Thursday, December 4, 2014

Friday December 5 Housing and Economic stories


Greek opposition leader says to quickly scrap bailout if elected - (www.reuters.com) Greek opposition leader Alexis Tsipras promised on Tuesday that if elected, he would swiftly scrap the country's EU/IMF bailout without waiting for the outcome of talks with lenders. Tsipras' pledge contrasted with the conservative government's plan to seek a negotiated exit from the unpopular 240 billion euro ($298 billion) bailout program, which has required years of austerity including deep wage cuts. Greece could face early elections next year, depending on the outcome of a separate vote to elect a president. The latest opinion poll by the Pulse agency showed Syriza, the radical leftist party that Tsipras heads, would win with 29.5 percent of the vote if national elections were held now. "We will replace the bailout with (Syriza's) program from the initial days of our government, before and regardless of the outcome of the negotiation," Tsipras told a conference.

Exclusive: U.S. oil and gas well permits plunge 37 percent in November - (www.reuters.com) Plunging oil prices sparked a drop of almost 40 percent in new well permits issued across the United States in November, in a sudden pause in the growth of the U.S. shale oil and gas boom that started around 2007. Data provided exclusively to Reuters on Tuesday by industry data firm Drilling Info Inc showed 4,520 new well permits were approved last month, down from 7,227 in October. The pullback was a "very quick response" to U.S. crude prices, which settled on Tuesday at $66.88 CLc1, said Allen Gilmer, chief executive officer of Drilling Info. New permits, which indicate what drilling rigs will be doing 60-90 days in the future, showed steep declines for the first time this year across the top three U.S. onshore fields: the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford in Texas and North Dakota's Bakken shale.

Nine Layers of Red Tape Show Ukraine Failure a Year Later - (www.bloomberg.com) Thirteen floors above a snow-covered complex on the outskirts of Kiev, in a half-built high-rise, Egor Popov wondered aloud when the warren of dusty rooms would be ready for move-in: maybe next year, probably not. Presales on the 1,210-unit Sun Gate’s fourth wing, still a concrete-and-brick skeleton accessible only by a shaky open-air elevator, may be delayed, he said. Not because of a lack of financing or demand for flats. The issue is the nine layers of red tape and graft requests that are part of finishing the project, said Popov, a spokesman for TMM Real Estate Development Plc (TR61), Ukraine’s only publicly listed developer.

Russian Woes Worsen as Recession Looms With Banks in ‘Panic’ - (www.bloomberg.com) Russia’s economic crisis deepened as the government acknowledged it’s heading for recession and a former central banker spoke of “some panic” in the financial system as oil prices plunged. Speaking a day after PresidentVladimir Putin said Russia is scrapping a proposed $45 billion pipeline to Europe, the government predicted the economy will contract next year and canceled a bond auction. It was also forced to pledge 39.95 billion rubles ($740 million) to support OAO Gazprombank, at least the third lender to secure a capital injection since U.S. and European Union sanctions curbed their ability to borrow.





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