Wednesday February 18 Housing and Economic stories

TOP STORIES:

Germany Tells Greece There is 'ZERO' Chance It's Going To Pay World War II Reparations - (www.businessinsider.com)  Germany said on Monday there was "zero" chance it would pay World War II reparations to Athens, following a renewed demand from Greece's new leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. Tsipras, on Sunday in his first major speech to parliament, laid out plans to dismantle Greece's austerity program, ruled out any extension of its 240 billion euro international bailout, and vowed to seek war reparations from Berlin. The demand for compensation, revived by a previous Greek government in 2013 but not pursued, was rejected outright by Sigmar Gabriel, Germany's vice chancellor and economy minister. "The probability is zero," Gabriel said when asked whether Germany would make such payments to Greece, adding that a treaty signed 25 years ago had wrapped up all such claims.

The oil crash claims another victim - (www.businessinsider.com) US oil and gas producer SandRidge Energy plans to slash its rig count in Oklahoma and Kansas by nearly 75 percent, according to a document obtained by Reuters. The cuts, to be implemented through early April, may amount to what is arguably the most significant pullback in well drilling by a publicly traded shale oil company since crude prices started a 50 percent slide in June. The document shows SandRidge plans to cut the number of rigs drilling in the Mississippi Lime formation in northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas in March and early April to eight, from 28. In November, the company told investors it had about 30 rigs running. The document makes no mention of rigs in West Texas, where the company also has acreage. It laid off 25 workers in West Texas in January, state data shows. A spokesman for SandRidge declined to comment but said the company would provide an update for 2015 on a quarterly results call on Feb. 27.

Greek Contagion? Spanish/Italian Bond Risk Surge Most In 4 Months – (www.zerohedge.com) With Spanish and Italian leaders desperately running around to any and every media outlet to proclaim themselves economically fit and deny deny deny what Greek FinMin Varoufakis said yesterday, it appears the market has a different perspective. Portuguese bond spreads are 16bps wider and Spanish and Italian bond spreads are 12bps wider - their worst day in almost 4 months - as it appears Grexit fears are starting to creep into the rest of the periphery.

The End of Oil Jobs as We Know Them - (www.bloomberg.com) It's been a Spindletop-like five years for the American oilman. As fracking projectsmounted from the expanse of south Texas to North Dakota's Drift Prairie, hiring did too. Last year, about 198,000 workers were employed in oil and gas extraction, the most since 1987. Another 325,500 were working in the industry's support services, the most since the Labor Department began tracking those figures in 1990. Combined, some 523,500 were on company payrolls in 2014, more than twice the number a decade earlier. That's likely to change this year. A report last week from global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas showed 20,193, or 38 percent, of the 53,041 announced job cuts in January were in the energy industry. Oilfield service company Schlumberger last month said it will eliminate 9,000 jobs; Baker Hughes and Halliburton have said they expect to cut 7,000 and 1,000 positions, respectively. Not all of those will occur in the U.S., and the Challenger announcements have to be taken with a grain of salt because they include foreign affiliates of American companies. Also, many job cuts are carried out through early retirement and some may not even occur at all.

Another JPMorgan Banker Dies After Murder-Suicide: Chokes Wife, Stabs Himself To Death - (www.zerohedge.com) By now, there have been so many banker-related suicides that it has become a moot point of i) tracking them all or ii) trying to find a pattern. And yet, one name continues to stand out: JPMorgan. The bank which has been most prominent among the list of "suicided" bankers notched one more casualty over the weekend when "a JPMorgan Chase & Co. employee strangled and stabbed his wife to death before turning the knife on himself, according to police who are treating the couple’s death in Bergen County, New Jersey as a murder-suicide." But most eerie and disturbing is how comparable the Tabacchi double-death is to a comparable case from July of last yearwhen as we reported not only did a JPM executive director shoot his wife multiple times before using the same weapon on himself (like now), but the tragedy also took place in New Jersey.

OTHER STORIES:

Merkel Cool to Bailout Compromise as Greece Said to Seek Bridge - (www.bloomberg.com)
Greek bank bonds fall as premier refuses to extend program - (www.chicagotribune.com)
Greece and its creditors at loggerheads as key debt meeting looms - (news.yahoo.com)
Euro zone, Greece face off as markets take fright - (www.reuters.com)

Obama says still weighing decision on arming Ukraine forces - (www.reuters.com)
Venezuela’s Rating Lowered by S&P on Outlook for Economic Policy - (www.bloomberg.com)
Bond Traders Unimpressed by Greek Drama They’ve Seen Before - (www.bloomberg.com)
Ruble’s Fall Tests Governor of Russia’s Central Bank - (www.nytimes.com)