The Cyprus Parliament rejected a bail out plan that would have seized almost 10% of private savings deposits and used the money to bail out Cyprus banks. The vote was almost unaminous.
Size matters when it comes to bank bail outs and European politics. In the most brazen bail out deal yet, the citizens of Cyprus just had their savings seized to give the money to the banks. I kid you not. Here is the Eurogroup statement:
The ECB, Europe's Central Bank, has launched a sovereign bond buying program, arguing for price stability and to make it clear the Euro is here to stay. ECB President Mario Draghi:
It is against this background that the Governing Council today decided on the modalities for undertaking Outright Monetary Transactions (OMTs) in secondary markets for sovereign bonds in the euro area. As we said a month ago, we need to be in the position to safeguard the monetary policy transmission mechanism in all countries of the euro area. We aim to preserve the singleness of our monetary policy and to ensure the proper transmission of our policy stance to the real economy throughout the area. OMTs will enable us to address severe distortions in government bond markets which originate from, in particular, unfounded fears on the part of investors of the reversibility of the euro. Hence, under appropriate conditions, we will have a fully effective backstop to avoid destructive scenarios with potentially severe challenges for price stability in the euro area. Let me repeat what I said last month: we act strictly within our mandate to maintain price stability over the medium term; we act independently in determining monetary policy; and the euro is irreversible.
This is an unlimited, open ended, short term maturity of one to three years, Euro area governments' bonds buy back program. The details are as warranted, dependent upon market conditions and at market value.
The planets are aligning for another round of debt monetization in Europe, backed up by the United States. Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, is reportedly looking at expanding the amount of Spanish government debt he can buy. He is also said to be considering another LTRO – Long Term Refinancing Operation, which is the mechanism the central bank uses to buy debt from private sector banks.
That Spain needs help is beyond doubt. The global bond market has been fleeing Spanish government debt as rapidly as it can, forcing yields to the 7.3% area, which is beyond the point where the Spanish government can continue to pay interest from its own revenues without severely cutting back on domestic expenditures. The same situation is playing out at the local level in Spain: Andalusia and other provinces have been besieging Madrid for help in meeting the interest burden on their own debts. There is also talk that medium to small size Spanish commercial banks are out of liquid collateral, and are unable to meet further collateral calls on the global markets.
Spain is desperate, pleading and begging for help. Literally Spain said it does not have access to markets to refinance their debt. This is after the G7 decided to do nothing.
Spain said on Tuesday it was losing access to credit markets and Europe should help revive its banks, as finance chiefs of the Group of Seven major economies conferred on the currency bloc's worsening debt crisis but took no joint action.
Treasury Minister Cristobal Montoro sent out a dramatic distress signal about the impact of his country's banking crisis on government borrowing, saying that at current rates, financial markets were effectively off limits to Spain.
"The risk premium says Spain doesn't have the market door open," Montoro said on Onda Cero radio. "The risk premium says that as a state we have a problem in accessing markets, when we need to refinance our debt."
Now Spain is up against it, testing the market with a bond sale, all in hope of avoiding a bail out, with all of the austerity demands that come with one.
Spain will try to raise between one and two billion euros in bonds on Thursday, a crucial yet cautious test of Madrid's ability to tap investors after a minister said the country was being cut off from the markets.
Traders in New York this morning were greeted with this happy headline from The Wall Street Journal:
US Stock Futures Higher; Buoyed by Greece
Yes indeed, the Dow Jones index is set to open at least 70 points higher because the Greek parliament approved the additional austerity measures demanded by the European Union, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. In exchange for €130 million in a second bailout by the “Troika”, as the three lending institutions are called, Greece will have to cut its minimum wage by 22% and the government will have to lay off an additional 150,000 workers. This is in a country that is in its fifth year of recession, with an official unemployment rate of 21%. Business has virtually collapsed, with many private sector companies on the verge of bankruptcy. The health system is so starved for funds that a bacteria resistant to all medicines is raging through hospitals, forcing the chronically ill to decide whether to even risk seeking professional care. Poverty is reaching extreme levels and is well-entrenched among what used to be the middle class. Children are sent to school so hungry that they are fainting in the classrooms. As of last night, the crowds that were storming through Athens and other large cities no longer were content to throw rocks at the police; Molotov cocktails were used to set at least forty buildings in Athens on fire. The police in Athens, facing crowds estimated from 80,000 to 100,000 people, were forced off Syntagma Square, and appeared to have run out of tear gas. Journalists described the business center of Athens as a war zone. The country is slipping into social disorder, if not anarchy. But stock markets in Europe were up today on the happy news that the Greek parliament approved the additional austerity measures.
You've Been Warned. So says the European Central Bank about an impending collision between the never ending European debt crisis and Europe's increasingly slowing economies.
Risks to euro area financial stability increased considerably in the second half of 2011, as the sovereign risk crisis and its interplay with the banking sector worsened in an environment of weakening macroeconomic growth prospects. Indeed, several key risks identified in the June 2011 Financial Stability Review (FSR) materialised after its finalisation. Most notably, contagion effects in larger euro area sovereigns gathered strength amid rising headwinds from the interplay between the vulnerability of public finances and the financial sector. Euro area bank funding pressures, while contained by timely central bank action, increased markedly in specific market segments, particularly for unsecured term funding and US dollar funding.
Here's the money shot statement from the ECB. Things are worse than right after Lehman Brother's, the OMG Economic Armageddon global meltdown almost, collapse:
The transmission of tensions among sovereigns, across banks and between the two intensified to take on systemic crisis proportions not witnessed since the collapse of Lehman Brothers three years ago.
Here come the dominoes in the form of global economic malaise. Contagion is when one nation's economic disaster spills over and affects the globe. That's the United States folks.
In the middle of the night, the Federal Reserve moved to make it cheaper to swap Euros for dollars, in a coordinated move with Switzerland, Canada, England, the European Central Bank and Japan.
The Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, and the Swiss National Bank are today announcing coordinated actions to enhance their capacity to provide liquidity support to the global financial system.
This is supposed to stem a global liquidity crunch. In other words, to prop up the Euro's value.
These central banks have agreed to lower the pricing on the existing temporary U.S. dollar liquidity swap arrangements by 50 basis points so that the new rate will be the U.S. dollar overnight index swap (OIS) rate plus 50 basis points. This pricing will be applied to all operations conducted from December 5, 2011. The authorization of these swap arrangements has been extended to February 1, 2013. In addition, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, and the Swiss National Bank will continue to offer three-month tenders until further notice.
More interesting the Central banks are offering swaps in multi-currency denominations:
The ECB, Europe's Central Bank, has 
The planets are aligning for another round of debt monetization in Europe, backed up by the United States. Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, is reportedly looking at expanding the amount of Spanish government debt he can buy. He is also said to be considering another LTRO – Long Term Refinancing Operation, which is the mechanism the central bank uses to buy debt from private sector banks.
Spain is desperate, 
Yes indeed, the Dow Jones index is set to open at least 70 points higher because the Greek parliament approved the additional austerity measures demanded by the European Union, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. In exchange for €130 million in a second bailout by the “Troika”, as the three lending institutions are called, Greece will have to cut its minimum wage by 22% and the government will have to lay off an additional 150,000 workers. This is in a country that is in its fifth year of recession, with an official unemployment rate of 21%. Business has virtually collapsed, with many private sector companies on the verge of bankruptcy. The health system is so starved for funds that a bacteria resistant to all medicines is raging through hospitals, forcing the chronically ill to decide whether to even risk seeking professional care. Poverty is reaching extreme levels and is well-entrenched among what used to be the middle class. Children are sent to school so hungry that they are fainting in the classrooms. As of last night, the crowds that were storming through Athens and other large cities no longer were content to throw rocks at the police; Molotov cocktails were used to set at least forty buildings in Athens on fire. The police in Athens, facing crowds estimated from 80,000 to 100,000 people, were forced off Syntagma Square, and appeared to have run out of tear gas. Journalists described the business center of Athens as a war zone. The country is slipping into social disorder, if not anarchy. But stock markets in Europe were up today on the happy news that the Greek parliament approved the additional austerity measures.
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