Today’s headlines being at home, starting with hints of a bubble brewing from CNBC:
A new wave of US mortgage trouble threatens
U.S. borrowers are increasingly missing payments on home equity lines of credit they took out during the housing bubble, a trend that could deal another blow to the country’s biggest banks.
And from Al Jazeera America, stuffing turkeys:
Hundreds of protests planned to mark Black Friday
Labor groups hope to capitalize on a year of controversy surrounding Wal-Mart and other big retailers
Bloomberg Businessweek covers harsh realities:
McDonald’s Worker Says She Can’t Afford to Eat at McDonald’s
For a piece on the potential economic and social consequences of raising the federal minimum wage in the latest issue of Bloomberg Businessweek, I interviewed several low-wage workers about how they manage. As we’ve learned from recent studies, they often rely on public assistance; sometimes they turn to their extended family and friends or charity. One told me she donates plasma when she needs a little cash; a second sleeps in her car. One, Shawndraka Mack, works full-time at McDonald’s, but noted she can’t afford to eat there.
From ThinkProgress, uncharitable politics:
Los Angeles Considering Proposal To Ban Feeding Homeless People In Public
The proposal will need to pick up more support among the 15-member Council in order to become law. If passed, though, Los Angeles would join a growing number of other cities that have banned or passed significant restrictions on charities attempting to feed the homeless, including Raleigh and Orlando.
From South China Morning Post, more allegations of banksters behaving badly — in this case, hiring the progeny of Chinese leaders as a wedge to opening doors for deals:
US expands China hiring probe to Morgan Stanley and Citigroup
US authorities are expanding their probe into the hiring practices of American financial institutions, with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) now looking into whether Morgan Stanley and Citigroup hired children of well-connected mainland officials with an intent to win business.
Meanwhile, mouth farts from blowviator via Salon:
Rush Limbaugh: The pope sounds like a Marxist
“This is just pure Marxism coming out of the mouth of the pope”
Meanwhile, Rush might ponder this from the New York Times:
Breadlines Return
The Great Recession was the worst downturn since the Great Depression. And yet, throughout the recent decline and today’s sluggish recovery, conditions have never seemed as bad as they were in the 1930s. Breadlines, for example, have not been commonplace.
That may be about to change.
An encouraging sign, via Salon:
Breaking: Whole Foods strike wins Thanksgiving day off, workers say
“I think it will be disruptive, but that’s kind of the point,” says one of Chicago workers striking today
Canada next, with the Toronto Globe and Mail, and cross-border ties:
Canadian growth to accelerate but U.S. well-being still key: IMF
The IMF pegs Canadian growth at 2.25 per cent next year following modest growth of 1.6 per cent this year as exports and business investment “disappointed.”
Next, feet enter oral orifices, via Techdirt:
TPP Defenders Take To The Internet To Deliver Official Talking Points; Inadvertently Confirm Opponents’ Worst Fears
from the TPP-doesn’t-do-anything-opponents-claim-it-does,-except-for-all-this dept
Seeking friends in need, via EUbusiness:
France, Spain seek European push for jobs, growth
France and Spain’s leaders, both suffering in the polls as they grapple with feeble economies, united Wednesday in pressuring the European Union to do more to help boost activity and create desperately needed jobs.
BBC News takes us to Britain and austerian arrogance:
David Cameron defiant over tougher EU benefit plans
David Cameron has defended plans to toughen welfare rules for EU migrants, saying he was sending a “clear message” to people that the UK was not a “soft touch” for claiming benefits.
He said he shared public concerns about the end of work restrictions on Bulgarians and Romanians next month.
More Cameron Tory neoliberalism from The Independent:
David Cameron to lobby for support on migration restrictions at EU summit in Lithuania
From the London Telegraph, Mariano Rajoy scotches hopes:
Spanish PM: Independent Scotland would be kicked out of the EU
Scotland would be kicked out of the European Union if it voted for independence, the Spanish Prime Minister has said in a devastating blow to Alex Salmond’s claims membership would be seamless.
Sweden next, with a burgeoning bubble from TheLocal.se:
Swedes’ mortgage debt continues to swell
Swedes are borrowing money more than ever, data from Statistics Sweden revealed on Wednesday, as household indebtedness reached new heights.
The annual growth rate of household indebtedness was calculated to be 4.9 percent in October this year, a 0.1 percentage-point increase in one month. Statisticians at the state agency predicted that the increase will continue, and cited the upswing from 4.5 percent in January 2013.
TheLocal.se, planning ahead and raising hopes for Sweden’s braceros:
Swedish opposition to scrap migrant-worker law
The left-wing opposition stands ready to tear up the controversial Laval Law, which differentiates between domestic and foreign workers, if the Social Democrat party wrests power from the government in next year’s elections.
“Swedish collective bargaining agreements should apply in Sweden,” said party leader Stefan Lövfen on Wednesday at a press conference. “It does not matter from which country the employee comes from nor where the employer is registered.”
TheLocal.no covers a seminal embargo:
China blocks semen of hardy Norwegian Red
China has cancelled a project to import semen from the hardy Norwegian Red diary cow, in a move put down to continuing poor diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Holland next, and troubling news from DutchNews.nl:
Healthcare freedom of choice under threat, entire hospitals excluded
Health insurance companies are limiting patient access to some hospitals, and some policyholders will have to pay a contribution to be treated in hospitals with a better reputation, according to research by the AD and insurance comparison website Independer.
On to Germany and high hopes from Europe Online:
German consumer confidence hits six-year high
Consumer confidence in Germany hit a six-year high in December, a survey released Wednesday showed as retailers in Europe’s biggest economy are gearing up for the key Christmas shopping period.
The mood among German households rose to a bigger-than-forecast 7.4 in December from 7.1 in November, the Nuremberg-based market research group GfK said.
BBC News covers a done deal:
Deal reached on new government for Germany under Merkel
Angela Merkel will return as German chancellor for a third term under a coalition deal hammered out with her old Social Democrat (SPD) opponents.
Her conservative Christian Union (CDU/CSU) signed a 185-page agreement with the SPD entitled “Shaping Germany’s Future”
From Spiegel, making virtue of necessity in the peculiar German miracle:
Living Large on a Little: Campgrounds Go Residential in Germany
An increasing number of people are moving to German campgrounds permanently to save money. The little communities of motorhomes and trailers offer a comfortable yet affordable lifestyle that residents say they couldn’t find elsewhere.
TheLocal.de notes banksters behaving badly:
Watchdog probes gold and silver price-fixing
The German financial watchdog, BaFin, said on Wednesday it was looking into allegations of possible manipulation by banks in gold and silver price-fixing.
“In addition to the Libor and Euribor interest rates, BaFin is looking at other bench-marking processes such as gold and silver price fixing at individual banks,” the watchdog said in a statement.
From TheLocal.fr, righteous anger:
Outrage over €21million pension for French CEO
Plans to award the CEO of struggling French car giant Peugeot Citroen with a €21 million pension ($28.5million) has provoked uproar among trade unions, who have spent the last year battling in vain against factory closures and mass job cuts at the firm.
A culinary invasion with TheLocal.fr:
Burger King set to open 400 outlets in France
US fast food giant Burger King looks set to take a big bite out of the French market, after they announced this week they would be opening up to 400 new restaurants throughout the country.
And on to the Alps with Channel NewsAsia Singapore and more BBB:
UBS Paris office raided in Swiss tax fraud probe
French investigators on Wednesday raided the Paris headquarters of the local arm of Swiss bank UBS, which has been placed under investigation for allegedly helping rich clients hide money in undeclared accounts.
Spain next, with El País and a central bankster’s assurance:
Recovery continued at start of fourth quarter, Bank of Spain says
Spanish export sector remains buoyant with some signs of an improvement in domestic demand while salaries flatline
The London Telegraph reports a con:
Spanish government accused of pushing illegal homes to Britons
A register with details of Spain’s three million empty homes fails to flag all of those earmarked for demolition
From El País a singular act of resistance to the reigning neoliberal Popular Party:
Madrid Socialist leader resigns Senate seat over PP-linked judge
Gómez stages “act of rebellion” against privatization of public healthcare and carve-up of legal watchdog’s membership
The leader of the Socialist Party in Madrid (PSM), Tomás Gómez, on Wednesday announced he is resigning his seat in the Senate to “be consistent with” his principles. Gómez’s decision came in response to the national party’s pact with the Popular Party (PP) over the reshuffling of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), by which Judge Francisco Gerardo Martínez Tristán will be elevated to the legal watchdog’s panel. Martínez sits on the 50-magistrate panel of the Madrid regional High Court that has been charged with deciding the fate of six of the region’s public hospitals, which the PP wants to privatize.
El País again, with neoliberalism in action:
More than 1.1 million students lose textbook grants
Families were receiving between 70-180 euros, depending on the schooling period and the region
Public subsidies for school book purchases have nosedived during the economic crisis. But according to a report from the Ombudsman’s Office, which notes a 45-percent drop in financing in the last four years, the crisis “explains but does not justify this reduction.”
The Portugal News takes across the border to yet another postal privatization, that essential plank in the neoliberal destruction of the commons:
CTT postal privatisation sees demand outstrip supply six times over
The demand for shares in the Portuguese post office CTT – Correios de Portugal outstripped supply 6.5 times according to information supplied by CMVM, the stock market authorities, to state holding company Parpública.
Italy next, with a Bunga Bunga booting from the New York Times:
Berlusconi Expelled from Senate in Italy
Having spent months manufacturing procedural delays or conjuring political melodrama in hopes of saving himself, Silvio Berlusconi on Wednesday could no longer stave off the inevitable: Italy’s Senate resoundingly stripped him of his parliamentary seat, a dramatic and humiliating expulsion, even as other potential troubles await him.
And TheLocal.it pledges allegiance:
‘Berlusconi will always be our leader’
Supporters of Silvio Berlusconi mourned his expulsion from parliament on Wednesday, with one declaring: “This is not finished!”
Thousands of Berlusconi’s fans travelled to Rome from all over Italy in a show of support, with waving Forza Italia flags and holding candle-lit vigils behind held outside his Rome residence.
From TheLocal.it again, more austerian reality:
Italy’s crisis leaves middle class struggling
With unemployment at record levels and some of the highest poverty levels anywhere in the EU, Italy’s economic crisis has left many formerly well-off Italians barely able to put food on the table.
Italy’s unemployment rate hit an all-time high of 12.5 percent in October, while thousands of those who are clinging onto jobs are on short-term contracts and often go unpaid for months.
An EU report in September said that Italy is the only large country in core Europe that suffers from “material hardships”, with one in ten Italians cutting back on basics such as heating and eating meat.
After the jump, ongoing Grecomeltdown, Russian baggage, Indian anxieties and opportunities, Southeast Asian land grabs and protests, environmental mayhem, and the latest Fukushimapocalypse Now!. . .
For our first Greek item we turn to BBC News:
Greek economy to shrink for seventh year, OECD says
The Greek economy will keep shrinking next year and may need more financial help, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says.
The OECD’s forecast of 0.4% contraction contrasts with the Greek government’s prediction of 0.6% growth in 2014.
More from ANSAmed:
OECD says Greece may need more EU aid
In the case of negative inflation
Greece may require further aid from the EU to ensure financial sustainability, said the OECD in a report released Wednesday on the Greek economy. The study states that not only do further measures need to be brought in as concerns taxes and competitiveness, but that additional aid may be needed to achieve budget sustainability. It also says that there are ever lower risks to growth even if the reforms program were to be fully and rigorously implemented.
And still more from The Guardian:
OECD takes aim at Greek red tape to boost growth
Thinktank wants Greece to tackle 555 regulations hindering growth in retail, food processing, building materials and tourism sectors
ANA-MPA offers official prognostication:
FinMin: A long road ahead to exit the crisis
Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras expressed his satisfaction over the achievement of the 2013 budget targets on Wednesday while speaking at the Parliament’s committee on economic affairs, which is reviewing the new draft budget, for 2014.
“However, we have a long road ahead of us to exit the crisis,” Stournaras said during the budget discussion.
From Greek Reporter, on the cheap:
Greece is the World Champion of Low Property Prices
The data is showing that the highest housing prices are observed in Hong Kong at 14.6% in the second quarter, in Ukraine at 11.7% in Philippines at 10%, in New Zealand and in Colombia at 8.8%.
In contrast, Greece along with Hungary and Netherlands are the countries with the largest fall of housing values, reaching almost 11%.
Kathimerini English brings some heat:
Emergency cash to heat schools in northern Greece
An emergency payment of 8 million euros will be made to municipalities so they can buy heating oil for schools, the Interior Ministry said on Wednesday, after local authorities in northern Greece told pupils to stay at home as temperatures plummeted.
Primary and secondary schools in Florina and Naoussa were kept shut on Wednesday due to the cold weather and what officials said was a lack of cash to buy heating oil.
From To Vima, another bill a-comin’:
Ministry of Finances to submit tax bill in Parliament on Thursday
Government aims to collect about 2.65 billion euros through the new real estate tax next year
The Ministry of Finances is going to submit its real estate taxation draft bill of for discussion in Parliament on Thursday, which is rumored to aim for 2.65 billion euros in revenue, while the budget claims 3.9 billion euros will be collected through the taxation of property.
From Kathimerini English, a decisive moment:
University staff to vote on strike action on Thursday
Administrative staff at two Athens universities are to decide Thursday on whether to continue with protracted strike action, now in its 12th week, which has paralyzed the operation of the institutions and left thousands of students in limbo.
Education Minister Constantinos Arvanitopoulos met on Wednesday with unionists representing striking employees from both Athens University and the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA).
Kathimerini English again, with our final Greek item and the nation’s number three political party, intolerant neonazis:
Parliament lifts immunity of two Golden Dawn deputies
New Democracy MP Dimitris Sampaziotis, from Messinia in the Peloponnese, failed on Wednesday to vote in favor of lifting the parliamentary immunity of a Golden Dawn MP from the same region so he could face trial over allegations that he caused bodily harm.
Sampaziotis voted “present” in Parliament, while 253 MPs cast their ballots in favor of Golden Dawn’s Dimitris Koukoutsis’s immunity from prosecution being lifted.
Russia next, with a corporate branding fail from the Moscow Times:
‘Shameful’ Louis Vuitton Trunk to be Removed From Red Square
President Vladimir Putin’s administration spoke out in favor of removing a gigantic Louis Vuitton suitcase on Red Square on Wednesday, following public outcry about its placement in the historical heart of the Russian capital.
On to Asia, starting in India with The Economic Times and a conflicting picture:
Rural India shows signs of economic revival but wider outlook glum
The countryside produces only a third of India’s gross domestic product and in the urban areas that drive growth, business in showrooms and shopping malls is still shrinking.
From the Times of India, a move certain to provoke:
India likely to fast-track Iran port, oil plans
India has declared its intention to develop Iran’s Chahbahar port, which could become an important alternative to Pakistan’s Karachi port. However, in the past year, since the Iranian government gave the final clearances, the delays have been on the Indian side.
Spiegel takes us to Southeast Asia and another target of the industrial agriculture’s global land grab:
Land Grab: Foreign Firms Drive Cambodians from Farms
Each year, foreign agricultural corporations deprive thousands of Cambodian farmers of their fields — with the government’s help. Human rights groups claim German taxpayer money is used to fund a program that benefits land grabbers.
Channel NewsAsia Singapore takes us across the border:
Thai protests widen beyond Bangkok; central bank cuts rates
Thailand’s anti-government political protests spread outside the capital on Wednesday, and warning that the political turmoil could affect economic confidence, the central bank unexpectedly cut its key interest rate to 2.25%.
More from Reuters:
Embattled Thai PM easily survives no-confidence vote
Thailand’s embattled Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on Thursday breezed through a no-confidence vote in parliament where her party holds a commanding majority, but faced mounting pressure from widening anti-government protests.
With no major news from China, we go straight to Japan. . .
. . .and right into Fukushimapocalypse Now!
We begin with a headline from NHK WORLD:
Spent fuel transferred at Fukushima plant
Workers at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant have transferred the first batch of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel into a cask for relocation.
Tokyo Electric Power Company personnel on Tuesday began moving the first 22 spent fuel assemblies within the storage pool of the number 4 reactor building.
They spent 2 days using a remote-controlled crane to maneuver one assembly after another into the storage cask, also submerged in the pool.
NHK WORLD again, and needed tests:
Fukushima verifying thyroid check results
Fukushima Prefecture has held the first meeting of an expert panel to examine ongoing medical checks of local young people for thyroid cancer.
The prefecture is checking the thyroid glands of 360,000 people who were 18 or younger at the time of the March 2011 nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. 26 of the subjects have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer
The Japan Times covers$489 million payouts:
Tepco to limit annual repayment to government to ¥50 billion
Tokyo Electric Power Co. will limit its annual repayments of financial aid from the government to pay compensation related to its nuclear catastrophe to ¥50 billion, which means taxpayers face shouldering higher interest payments.
The ceiling will be set so that Tepco can spend more on work to decommission reactors at its crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, sources said Wednesday. Previously Tepco had assumed it would repay some ¥100 billion per year, or about half of its pretax profit.
From the Mainichi, suspicions and anger:
Fukushima residents furious at lower house passage of contentious secrecy bill
Residents here are angry over the ruling bloc’s railroading of a highly controversial state secrets protection bill through the House of Representatives on the evening of Nov. 26 — just one day after voicing strong opposition to the legislation at a public hearing.
At the lower house special committee’s public hearing on the legislation held in Fukushima on Nov. 25, all of the seven local residents who were invited to state their opinions voiced opposition to or concerns about the government-sponsored secrecy bill. They voiced fear that information related to the Fukushima nuclear disaster could be designated as “special secrets.”
Jiji Press covers belated measures:
Japan Sets Safety Standards for N-Fuel, Other Facilities
Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority on Wednesday adopted safety standards for nuclear facilities other than commercial power plants, such as fuel-reprocessing facilities.
Under the new standards, which will enter into force on Dec. 18 after cabinet approval, the operators of target facilities will be newly obliged to work out measures to forestall or contain severe accidents.
And Britain has nuclear problems of its own — in cluding 100 tons of spare and ultra-toxic plutonium, as The Independent reports:
Revealed: David Cameron’s radical plan to ‘burn up’ UK’s mountain of plutonium
A radical plan to dispose of Britain’s huge store of civil plutonium – the biggest in the world – by “burning” it in a new type of fast reactor is now officially one of three “credible options” being considered by the Government, The Independent understands.
From our other fuels/other problems, consider the case of fracking, which is causing massive damage to Dutch landmark structures. From DutchNews.nl:
Groningen gas earthquakes damage listed buildings
Earthquakes in Groningen have damaged 69 out of the 100 listed buildings in the northern part of the province, according to the cultural heritage service Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed.
In total, 34 churches plus houses, farms and windmills have developed cracks and other problems because of the quakes. The Appingedam town hall has also been damaged, the organisation said.
And from ScienceDaily, the latest on a greenhouse gas magnitudes worse than carbon dioxide:
Arctic Seafloor Methane Releases Double Previous Estimates
The seafloor off the coast of Northern Siberia is releasing more than twice the amount of methane as previously estimated, according to new research results published in the Nov. 24 edition of the journal Nature Geoscience.
The East Siberian Arctic Shelf is venting at least 17 teragrams of the methane into the atmosphere each year. A teragram is equal to 1 million tons.
And our final item, a sad story from The Guardian:
Polar bear numbers in Hudson Bay of Canada on verge of collapse
Climate change is warming the Arctic and melting its ice cover, with grave consequences
