KeNo's Housing and Economic Portal: Wednesday March 4 Housing and Economic stories

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Greek bank deposit outflows rose to 3 billion euros last week: JP Morgan - (www.reuters.com) Deposit outflows from Greece's banks rose last week to around 3 billion euros, according to JP Morgan estimates, ahead of Friday's last-minute aid extension agreement with the country's euro zone creditors. The 50 percent increase in the pace of outflows from the prior week's 2 billion euros meant Greek banks were on track to run out of collateral for new loans in eight weeks as opposed to 14 the week before, JP Morgan said. This is based on its calculation that of a maximum 108 billion euros of financing available from the European Central Bank and Greek central bank, Greek banks have already used up 85 billion euros, leaving them with 23 billion euros if needed. Hard data on Greek bank deposit flows come with a long time lag, meaning estimates are the most up-to-date guides. Outflows apparently accelerated during last week.

Denmark Dismisses Report It Could Consider Capital Controls - (www.bloomberg.com) Denmark’s government rejected a report it could consider imposing capital controls as policy makers and economists try to explain the mechanisms through which the nation’s currency regime operates. “The government has no plans to impose restrictions on capital movements,” Sigga Nolsoee, spokeswoman for Economy Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Morten Oestergaard, said in a phone interview on Monday. Since Friday, when some media reported that Denmark might consider enforcing capital controls, the nation’s biggest banks have tried to reassure clients that such speculation is groundless. Danske Bank A/S notes that Denmark’s position inside the European Union’s single market means it must allow the free movement of capital. What’s more, imposing capital controls makes little sense when a central bank is fighting a capital influx.

Rent walkouts point to strains in U.S. farm economy - (www.reuters.com) Across the U.S. Midwest, the plunge in grain prices to near four-year lows is pitting landowners determined to sustain rental incomes against farmer tenants worried about making rent payments because their revenues are squeezed. Some grain farmers already see the burden as too big. They are taking an extreme step, one not widely seen since the 1980s: breaching lease contracts, reducing how much land they will sow this spring and risking years-long legal battles with landlords. The tensions add to other signs the agricultural boom that the U.S. grain farming sector has enjoyed for a decade is over. On Friday, tractor maker John Deere cut its profit forecast citing falling sales caused by lower farm income and grain prices. Many rent payments – which vary from a few thousand dollars for a tiny farm to millions for a major operation – are due on March 1, just weeks after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimated net farm income, which peaked at $129 billion in 2013, could slide by almost a third this year to $74 billion.

Ex-Plunge Protection Team Whistleblower: "Governments Control Markets; There Is No Price Discovery Anymore" - (www.zerohedge.com) One year after the great stock market crash in 1987, US President Ronald Reagan launched the "Working Group on Financial Markets." Conspiracy theorists believe, however, that the real task of this committee is to protect against a renewed slump in the stock market. In the jargon of Wall Street, the working group is known as the "Plunge Protection Team." One glimpse at a few days suring 2007/8 and it is clear that 'someone' with infinitely deep pockets was able to support markets on several critical days - though, of course, anyone proclaiming intervention was propagandized away as a conspiracy theory wonk. However, as Dr. Pippa Malmgren - a former member of the U.S. President’s Working Group on Financial Markets - it is not conspiracy theory, it is conspiracy fact: "there's no price discovery anymore by the market... governments impose prices on the market." * * *

In this 38 minute interview Lars Schall, for Matterhorn Asset Management, speaks with Dr Pippa Malmgren, a US financial advisor and policy expert based in London. Dr Malmgren has been a member of the U.S. President’s Working Group on Financial Markets (a.k.a. the “Plunge Protection Team”). They address, inter alia:

'It's treason!' Greek anger at government U-turn - (www.cnbc.com) European equity markets might be cheering a deal to extend Greece's aid by four months, but many ordinary Greeks feel their government has backtracked from its grand promises to strike out the bailout. Greece's left-wing government, led by Prime Minister Alexis Tspiras, was given a lifeline Friday when the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers reached a deal to extend the country's bailout by four months. Greece is now scrambling to present a list of reform proposals in order to secure the financial lifeline. However some Greek people have accused the new government of back-tracking from election promises that it would "tear-up" the bailout memorandum, overseen by the so-called "troika" of the European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund and European Commission.

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