 members of the Socialist party and 21 members of the New Democracy party in parliament opposed the measures. Elections are planned for April, 2012. Antonio Samaras, head of the New Democracy party, told parliament that he supported the measure only so that Greece could continue using the euro and have "the possibility tomorrow to negotiate and change the policy that is being imposed on us today."

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A report by the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the best approach to tackle drug related violence in Mexico and new approaches to ensure public safety. The report says it may take ten years, or even a generation to reform Mexico's poorly trained, ineffective and in many cases corrupt police and courts. The new focus on police and courts and training comes as it is reported that only 2 percent of reported crimes in Mexico lead to convictions. Some reports point to middle class fears of taking cases to the police because of corruption. This report in the U.S. comes as a new president takes office in Mexico with a different approach to the drug war.