Sox First

© phault

And so the Greek parliament has passed the controversial package of austerity measures in return for a 130 billion Euro ($US170bn) bailout to avoid default. At the same time, Athens has erupted in riots with ten buildings were set ablaze in central Athens by anti- austerity protesters including a bank and a Starbucks café and demonstrators tearing up marble in front of parliament, hurling fire-bombs at police guarding the chamber and officers in riot gear responding with tear-gas and flash grenades.

Take a look at the numbers and you will see that a default by Greece would be better, both for Greece and the Eurozone. Greek debt in 2008 was approximately 260 billion Euro. The first bailout was 110 billion and this bailout, the ones that's tearing the country apart, is 130 billion. All this raises an obvious question: why the hell didn't they pay quarter of a billion Euro four years ago. All they did was set Greece up for failure. Those initial austerity measures only worsened Greece's fiscal imbalances and produced a recession, creating more unemployment and reducing government revenues that are producing no reduction in the debt-to-GDP ratio. In fact, it's getting worse. The bailouts and demands for fiscal rectitude are killing Greece and burying it.

Writing in the Financial Standard, Benjamin Ong who heads the Financial Standard Intelligence Unit with the Rainmaker group, says a default might be the perfect solution. "There might come a time when Greece shouts, 'enough is enough and enough is too much'. That it's better to die from a single shot of default rather than suffering death by a thousand (fiscal spending) cuts. Bankruptcy is bliss. For how much worse would Greece be if it declares bankruptcy? It won't suffer much more, I imagine. Instead, the pain would migrate to those demanding more of it from Greece."

The reality is Greece will 'never' be able to pay back its debts. That means it has to be forgiven its debts – either in full or a large chunk of it. Either that, or it unilaterally declare default – as Russia did when it defaulted back in 1998. Think back to Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed who refused an IMF bailout and its attached conditions during the Asian financial crisis. The Malaysian economy is now booming. There's a lesson in that.

© ssoosay

The story about the scandals at Rupert Murdoch's International keeps getting worse. The big news from Reuters is that five senior staff at London's top-selling daily The Sun have been arrested as part of a probe into journalists paying police for tip-offs. "Four current and former Sun staff had already been arrested last month, and the latest detentions raise questions about the viability of Britain's best selling daily,'' Reuters reports. It also raises serious questions about the long term viability of Murdoch's UK business.

The arrests have been triggered by information supplied to the Yard by the Management and Standards Committee (MSC), an independent committee set up by the New York-based News Corporation, the parent company of News International and as The Guardian says, this could actually do serious damage to the Murdoch empire. "What the committee finds has potentially huge implications, not just for Murdoch's UK newspapers, but the mogul's empire, which stretches across Europe to the US, Latin America and Australia. Legal experts speculate that the bribery allegations could lead to the broadcasting watchdog, Ofcom, reviewing Murdoch's stake in Sky television. Under UK law, owners must prove they are "fit and proper" to own media interests. Any evidence suggesting News International titles were engaged in the corruption of officials could also trigger an investigation by the US authorities into breaches of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) which prohibits corrupt payments to foreign government officials. It is this – the threat of the cancer spreading outside the UK and eating away at an empire that includes Fox News and 20th Century Fox film studios, and last year had revenues of $34bn (£21.5bn) – that really worries Murdoch's lieutenants."

© Enokson

Apple shares have soared past $490 per share and are now heading towards $495. Apple is experiencing extraordinary growth. Check this chart in Google Finance. You can see that Apple's market cap was $461 billion towards the end of the week. That makes it bigger than Microsoft and Google combined. Microsoft's market cap is about $258 billion, and Google's is $199 billion.

So what does all this mean? And why is it happening. According to this piece of good analysis, investors see a strong growth in Apple, investors are buying what they are consuming and we're seeing riots in China over Apple 4S phones, long queues in US and Europe for new versions of Apple products are an indicator of the demand for Apple products, investors are already hearing technology pundits talk about what Apple could do with the iPad 3, slated for March 2012 launch, Apple reported one of the most profitable quarters ever for any US company with its net income more than doubling to $13.06 billion in the October-December 2011 quarter, boosted by strong sales of its bestsellers iPhone, iPad and Macintosh computers and finally, Apple generated $17.3 bn in cash in the December 2011 quarter. It now has a cash pile of over $95 billion now, a fifth of its current stock market. With that sort of cash, investors are expecting strong dividends.

But Erik Sherman at CBS MoneyWatch says it can't last forever. "Pulling off mind-boggling business accomplishments one quarter after the next is impressive, but experience and the law of averages suggests that it won't last forever. Google is in part a reason, because Android picks up adoption faster than Apple's iOS, the software that runs the iPhone and iPad, can. But it's not just Google. There are only so many new markets for devices. Apple goes into new areas, but breaking into something like television will be much harder, largely because people have to pay the full freight themselves rather than getting subsidies. Also, eventually brands trip up and fall out of favor. Maybe Apple can maintain the same blistering pace for another few years, but that will depend on finding new product categories that can fuel unending popularity. Wall Street likes Apple, but doesn't want to bet the rent on the future."