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Could Climate Bonds Become a Major Force in Green Finance?

Thu, 2013-06-27 13:05 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Albert Gomez

environmentalleader.com - June 3, 2013

So-called “green” or “climate” bonds, being issued by a number of financial institutions and state governments as a means of generating funding for sustainable development and clean energy technology, are becoming increasingly popular and could become a major new force in the green investment world, according to the Globe-Net.

The World Bank developed the Green Bond concept in 2007/2008 and simplicity is key to its popularity, according to Globe-Net blog post. The World Bank’s green bonds are triple-A rated and can be traded as easily as other “vanilla” investments, offering investors a high rate of liquidity.

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Europe strikes deal to push cost of bank failure on investors

Thu, 2013-06-27 00:11 — Gina Angiola

By John O'Donnell and Robin Emmott

June 26,2013 Reuters

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union agreed on Thursday to force investors and wealthy savers to share the costs of future bank failures, moving closer to drawing a line under years of taxpayer-funded bailouts that have prompted public outrage.

 

After seven hours of late-night talks, finance ministers from the bloc's 27 countries emerged with a blueprint to close or salvage banks in trouble. The plan stipulates that shareholders, bondholders and depositors with more than 100,000 euros ($132,000) should share the burden of saving a bank.

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Shifting gears to accelerate shared prosperity in Latin America and Caribbean

Sat, 2013-06-22 15:25 — Maeryn Obley

documents.worldbank.org - June 1st, 2012 - Louise J. Cord, Leonardo Lucchetti, Carlos Rodriguez-Castelan

Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have made laudable progress in the past fifteen years in reducing poverty, building the middle class and promoting prosperity for all levels of society. Extreme poverty, defined in this region as life on less than $2.50 a day, has declined by half, while in 2011, for the first time in recorded history, the LAC region had a larger number of people in the middle class than in poverty. Across this region of close to 600 million people, the poor have been gaining faster than the already well off.

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Economist Peter Schiff Forecasts Second Crisis to Hit Around 2013

Sat, 2013-06-22 15:20 — Maeryn Obley

Peter Schiff

Image: Peter Schiff

ivn.us - October 28th, 2012 - W. E. Messamore

Do a YouTube query for “peter schiff was right” and you’ll find dozens of videos with montages of the investment broker and financial commentator making accurate predictions about the financial crisis that struck in 2007 while other analysts not only disagree, but insinuate that Schiff’s predictions were completely nuts.

In one particular video, uploaded in November of 2008 and clocking in at over 2 million views, it’s easy to see what an independent voice Peter Schiff is in the realm of economic analysis and forecasting. Schiff– a Republican who sought out his party’s nomination during Connecticut’s 2010 U.S. Senate race, a self-described capitalist who believes in free-market economics, and who says he’s proud to be a member of “the 1%”– spends most of that particular video montage arguing with many respected Republican analysts as they deride his predictions and say that the economic boom would continue with no end in sight.

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Eurozone Recession Now Longest In Currency's History

Thu, 2013-06-20 23:09 — Kathy Gilbeaux

huffingtonpost.com - By PAN PYLAS and SARAH DiLORENZO - May 15, 2013

PARIS -- The eurozone is now in its longest ever recession – a stubborn slump that has surpassed even the calamity that hit the region in the financial crisis of 2008-2009.

The European Union statistics office said Wednesday that nine of the 17 EU countries that use the euro are in recession, with France a notable addition to the list. Overall, the eurozone's economy contracted for the sixth straight quarter, shrinking by 0.2 percent in the January-March period from the previous three months.

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Video - Scrap Fuel Subsidies and Price CO2, Urges World Bank

Tue, 2013-05-14 10:04 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Reuters - trust.org - May 6, 2013

LONDON, May 6 (Reuters Point Carbon) – The world’s nations must scrap fossil fuel subsidies and put a price on emitting carbon dioxide if the planet is to avoid dangerous climate change, according to the president of the World Bank. The two measures are part of a five-point plan that the bank urged the world’s environment ministers to take, including building low carbon cities, improving agricultural practices and sharing new technology that will save energy.

“We need a global response equal to the scale of the climate problem.

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Nearly two-thirds of Greek youths are unemployed

Fri, 2013-05-10 19:09 — Maeryn Obley

A Greek unemployment center.

Image: A Greek unemployment center.

reuters.com - May 9th 2013 - George Georgiopoulos

Greek youth unemployment shot to a record 64 percent in February, underscoring the dire state of the recession-hit economy despite signs of improving business sentiment.

Repeated doses of austerity under international bailouts have almost tripled Greece's jobless rate since its debt crisis began in 2009, weighing on an economy in its sixth year of recession.

Overall unemployment has risen to an all-time high of 27 percent, data showed on Thursday, while joblessness in the 15-to-24 age group jumped to 64.2 percent in February from 59.3 percent in January.


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The other-worldly philosophers

Fri, 2013-05-10 19:02 — Maeryn Obley

Article illustration by Brett Ryder

Image: Article illustration by Brett Ryder

economist.com - July 16th 2009

Robert Lucas, one of the greatest macroeconomists of his generation, and his followers are “making ancient and basic analytical errors all over the place”. Harvard's Robert Barro, another towering figure in the discipline, is “making truly boneheaded arguments”. The past 30 years of macroeconomics training at American and British universities were a “costly waste of time”.

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It Can Happen Here: The Confiscation Scheme Planned for US and UK Depositors

Tue, 2013-05-07 18:56 — Gina Angiola

Truthout.org -- by Ellen Brown -- March 29,2013

Confiscating the customer deposits in Cyprus banks, it seems, was not a one-off, desperate idea of a few Eurozone “troika” officials scrambling to salvage their balance sheets. A joint paper by the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Bank of England dated December 10, 2012, shows that these plans have been long in the making; that they originated with the G20 Financial Stability Board in Basel, Switzerland (discussed earlier here); and that the result will be to deliver clear title to the banks of depositor funds.  

http://truth-out.org/news/item/15401-it-can-happen-here-the-confiscation-scheme-planned-for-us-and-uk-depositors

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Crisis for Europe as trust hits record low

Fri, 2013-04-26 19:54 — Maeryn Obley

The poll found a vertiginous decline in trust in the EU in countries that were traditionally pro-European. Photograph: Ian Waldie/Getty ImagesImage: The poll found a vertiginous decline in trust in the EU in countries that were traditionally pro-European. Photograph: Ian Waldie/Getty Images

guardian.co.uk - April 24th, 2013 - Ian Traynor

Public confidence in the European Union has fallen to historically low levels in the six biggest EU countries, raising fundamental questions about its democratic legitimacy more than three years into the union's worst ever crisis, new data shows.

After financial, currency and debt crises, wrenching budget and spending cuts, rich nations' bailouts of the poor, and surrenders of sovereign powers over policymaking to international technocrats, Euroscepticism is soaring to a degree that is likely to feed populist anti-EU politics and frustrate European leaders' efforts to arrest the collapse in support for their project.

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