Tuesday March 10 Housing and Economic stories

TOP STORIES:

As IMF Default Looms & Tax Revenues Plunge, Greek Stocks & Bonds Tumble - (www.zerohedge.com) As the rest of the world appears happy to assume everything is fixed in Europe (and if it's not, Draghi will buy it back to being awesome), Greece is looking unwell once again. Initial exuberance has faded dramatically in the last 3 days as IMF default warnings and a 22.5% plunge in tax revenues has sparked concerns about Greece's sustainability once again. Default (or restructuring) risk is soaring, Greek bond yields are surging, stocks sliding, and Greek banks (bonds and stocks) are getting hammered. As The Guardian's Helena Smith notes, "the country is in a strategic vacuum," and next week's T-Bill auction could be a major catalyst.

 - (www.economist.com) CAMPAIGNING for a second term as Brazil’s president in an election last October, Dilma Rousseff painted a rosy picture of the world’s seventh-biggest economy. Full employment, rising wages and social benefits were threatened only by the nefarious neoliberal plans of her opponents, she claimed. Just two months into her new term, Brazilians are realising that they were sold a false prospectus. Brazil’s economy is in a mess, with far bigger problems than the government will admit or investors seem to register. The torpid stagnation into which it fell in 2013 is becoming a full-blown—and probably prolonged—recession, as high inflation squeezes wages and consumers’ debt payments rise (see article). Investment, already down by 8% from a year ago, could fall much further. A vast corruption scandal at Petrobras, the state-controlled oil giant, has ensnared several of the country’s biggest construction firms and paralysed capital spending in swathes of the economy, at least until the prosecutors and auditors have done their work. The real has fallen by 30% against the dollar since May 2013: a necessary shift, but one that adds to the burden of the $40 billion in foreign debt owed by Brazilian companies that falls due this year.

Nigel Farage Roils U.K. Politics as Anti-Immigration Tide Surges - (www.bloomberg.com) On a rainy Friday night in the middle of January, Nigel Farage stands in front of a small crowd at the local soccer team’s clubhouse in Ramsgate, a decaying port town in Kent County on England’s south coast. The leader of the U.K. Independence Party is there to kick off his campaign for a seat in the British Parliament in the May 7 general election, Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in its April issue. Alongside a purple and yellow “Join the People’s Army” UKIP banner, Farage delivers a jokey, self-deprecating speech laced with acid allusions to what he sees as the great twin threats to British culture and the economy: immigration and the European Union. Farage, a former commodities trader with a smoker’s cough and a horsy grin, has the audience of 150 or so people in his thrall as he rattles off numbers to bolster his point that EU rules allowing the free movement of people across member states have led to the ruin of the British economy.

[Reuters] Greek protesters clash with police in first backlash against Syriza - (www.reuters.com) Dozens of black-clad protesters clashed with riot police in central Athens on Thursday, smashing shop windows, throwing petrol bombs and burning cars after an anti-government march, the first since the leftist Syriza party took power a month ago. Around 450 far-left protesters took to the streets of Athens against the newly elected left-right coalition government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, which agreed a deal with EU partners last week to extend an aid program to Athens. The deal has triggered dissent within Tsipras' own party and accusations by some on the hard left that the government is going back on pre-election promises, including to end a much-hated 240 billion euro EU/IMF bailout program. After the march, about 50 anti-establishment protesters wearing hoods hurled petrol bombs and stones at police in Athens' central Exarchate district, a Bohemian quarter known as a haunt for artists and left-wing intellectuals. A small number of shop windows and bus stops were also smashed or damaged during the violence.

Medical Devices in UCLA Superbug Case Linked to Unreported Deaths – (www.bloomberg.com)  Medical scopes suspected of spreading deadly bacteria are under scrutiny since an outbreak at UCLA Medical Center emerged this month. But problems with the devices were recorded years ago: The same type of scopes was implicated in a previously unreported outbreak of antibiotic-resistant superbugs six years ago in Florida that affected 70 patients, including 15 who died. The Florida outbreak is one of a handful now coming to light that states haven’t previously made public. The cases were linked to the same kind of specialized medical scopes, known as duodenoscopes, that was involved in the UCLA outbreak. They affected patients at two hospitals in Highlands County in central Florida in 2008 and 2009, according to G. Steve Huard, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Health. The outbreak was reported to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the device manufacturers, Huard said. He said he couldn’t identify the hospitals involved, citing Florida law that makes the information confidential.

OTHER STORIES:

Yuan Drops to Two-Year Low as PBOC Weakens Fixing Amid Slowdown - (www.bloomberg.com)
Lira Drops to Record as Turkey Steps Up Pressure on Central Bank - (www.bloomberg.com)
Ukraine Central Bank Will Boost Capital Controls to Avert Panic - (www.bloomberg.com)
Prices From Germany to Italy Signal Weakening Deflation Risks - (www.bloomberg.com)
Petrobras Credit Traders Signal Brazil Support Not Enough - (www.bloomberg.com)

Malaysia's Task to Support the Ringgit Just Became a Lot Harder - (www.straitstime.com)
Easy Money Outweighs Fed to Fuel Record Debt Flows to Asia Haven - (www.bloomberg.com)
Biggest Global Banks Go to Pieces Under Pressure From Regulators - (www.bloomberg.com)