Merkel’s Patrons: Donation From BMW Owners Raises Eyebrows – 16 October 2013

Just weeks after the German election, Angela Merkel’s conservatives received donations totalling 690,000 euros from the family that owns almost half of BMW. The payment coincides with Berlin’s forceful intervention to halt tough new CO2 curbs for carmakers in the EU.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) received a hefty donation from major shareholders of BMW last week. That in itself isn’t unusual. The Quandt/Klatten family, which owns 46.7 percent of the Munich-based premium automaker, has traditionally been among the party’s most faithful donors. On Oct. 9, the family transferred a total of €690,000 ($935,000) to the CDU, according to the parliament’s administrative body which published the payment on its website. But this time, the cash injection coincided with a government decision that helps automakers like BMW.

Read the whole story at : www.spiegel.de / link to original article

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John Ward – Greek Deficit : How Berlin Encouraged Papandreou To Big-Up The 2009 Greek Deficit – 26 June 2012

Defence of German banks a key factor

Schäuble and Merkel….implicated in an incredible scam

How Venizelos fired ELSTAT moles to cover up the truth

Spanish European Commissioner backs story of international fraud

John Ward – Crash 2 : Berlin Reverses Its Millimetre Of Movement On Eurobonds – 6 June 2012

The Earth may be turning, but the economy is at Dead Stop

‘Germany has not moved one inch towards fiscal union of any kind’ writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in today’s Telegraph.

And I’m afraid he’s right. Merkel is a crafty minx, and no mistake: she appeared to have buckled yesterday, but now she’s upped and said “Oooo nein, you misunderstood me”. This isn’t playing well in either Washington (where Geithner is tearing his hair out by the roots) and back in Bankfurt, where – I’m told – even Draghi looked exasperated after taking a phone-call from the Ostikanzler yesterday late afternoon.

John Ward – Greek Scare-Tactics Continue As Berlin Remorselessly Plans A Future Fiscal Union Dominated By Wolfgang Schäuble – 31 May 2012

Schäuble’s outline plan for FU is a totalitarian accident waiting to happen

One man’s poison….

There was more Domesday scariness from the National Bank of Greece on Tuesday. If Greece exits the euro, its latest report suggested, the events would lead to a devaluation of the new currency by 65%,  a GDP nosediving by 22%, 34% unemployment, and income per capita nearly halving to 55%.

John Ward – Breaking : Bild Goes Into Euro-Scare Hyperdrive On Greek Banknotes – 29 May 2012

German tabloid hysteria has just gone ever so slightly further over the top this afternoon with a lead article in Bild asking ‘What will the Y-serial-number euros in my wallet be worth when Greece steps outside the euro?’ In the best traditions of all tabloid terror, the conclusion in bold, two paragraphs in, is, ‘Very soon these Greek euros will have no value at all! In short – at some point we’re going to have worthless euros in our pockets!’

John Ward – Greece Breaking : Athens Caretaker Government Forced To Raid Recapitalisation Budget To Keep Going – 25 May 2012

The Slog has learned that Greece’s Accounting Office produced an internal briefing paper this week warning that tax revenues are likely to miss hoped-for targets by some €1.35 billion. While some of what follows has been reported in the newspaper Kathimerini, the real rate of decline in tax receipts has been understated.

John Ward – Euroblown : Greece : How We All Paid €220bn To Get Deeper In Debt – How To Spend €220bn And Wind Up €20bn Worse Off – 24 May 2012

Another little dose of Greek reality. In Crete as of yesterday afternoon, prescriptions have been refused at all pharmacies unless customers pay the full price. It’s obvious really: if you raid the hospital bank accounts to pay off the bondholders, the hospitals don’t pay the pharmacies, and so the chemist charges full wack. I think under Friedmanite economics that would be called the market deciding.

John Ward – Euroblown : Merkel “Fears Greek Distractions Will Torpedo Currency Union” – Summint Signposts : Hollande’s Eurobond, And Greece’s Banks – 23 May 2012

Can Hollande offer what Merkel wants?

The poker game that is non-negotiable bailout terms v Greek exit threat continues, but most of the propaganda is now coming from Berlin-am-Brussels. A German source suggested last night that Merkel is adamant that Greece must not derail the dash to Fiscal Union. If Francois Hollande gets his way, however, the Greeks will not be required to call the EU’s bluff – or vice versa.

Mish/ Mike Shedlock – Germany Rules Out Eurobonds For 104th Time; Damned If They Do, Damned If They Don’t – 23 May 2012

I have no idea what the actual number of times Germany Has ruled out Eurobonds. It could be 504 or even 1004. I Made up the number 104 which simply means “a lot”.

Nonetheless, the Eurobond idea resurfaces every other week or so, and every time, someone from Germany (typically Merkel, the Bundesbank, or the Finance Minister) rules them out.

John Ward – Exclusive : Euro Banknotes Update : Berlin Printing New Euronotes (X) En Masse, ECB Withdrawing Greek Notes (Y) – 18 May 2012

Slog’s Brussels mole clears up the riddle

“must mean Greek euroexit now seen as near-certainty”

Following this morning’s Slogpost about the dearth of Greek-origin euronotes (Y) and the torrent of new German versions (X) across the EU at the moment, I have been in contact with my regular Brussels informant. Since appearing, the piece that went up this morning has evoked a mass of emails to my Slog address, all of which have enabled further quantification of the fact that German notes are dominating supplies at the minute, while Greek versions are disappearing fast.