Datoria publica a GERMANIEI

Aug 14 (Reuters) - Germany reduced its roughly 2 trillion euros of public debt last year for
the first time since post-war records began in 1950, helped by the reduction of toxic assets
in government-run bad banks, the Statistics Office said on Thursday.
The combined debts of the federal government, the 16 federal states and local authorities
plus social security fell by 1.5 percent, or 30.3 billion euros. That leaves the overall debt
burden in Europe's biggest economy at 2.04 trillion euros.
The strongest decrease, 5.2 percent, was in the area of social security, said the Statistics
Office.
Federal and state government debts had been eased because toxic assets that came from
state-owned banks Hypo Real Estate and WestLB were off-loaded. These assets were parked
in so-called bad banks during the global financial crisis.
At the federal level, Germany is aiming to have no new borrowing next year. Low
employment and steady growth have generated record tax revenues while rock-bottom
interest rates have reduced the burden of servicing Germany's 1.3 trillion euros of federal
debt.
In the next three years, the federal government expects its debt as a percentage of gross
domestic product (GDP) to fall to under 70 percent from nearly 80 percent. (Reporting
byMadeline Chambers; Editing by Noah Barkin)

Datoria Publica a UK

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has changed the way it measures our public finances,
throwing fresh light on the precise state of the nation's coffers.

The latest revisions help bring the UK in line with European accounting standards, but they don't
make great reading for the Chancellor.
According to the figures, Britain's debt mountain is 127 billion bigger that we first thought.
To provide some context, that's more than the government's annual budget for education and
housing put together.
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In total, the government owes its creditors 1.4 trillion as of this year.
Public sector borrowing - the difference between what the government earns in revenues and what it
spends and invests - has also jumped. The ONS now thinks borrowing is around 99 billion, 5
billion higher than previously calculated (see below).
So what's changed?
The ONS has adopted a different methodology for calculating the public finances. Debt and
borrowing are now higher as the new figures include the cost of the bank bailouts carried out in the
wake of the credit crunch, as well as the Bank of England's quantitative easing programme.
The new accounting rules also mean that Network Rail has been reclassified as part of central
government rather than the private sector.
The liabilities associated with Network Rail add 33 billion to the nation's debt pile. That's
approximately the entire GDP of Uruguay.
Meanwhile the inclusion of the Asset Purchase Facility, the part of the Bank of England that has
been purchasing government bonds, adds on a further 42.4 billion to the debt burden. This is more
than Britain's entire defence budget for 2014/15, or roughly six times the market capitalisation of
Marks & Spencers.
In other areas, the ONS no longer treats the government's auctioning of 4G phone spectrum
licences as a one-off windfall.
Should we worry?
On the question of the accounting changes, the government's fiscal watchdog, the Office for Budget
Responsibility says: "it is important to stress that these are changes to the way public sector
finances are measured, not to the underlying activities being measured."
The overall picture of the nation's finances hasn't been drastically affected by the revisions. The
trajectory for borrowing for the rest of the year looks much like it did in the last 12 months (below).
The Treasury has borrowed 45.4bn so far this fiscal year, 6pc higher compared with the same
period last year. But back in March, the OBR was forecasting an overall fall in borrowing in 2014/15.
So what's changed?
A 'taxless recovery'?
One of the main reasons we're having so much trouble reducing the deficit is due to poor tax
receipts.

Tax revenues are up on last year and the government is cutting back on spending, but this isn't
having a major dent on the public finances (red line above). One of the reasons, say many
economists, is that Britain is undergoing a "jobs rich, but tax poor" recovery.
The economy may have created 774,000 new jobs in the past 12 months but many of them have
been in low-paid sectors. The result is that wage stagnation is keeping income tax low.
Income tax receipts have fallen by 0.8pc against their forecast of a 6.5pc rise for the year, say the
OBR. Strong employment but low wages means more workers entering the labour force now earn
the new tax-free allowance of 10,000 before they start paying income tax. Lagging wage growth
also means that more and more of us are being pulled back into lower income tax brackets, also
hurting the Exchequer.
All in all, it is probaby these "structural" trends in wages and incomes that should be of more concern
to the government than our growing debt mountain.

REZERVELE INTERNATIONALE ALE GERMANIEI

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann wanted to personally convince Peter Gauweiler
that the German gold was still where it should be. Early this summer, the head of
Germany's central bank took the obstinate politician from the conservative Christian
Social Union (CSU), a party that is a member of the government coalition in Berlin, and
a number of his colleagues into the Bundesbank's inner sanctum: the gold vault.
There, 6,000 gold bars are stacked on industrial-strength shelves in a purpose-built
building in Frankfurt. An additional 76,000 bars of bullion are stored in four safe boxes,
in sealed containers.
But even this personal inspection wasn't enough to reassure the visiting member of
parliament -- on the contrary: "The Bundesbank monitors its domestic gold in an
exemplary fashion," Gauweiler says, "and this makes it all the more incomprehensible
that the bank doesn't look after its reserves abroad."
For quite some time now, Gauweiler has been pestering the government and the
Bundesbank with questions concerning where and how the country's reserves are
stored, and how often they are checked. He has submitted requests and commissioned
reports on the topic.
Last week, Gauweiler celebrated his greatest triumph to date in his gold campaign,
which has been a source of some amusement for many fellow German politicians: A
secret report by the Federal Audit Office had been made public -- and it contained stern

criticism of the German central bank in Frankfurt. The Bonn-based auditors urged a
better inventory system, including quality checks.
This demand, which even the bank's inspectors saw as nothing more than routine,
alarmed the Berlin political establishment. Indeed, the partially blacked-out report read
like the prologue to an espionage thriller in which the stunned central bankers could
end up standing in front of empty vaults in the US.
'Grotesque Debate'
For decades, German central bankers have contented themselves with written
affirmations from their American colleagues that the gold still remains where it is said
to be stored. According to the report, the bar list from New York stems from
"1979/1980." The report also noted that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York refuses
to allow the gold's owners to view their own reserves.
Not surprisingly, this prompted strong reactions in Berlin: The relevant Bundesbank
board member Carl-Ludwig Thiele was summoned to Berlin to provide an explanation to
the parliamentary budget committee. Heinz-Peter Haustein of the business-friendly Free
Democratic Party (FDP) was even quoted by Germany's mass-circulation Bild newspaper
as saying that "all the gold has to be shipped back."
The Bundesbank's otherwise reserved Thiele said that he found at least "part of the
debate" to be "rather grotesque." His financial institution currently has more pressing
problems. Bundesbank head Weidmann, for example, is desperately fighting the
European Central Bank (ECB) decision to buy unlimited quantities of sovereign bonds
from crisis-ridden countries as a way of lowering their borrowing costs. In addition, the
Bundesbank has already pumped nearly 700 billion ($906 billion) into primarily
southern European countries as part of the euro-zone central bank transfers known as
Target II.
Germany's gold reserves are currently worth some 144 billion and are not stored "with
dubious business partners," as Thiele stresses, but rather with "highly respected central
bankers."
Special Connection
There is in fact nothing unusual about how Germany deals with the precious metal.
Many other central banks store a portion of their gold reserves abroad. The
Netherlands, for example, places its trust in its colleagues in Ottawa, New York and
London.
But the relationship Germans have with their gold is a special one. Germany hoards
nearly 3,600 metric tons of the precious metal -- only the US has more. Much of this

gold treasure was amassed under the Bretton Woods international monetary system, in
which the dollar served as the world's key currency and was directly convertible to fixed
quantities of gold.
Before the gold standard was terminated in 1971, the current account surpluses
generated by Germany's "economic miracle" were partially balanced out in gold.
Thousands of US bars of gold alone were transferred to German ownership.
But since the euro is not backed by gold, such vast reserves are actually no longer
necessary. Nevertheless, the Germans continue to resolutely defend them -- and every
attempt to use this treasure has been met with dismay.
There has been no lack of proposals: Former German President Roman Herzog wanted
to sell the gold to form the basis for a capital-based nursing care insurance scheme. In
2002, FDP parliamentary floor leader Rainer Brderle proposed a fund for natural
disasters. Former Bundesbank head Ernst Welteke added to the debate by suggesting
the foundation of a national educational fund. But none of these ideas were ever taken
seriously.
Most recently, German Chancellor Angela Merkel of the conservative Christian
Democratic Union (CDU) shot down an idea by the euro partners to use the reserves as
collateral for euro bonds.
Strict Security
As a result, in addition to safeguarding the reserves of over 60 countries, the Federal
Reserve Bank of New York continues to hold 1,536 metric tons of German gold -- or
nearly half of Berlin's reserves. This enormous hoard of gold is stored in the fifth
subfloor of the bank's building on Liberty Street, 25 meters (80 feet) below street level,
and 15 meters below sea level. According to the bank's website, the vault rests on the
bedrock of Manhattan Island.
Tourists are allowed to venture below street level to see the vault. After descending in
an elevator, they stand in front of an enormous steel cylinder that pivots like a door in a
140-ton steel-and-concrete frame. But not even the owners are allowed to view their
own gold. According to the Federal Audit Office report, the Fed explained that "in the
interest of security and of the control process" no "viewings" are possible.
Finally, in 2007, "following numerous enquiries," Bundesbank staff members were
allowed to see the facility, but they reportedly only made it to the anteroom of the
German reserves.
In fact, auditors from the Bundesbank made a second visit in May 2011. This time one
of the nine compartments was also opened, in which the German gold bars are densely

stacked. A few were pulled out and weighed. But this part of the report has been
blacked out -- out of consideration for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
"I would like more transparency on the issue," says Bundesbank board member Thiele.
The Americans are very sensitive, though, when it comes to security procedures in their
gold storage facilities. In their second major depository, the legendary Fort Knox,
practically no one in recent decades has been allowed to view the gold reserves.
Fuelling Legends
Such intense secrecy fuels legends. Many conspiracy theorists have suspected for
decades that the German gold has long since disappeared. Others believe that it has
been lent out. They contend that there are only promissory notes of little worth stored
in the bank's vaults.
Another myth that has been making the rounds in nationalist-oriented German circles is
that the US refused to hand over the treasure and threatened during the Cold War to
withdraw its troops from Germany if the Germans demanded their gold back. Former
Bundesbank head Karl Blessing, according to the theory, had to provide the US written
confirmation that he would never do such a thing.
This letter, as it happens, actually exists, as Blessing confirmed in his last interview with
SPIEGEL in 1971 -- except it doesn't concern the German gold, but rather US gold
reserves. Until 1971, every dollar could be exchanged for the precious metal. Blessing
thus promised the US Federal Reserve that he would no longer convert the colossal
German dollar reserves to gold because this would have caused the currency's value to
plummet.
Today, this historic document is even available online. But that hasn't silenced those
who oppose stockpiling German gold abroad. Instead, the debate over a collapse of
strictly paper-based currency is experiencing a renaissance -- as is the dispute over the
gold reserves. Even Green Party financial expert Gerhard Schick has joined the fray: "I
think the question of how much gold is available in an emergency is a valid concern."
Outlandish Idea
From a purely logistical perspective, though, returning the reserves seems outlandish.
One cannot simply pack 1,500 tons of gold into an Airbus A380 super-jumbo jet and fly
it back to Germany.
The Bundesbank also objects to this notion for another reason. It says the gold is
supposed to act as an emergency buffer. In the extreme situation of a currency
collapse, the bankers say that the gold bars could easily and quickly be exchanged on
location for pounds or dollars to pay urgent bills.

In a bid to calm the debate, the Bundesbank has pledged to bring back and inspect 150
tons of gold from abroad over the next three years. Furthermore, there are plans to
count and weigh the gold bars stored in one of the nine chambers at the Fed in New
York -- although no date has been set for this.
Bundesbank board member Thiele was also recently in New York where he took a look
behind one of the vault doors. He had good news for the members of the parliamentary
budget committee: "There was no paper in there, just gold."
But that's not enough for CSU politician Gauweiler. He's only prepared to put the matter
to rest when the central bank has thoroughly inspected all the German reserves
throughout the entire world. His credo: "The Bundesbank is independent, but it can't do
what it wants."