World View: Capital Flight Driving Eurozone Decline

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com:

• Libya citizens storm Benghazi Islamist militia hq in backlash against Consulate attack
• Bailout talks for Greece collapse once again
• Capital flight is leading to the disintegration of the eurozone
• Fifteen killed in violent anti-American protests across Pakistan

Libya citizens storm Benghazi Islamist militia hq in backlash against Consulate attack

Tens of thousands of Libyan citizens in Benghazi, chanting “No, no, tomilitias” and “The ambassador was Libya’s friend,” marched in a rallyagainst Ansar al-Sharia, the Islamist militia believed to beresponsible for the September 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate thatkilled American ambassador Chris Stevens. Hundreds of protestersstormed the compound of the extremist group, evicting militiamen andsetting fire to their building. Last year, Gaddafi’s regime warnedthat if he were gone, then the militias in the Benghazi area woulddeclare an Islamic Emirate and ally itself with al-Qaeda. But now,the residents are lashing out against Ansar al-Sharia, the mainIslamic extremist group in the city. AP

Bailout talks for Greece collapse once again

In a familiar scene that we’ve seen many times before, the latesttalks between Greece and the leaders of the EU “troika” oforganizations bailing out Greece — the European Commission (EC), theEuropean Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)– are leaving Athens, after Greek officials failed to reach anagreement with the troika on the austerity measures that will have tobe implemented in return for another bailout. The official statementis that the talks are going to take a “brief pause” for a few days.Since we’ve seen this so many times before, we know exactly what’scoming: Greece will commit to a set of austerity measures. The troikawill authorize the bailout, kicking the can down the road. Theausterity measures that Greece committed to will not be implemented.Then, when it’s time for another bailout decision, the scenario willbe repeated. Kathimerini and Bloomberg

Capital flight is leading to the disintegration of the eurozone

In the 12 months ending July 31, a total of 326 billion euros werepulled from banks in the “troubled” nations — Spain, Portugal,Ireland and Greece. This coincides with a roughly similar increase indeposits into the banks of the seven “core” countries, includingGermany and France. That’s leading to a fragmentation of credit and atwo-tiered banking system, that’s becoming increasingly unsustainable.According to one analyst, “Capital flight is leading to the disintegration ofthe euro zone and divergence between the periphery and the core.Companies pay 1 to 2 percentage points more to borrow in theperiphery. You can’t get growth to resume with suchdivergence.” Bloomberg

Fifteen killed in violent anti-American protests across Pakistan

At least 15 people were killed and more than 200 wounded inanti-American protests across Pakistan, from Karachi to Lahore toIslamabad to Peshawar. The protests were made worse by what wasapparently a very dumb move by Pakistan’s government. On Thursday,the government said that Friday would be “Love the Prophet Day”holiday in reaction to the “Innocence of Muslims” film. Thus, manymillions of people had Friday off, leaving them free to take part inthe protests. Dawn and Al-Jazeera

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