World's most libertarian countries

As Uruguay, a country which has never criminalized cannabis for personal use, turns to legalizing its cultivation and distribution, we look at other trailblazing, libertarian countries.

Drugs

1. Portugal
In 2001, Portugal became the first European country to decriminalise possession of all drugs for personal use. The country introduced state-funded therapy programmes for abusers which have seen record number of people seeking help. Rates of HIV infection and drug-related deaths have also halved in the ten years since the new legislation.

2. Czech Republic
While most nods go the Netherlands’ way when considering drug possession, it is in fact the Czechs that have the most liberal laws when it comes to personal use. Citizens can legally be in possession of up to half an ounce of marijuana, 40 ‘magic mushrooms’, four tabs of LSD or Ecstasy and one gram of cocaine. Read more >>

Rush to ATMs in Cyprus

A planned tax on Cyprus bank depositors as part of a European Union bailout is sending people rushing to ATMs to withdraw cash.

The EU has required a one-time tax of 9.9% tax on deposits of more than €100,000 starting Tuesday, as part of a bailout of the tiny nation. On Saturday, the EU unveiled a €10 billion plan to rescue Cyprus' outsized banking sector and avoid a default.

It was the first time that the EU has insisted on such terms for bank depositors as part of a bailout. The EU's bailouts other nations in the last three years, such as Greece and Portugal, have usually been accompanied with strict budget restrictions and led to big losses for bond holders.

The Cyprus Parliament is expected to vote on the plan Monday. If it goes through, people with less than €100,000 in deposits will have to pay a tax of 6.75%.
As Cypriots heard the news of the tax, they started lining up outside of ATMs to withdraw money. Banks have placed withdrawal limits of €400 and many ATMs were running out of cash over the weekend. Read more >>

Hundreds of thousands march against austerity in Portugal

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Lisbon and other Portuguese cities Saturday to protest against the government's austerity measures aimed at rescuing the debt-hit eurozone nation.

The rallies were organised by a non-political movement which claimed 500,000 marched in the country's capital and another 400,000 in the main northern city of Porto. There have been no official estimates of the crowds.

But the mood of the crowd was clearly political, calling for new elections with banners declaring "Portugal to the polls!" and "If you fall asleep in a democracy, you wake up in a dictatorship".

Another banner showed a picture of centre-right Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho with the caption: "Today I am in the street, tomorrow it will be you." Read more >>

Millions of workers on strike across Europe protesting austerity

Police and protesters clashed in Spain on Wednesday as millions of workers went on strike across Europe to protest spending cuts they say have made the economic crisis worse. Hundreds of flights were cancelled, car factories and ports were at a standstill and trains barely ran in Spain and Portugal where unions held their first ever coordinated general strike.

Riot police arrested at least two protesters in Madrid and hit others with batons, witnesses said, and in Rome students pelted police with rocks in a protest over money-saving plans for the school system. International rail services were disrupted by strikes in Belgium and workers in Greece, Italy and France planned work stoppages or demonstrations as part of a "European Day of Action and Solidarity".

"We're on strike to stop these suicidal policies," said Candido Mendez, head of Spain's second-biggest labor federation, the General Workers' Union, or UGT. Read more >>

Job Growth: United States Worse Than Turkey

Patrick Allen | CNBC
The U.S. economy may have fared better than others over the last five years despite finding itself at the center of the 2008 financial crisis, but data from the OECD show the country's job market performed as badly as Iceland and Portugal.

"There have been large disparities in the evolution of employment rates across OECD countries since the start of the crisis," said the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on Thursday.

Spanish unemployment rate rises to new eurozone record of 21.3 percent

Image via WikipediaSpain’s unemployment rate jumped in the first quarter to 21.3 percent, a eurozone record and the country’s highest since 1997, with over 4.9 million people out of work, the government said Friday.

Joblessness during the January-March period jumped 1 percentage point from 20.3 percent at the end of 2010, and adds pressure on Spain as it tries to recover from nearly two years of recession and convince investors that it can handle its heavy debt load.

“This data is very negative and grave,” said Labor Minister Valeriano Gomez.

The country is struggling to shift away from dependence on the construction sector, which supported growth for years until the financial crisis popped the Spain’s real estate bubble, as well as make the economy more competitive and reduce national debt. More...

One need travel no further for answers after reading this intelligent summary of Japan's Nuclear Crises

From fiatsfire.blogspot.com

Before we discuss "the markets" or whatever you want to call them now, let's briefly look at the situation in Japan, which has "officially" deteriorated. The breaking news over night that a "breach" in a reactor "may have occurred" and that the situation is now "very grave and serious" should be no surprise to keen investors watching world news events. For even laymen know that when radiation is detected thousands of miles away in Iceland, when radiation in drinking water 150 miles away is detected, when high levels of radiation in sea water miles away are discovered, when radiation levels 25 miles away from the epicenter in the air are so high one could get sick in hours if not minutes, when radiation is detected in milk and food and made unsafe -- we know at least one of those 6 reactors is leaking. Which is why it is particularly interesting the officials are just now saying "evacuations are encouraged" between the 12-19 mile "safe to stay indoors" zone when the US and all other nations had set the minimum limit at 50 miles. I wonder if money has anything to do with that?

Now that it's been admitted officially that the rods are exposed and likely have been since the March 14th explosions, we can now accept that this is beyond the Chernobyl accident. Of course, this has been known since almost 10 days ago that "Uncovered Nuclear Fuel Rods In Japan Could Ignite A Chernobyl-Like Disaster" as the title of this article dated the 16th of March states. Also 10 days ago, Japanese officials talked about a "lag time" of information as to the reason why the entire world was saying the disaster was much worse than they were admitting to. It seems the "lag time" they were talking about applied to them. Who's kidding who?

Of course, they can always raise the "healthy" limit of radiation exposure... oh, scratch that - they already did. This leads nicely into two other topics: 1) Is this event a foretaste of the way other gov'ts handle these types of situations, which have a very high probability of occurring and 2) if the markets even care anymore about any bad news, here, here, here, here, here and here just to start. Notice too, the timing of an "upward revised" GDP could not have come at a better time (I say show me the money!).

All that matters is the endless flow of money being pumped into the markets to keep them up. Do you have your rally hats on? A quick look at the markets shows green everywhere with a 100 point rally today. Remember the mantra - bad news is good news for the stock markets in this upside down world. At least the wealthy will be saved, as they dole out $20 million for their underground bunkers which have seen sales rise 1000% since January.

As reported here yesterday, Portugal needs $100 Billion in funding and fast. Not only did the entire gov't disintegrate, Portugal has run out of money; not to mention the ECB is looking at even more funding for Greece as well. Soon, Spain will follow. Then comes Ireland looking to get more or simply leave the EU entirely. If a major earthquake struck at the heart of Europe, perhaps the markets would have yet another reason to rally. Absurd, or is it? Take a look at the M1 money supply being pumped into the economy. 

Thus, we will continue to see more inflation around the world in the things we need and use everyday, and deflation in things we want to keep as an investment such as housing. But who wants to hear about fundamentals? All that matters is the Fed's unofficial mandate to pump up the markets at any "cost" until the DOW reaches 54,000. Therefore, I leave you with the most important topic that means anything right now and for many months ahead - Japan.

The crisis in Europe and the financial aristocracy

The latest meeting of European Union (EU) finance ministers held at the start of this week once again revealed the complete subservience of the European political establishment to the European and international banking and finance cartels. (See “EU finance ministers meeting: No agreement on euro crisis”.)

Commenting on the relationship between European governments and the finance markets, British economist Phillipe Legrain writes: “So far, EU governments have decided that banks’ bondholders must be protected at all costs, preferring to impose losses on taxpayers instead—even if this stretches governments’ solvency to breaking point.”

For their part, reassured that they have the full backing of European treasuries behind them, the moguls of the finance world are undertaking their destructive work with renewed vigour.

An editorial in the German Süddeutsche Zeitung at the start of the year describes the activity of the modern breed of finance speculators:

“Just back from their two-week ski holiday, the currency dealers and finance managers have renewed their speculation against highly indebted Euro countries. Their first victim in the new year is Portugal….” Read more...

Greece's Role in the Economic Domino Theory

minyanville.com
I’m going to make a prediction: Greece will default unless they see a large portion of their debt forgiven outright. Shocking, right?

Here’s the simple story about Greece:

* They are very unfriendly towards business -- getting one started, keeping it open, the whole nine yards.

* The underground economy is massive (30%) because of the huge taxes they have there (VAT alone is 19+%) making it impossible to collect tax revenues accurately.

* Even if they could collect tax revenues accurately, they don't have the economic firepower to pull themselves out of their debt disaster, especially with an elevated euro.

* Fifty percent of GDP is government spending.

* Entitlements dwarf the current debt, making their situation all the more impossible.

I can hear the rebuttals now -- “But Greece is only 2% of the Eurozone economy.”

True, but let’s look at how that impacts the rest of the Eurozone.

1. Greece is a major importer of German goods.

2. Sixty percent of Greek debt issued in the last few years was bought by other European countries leading to massive mark downs if Greece defaults (mostly the French €73B, Swiss €59B, and Germans €39B; that is 3% of France’s GDP).

3. Fifty-one percent of Portuguese debt is owned by Spanish banks.

4. Thirty-two percent and 25% of Spanish debt is held by German and French banks respectively
(these numbers are from John Mauldin).

Can you say "economic domino theory"? Write-downs from losses in sovereign debt default will be a big negative for other countries, and investors will aim for Portugal and Spain (they already are if you look at Portugal’s CDSs) as the next stop for the default train.

Right now there are two prevailing scenarios:

1. Greece leaves the euro.

2. Germany leaves the euro. More...

Taiwan has NT$37.8 billion exposure in Spain, Greece, Portugal

chinapost.com.
Taiwan's financial institutions have a total exposure of NT$37.8 billion (US$1.2 billion) to Spain, Greece and Portugal, the regulator said, citing a preliminary check.

Domestic banks offered credit and made investments of NT$10.6 billion, of which NT$3.2 billion are in Greece, NT$6.6 billion in Spain and NT$800 million in Portugal, the Financial Supervisory Commission said in a statement on its web site.

Taiwan's investment trust funds invested a total of NT$3.7 billion in the three nations, while insurers invested NT$19.5 billion, of which NT$120 million are in Greece, NT$19.3 million are in Spain and NT$150 million in Portugal. The regulator will closely monitor the credit situation of the three nations and the exposure of the domestic institutions.