Banks are falling down? First Republic Bank is next?

 After Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse it looks like there is still trouble in the banking sector and mass-media is reporting it.

Recently the news is Deutsche Bank will let go about 800 fresh headcounts, business could be slow? And what about First Republic Bank losing 40% of it's stock value in a heartbeat?

Shareholders are getting more and more concerned while the top banks are trying to assure everyone that they have everything under control, but do they? People are scared about the safety of their deposits, loans are accessed harder and harder and there are few eager to get into debt now.

What do you think about 2023? Will be get another Credit Suisse crash? Another Silicon Valley Bank meltdown? 

Will Ukraine really launch a counteroffensive?

 More than one year passed since Russia invaded Ukraine and the war seems to head to a front stalemate with Russians chipping away a village or two every month and an alley in Bakhmut every week. 

Starting with February there were numerous news about an expected Ukrainian counter-offensive which will obliterate the Russian forces and liberate a lot of territory, being Crimea or Zaporzje or Donetsk. The counteroffensive was then delayed to March so the Ukrainian army can get more equipment and tanks from NATO countries and then delayed again in April to get better weather conditions.

Now the counteroffensive is delayed even more to May while Bakhmut is on the brink of falling with Russian troops controlling close to 90% of it. So the question arises , when can we expect to see this counteroffensive? If ever?

Russian media already boasts that Ukrainians tried to launch it twice and failed twice with the amass of troops being detected by Russians, bombed and dispersed with huge casualties. Can the Ukrainians amass a critical force without Russians detecting it or hide it from their enemy? Time will tell. 

Beware the coronavirus! Virus! Ruuuun!

With the recent news panic is getting more and more widespread in Europe. A month ago the coronavirus was a remote piece of news in the international news column and most people were saying : eh, it happens somewhere in China, it's a Chinese thing, doesn't impact us.

Then the news became more and more concerning, the number of sick and dead went spiralling out of control. Most people still didn't care, they couldn't imagine happening to them so they just ignore it.

Recently there started to be outbursts in Europe and even in America authorities are considering it's just a matter of time. From almost indiferrence and calm people went crazy, you see them assaulting the hypermarkets and buying provisions for months , wearing surgical masks in the open, arguing desperately the government should do something now and end it! Magical powers the government has no?

Meanwhile the markets are plummeting hard, the economies are starting to take damage, international trade is down and ... could this be the start of a recession or a new economic crysis? We can only hope!

Resource wants to buy a house

Every now and then there comes a time in the life of a resource to move to a bigger house. Generally this happens when the resource's family grows, usually with the birth of the first or second child.

Faced with the need to move resources start assesing their opportunities. Depending on their luck the real-estate market can be low or high, rarely do resources wait and expect a price fall. More than that there is usually a gap between what they want and what they can afford as resources tend to earn to little money and save very few to none.

Let's be honest here, each of us wants a nice house with large rooms, storage areas, a nice backyard to relax, parking space in a quiet area with good infrastructure, nice neighbours, good schools and kindergardens and ... wait a minute, all these come with additional cost. And when finally adding up expenses and looking into our wallets and accounts we are considerably short of money. We sigh and we hope for a market fall.

Happy New Year 2019 , what it brings in politics and economics.

Happy New Year 2019, may we have a better year than the last - but will we?

The beginning of the year brings a tense situation all over the world, with the US entering partial government shut-down due to the lack of funds (which they will resolve by borrowing another sum to their already enormous amount of debt) as well the Mexico border wall and trade war with China, with France facing another weekend of protests, the Yellow Jackets won't back down, with the EU presidency passed to Romania, the newest in the long list of European countries renouncing the liberal democracy (after Hungary and Poland), with Russia finalizing the Syrian war with a conclusive victory and focusing on pressing Ukraine further. Crimeea is already lost, Donetsk and Luhansk are basically lost too, will Mariupol follow and join the anti-Kiev insurgents?

Only time will tell and 2019 looks like an interesting year to say the least!

Macron's failure and the Yellow Vests revolution

It seems I was right and it wasn't even a long time to wait to for my prediction to be true. For several weekends in a row Paris as well as other big cities in France are in turmoil. Angry citizens rallied by the famous Yellow Jackets are protesting violently and demanding a real change.

I wrote when all naives were enthusiastic about Macron's elections victory that things weren't going to milk and honey for long. The French society has difficult problems that couldn't be solved just by talking gibberish, putting a big smile, posing as a cool guy and being funny. Truth is that is was easy to see the shallowness, populism and incompetence covered under the fancy suits. And now most of the French people seen it, they realized they were fooled and they aren't happy. While the big EU and liberal democracy supporters who crapped in their pants at Brexit or Trump's victory fooled themselves there is still support for their ideology with the poor and angry masses.

So they are prepared to show Macron how to do a proper En Marche and end the clown's career!

How soon will Macron fail to meet people's expectations?

It's no secret that nowadays president Emmanuel Macron won the French presidential elections decisively as well as his party did the same with the legislative elections. The question is why and how much hopes put the French people in his promises? 

You could always argue that people are fed up with the same old rusty politicians, with their old wooden tongue speech but is this a plausible reason to unconditially surrender to a new unexperimented politician?

Macron's policies had been targeted at pushing away conservative voters, but he has also unveiled proposals to please the left as well, such as his call for better pay for teachers working in poor, socially diverse areas. He also promised to reform the pensions and welfare, key areas where the stacks are definetely against him. 

We will soon see if the general enthusiam will melt down and if Macron will join the long line of politicians who promised big and delivered very small.