We are in london. A the Greek Parliament passed 2015 budget last night, but they havent reached an agreement with their creditors to receive their final payments for some 7 billion euros. Ministers meet in brussels today after the german chancellor increased pressure on france and italy to reform their economies. Hans nichols joins us now from berlin to discuss this. Is there a solution for greece or are the markets really spooked . It looks like Wolfgang Choi blood may have just hinted at a solution. You have a technical extension, a longerterm discussion about what greece needs to do. We are talking about 2. 5 billion euros. Wherepeaking in brussels finance ministers are gathering, he says, it looks like greece will need more time. That is more time for the longerterm bailout. There has been a lot of talk about a technical extension. Markets. D calm when we saw this whispered about last week, you saw yields starting to drop on greek debt. There is a little bit of exasperation, francine, in his voice. He talks about, it wont be the first time. He also had some compliments for italy and france as well. Lets talk about what has been going on in france and italy. An ongoing sense of frustration as well. The italians finance minister jumping into the inflation debate. What has he been talking about . Inflation, notut getting close to 2 , the challenges on prices. What just happened was interesting. He said the rules that apply to greece apply to everyone. He also praised italys structural reforms. The context of this, yesterday, chancellor Angela Merkel gave an interview to a german newspaper and she was somewhat critical of france and italy, saying that both of them needed to do more to reform their economy. Choi blood is a little more conciliatory. That is going to be an interesting meeting today in brussels. It is not just greece on the agenda. It is also france and italy. Let me get your comment on these. The head of the eurogroup making some comments in that meeting. He said he does not feel confident at all when it comes to greece. Not everybody sounding as if they think a deal can be done here. We also need to factor in, if we dont get some technical extension, where does that leave us with greece. If you dont get a technical extension, that puts them in a very difficult session situation domestically. We are expecting some sort of election in february. If they dont get the technical extension, and that is what the finance minister is referring to, not the overall deal, i would be careful on that distinction. Is he talking about an overall disbursement of aid as part of the program . Or is he talking about a technical extension . If it is the former, you could have elections a lot earlier in greece. Guy, you spent a lot of time there as well. You know how crushing the reforms have been and what have as done to the left of center party. They would likely come into power. Would they continue with austerity measures or totally throw it out the window and would you be starting back at square one . This is an exciting moment and we will be following all these comments as they trickle out of brussels. Certainly an exciting moment, hans. The markets are a little bit more nervous than they were a couple weeks ago. As sony reels from the hacking of its entertainment unit in an attack allegedly originating in north korea, playstations network has also been targeted. Why . Thats find out. Hide joins us now. Caroline hyde joins us now. Lizard squad, they are who are claiming credit for the attack. They have been on twitter saying, psn login, offline. It was about 2 00 a. M. London time that the experience was difficult for people wanting to get online in games. They had difficulty connecting. If you had an online game, you couldnt really access. You were prevented from logging network. Psn now everything is back up and running according to sony. Lizard squad, who are taking credit on twitter, are not related to north korea, not related to the interview congo the comedy the interview, comedy at the expense of kim jongun. We did also have more news about where the original hacking originated from. This isnt just sony being targeted. This is microsoft as well. Microsoft xbox, if you were trying to log on, again, you had difficulties. It was lizard squad claiming credit for that particular issue as well. If you go back to august, this is suddenly a theme. The more you read into this, the more shocking it becomes. In august, we saw sony really targeted by the same group. They went as far as to stage a bomb threat to the president of Sony Online Entertainment. His flight was grounded. It was reportedly said. The fbi started looking into this. It seemed as if lizard squad was taken down. They were taken offline in august. September, they started to come creeping back. If you look back three years ago, 2011 was when this went on for a month. They managed to take down sonys daysetwork for a month, 23 , 77 million accounts allegedly hacked. Biggest breach of data at that point in history ever. Worrisome when you have such an area of growth for sony. It seems to be exposed to hacking. It certainly is. Caroline, thank you very much indeed. Here is what else is on our radar. Japans recession was steeper than initially estimated. The economy contracted 1. 9 in the july to september period of the previous quarter. That is weaker than the 1. 6 percent drop initially reported. Prime minister shinzo abe is still on course to win next weeks election. A guest on that subject coming up shortly. Job cuts are in the pipeline of bp. This according to the sunday times which cites an interview with bps chief financial officer. Also cause some projects to be delayed or even scrapped. Bp would also cut the oil price consumption it uses when it comes to its daytoday budget. A ubs has turned to singaporebased Technology Company for help delivering personalized advice. Technologies will use a cloudbased computing engine driven by Artificial Intelligence to comb through data, extract relevant information, and deliver tailored content to mobile devices. That in our twitter question today, we are asking, would you trust a computer . Manager rather than your current fund manager. Which do you think is going to generate the best results . Let us know what you think about that one. My question is, what are the fees like . Up, bailing out the bailout. With euro finance ministers meeting in brussels, the nation passes its first balanced budget in decades. Will emerging from recession hinder the case of an early bailout . We will discuss what is next for greece when we come back. Welcome back to the pulse. We are live on bloomberg tv and radio. We certainly are. We are on your tablet, on your phone, and we are talking about greece now. Lawmakers approving the first budget in decades. This comes as euro finance ministers prepare to meet in brussels. What does this balanced budget mean . Will the push to exit the program . Joining us now from athens is a senior scholar and consulting ceo. Good morning to you, miranda. The head of the eurogroup in the last few minutes saying that the extension to the bailout, very much still an open matter. He does not feel confident on greece. What are the implications of a deal not being done on an extension for the bailout . There are several implications. First of all, greece might lose 1. 8 billion remaining under the current program, which expires at the end of december. There would be no credit line unless this review is completed. Bondsy, greek government would no longer be accepted as collateral by the ecb. Greece would be left without the unlessp come january 1 this was concluded, and conclusion of the review is a prerequisite for requesting an extension of the program into three months or six months of 2015. What are the chances of the review being completed and greece getting an extension . The review needs to be completed at staff level by next monday at the latest, because european parliaments need to approve the extension before around therecess 18th or the 19th of december. There is only really one week left in which to conclude the negotiations between the greek government and the troika. What are the implications politically in greece . We are waiting to see when we will have president ial elections. They could potentially be bought a little closer. Also the implications associated with that. How does this fit into the broader political story . That is another complicating factor. That means that probably more time will be needed to conclude the negotiations. The sequence of events is that greece concludes the review at staff level, requests an extension by three to six months , then that would provide enough time for the Greek Parliament to legislate the prior actions that are needed as a prerequisite for concluding the review. Also, it gives enough time to negotiate a precautionary credit line that greece will need from the european stability mechanism , as well as a possible imfersion of the current into a precautionary credit line. How worried are you about the elections in march of next year . First of all, we have president ial elections in february. The government has to secure a 3 5 majority, 180 votes. In fact, the position only controls 155 votes. There is a question as to whether some independent mps from other parties would support the government candidate. If this parliament does not elect a president , then National Elections will be called. One of the things that were read that worries market polls. Pants is the andf we get early elections ends up being the next Prime Minister of greece, what are your expectations . Nobody wants to talk about what would happen to greece after that eventuality becoming a reality. What would greece look like . What would the economic story be . They have moved closer to the center compared with the 2012 elections. Exit was a very real possibility. Whichtill have any agenda includes higher government spending, increased pensions and forgiveness,ebt forgiveness of the debt that greece owes to official creditors. Said they would receive many of the forms that have been already implemented. Nationalize some of the systemic bands. This agenda does not provide confidence that funding could be found to implement all these intentions. Syriza would be faced with two choices. Either abandon their agenda for lack of funding or they will leave greece outside of the euro area, which they dont want to do. All right, miranda, a big story into the next new year. Iranda xafa coming up, the crude reality. The impact that the Oil Price Plunge is having on leading Oil Companies. We are going to tell you what changes they are going to be making as crude continues to crumble, if crude can crumble, fall is probably a better way of putting it. See you in a moment. Welcome back to the pulse live on Bloomberg Television and radio, also streaming on your phone, your tablet and bloomberg. Com. But talk crude. Of oil isn the price giving companies reason to examine their strategy. Over the weekend, bp said it might cut jobs and freeze projects. Total may also delay some spending after the slump in crude. Lets get more on the story. Chilcote. Now is ryan Oil Companies the obvious losers. Now some projects are at stake. They are very much under pressure. Bp falling for a third day straight. Brent also falling by a little more than that. 68 a barrel. Their sharebp, price has come down 6 . If it gets directly passed through, but it is stimulus to cut costs. The cfo was talking to the sunday times. He says, we are going to cut 84,000 jobs. They also have scope to cut cost. That is in addition to the 10 billion worth of assets they had already announced they intend to cut. That is not helping their share price. Total also saying that some of the brazil oil fields they are looking to embark on, if the oil price is still where it is, they may forgo those. Drill, baby,s, drill. Merge now. H, baby, Investment Bankers are warming up. Thehey may finally get to point at which all those rumors surrounding bp become reality. We will see what happens. What really struck me about this story was, you are kind of decideg to it, if they to make longterm decisions, they are assuming that oil stays low for longer. This is in a flash in the pan. They are actually making strategic longterm decisions based on the fact that they think crude stays down. For you and ihing to speculate. It is another thing if you have a company like bpr total. Bp or total. 100 a barrel is supported by the fundamental, not saying they think the price will be there for the next couple years. It has been dramatic. The decline in the price of oil continues. We are at 68 for brent. It could go lower. We were at 67. 53 this time last week. Wti, i think, is more important than ever to follow. 65 a barrel, just north of that now. On friday, we closed at the lowest we have in five years. If we see, barclays has a note out today, the price drop for declines arere coming. Ryan, thank you so much. Ryan from Bloomberg News with the latest on the Oil Companies. You just changed his job. Breaking news for Bloomberg News. We will deal with the details on the break. We have some news coming up. An uber taxi driver has been arrested in new delhi after an alleged rape of a female passenger. Local police are considering action against the car booking service. We will bring you the details when we come back. German investigators have cleared Deutsche Bank ceo of manipulating interest rates. Germanys banking and markets regulators found no evidence that any Management Board member knew about or participated in libor rigging. Founders are cutting their holdings in an indian based company. Is set tosale which be worth around 1 billion comes four months after the Company Appointed its first nonfounder ceo. The executive is trying to boost property margins Profit Margins and revise sales growth. Coming up, alarm bells for aid. For abe. New data shows that recession is deeper than previous estimates. We will discuss the implications, next. Welcome back to the pulse i am francine lacqua. I am guy johnson. Chinas surplus grows to record as oil price contributes. Will chinese as towards rose 4 from the Previous Year and asked force arose leading to a trade surplus over 54 billion. The former leader of the Scottish Party will try to win a seat in the general election in may. The first minister resigned after losing the referendum. Theank of warned in quarterly review, they said emerging markets that hold large amounts of debt are at risk. The dollar index closed at an eight year high after stronger than expected jobs on friday. Artificialaking intelligence. It is planning to use the technology to deliver personalized data to its wealthiest customers. Manus cranny is here with more. Is it an indication that are saying or we need to stay with the times stay abreast of the latest developments . We are a Digital Business. We are all digital. I am saying ubs is digital. You have the transition and wealth management, the rich are rich in the nextgeneration coming along are much more dexterity is with using technology. Competition to extract information that is most relevant with the explosion of data so they can compete. And richom amazon people being direct from amazon and rich people being rich. What they have done is ran a competition. Qream. 8 teams competed out of asia and this team won. I love this. They monitor patterns. Since many people in singapore million about, 85 different things. Food, vanity, travel. Taking a data and crunching it down. That is how they personalize the information. Taking a big data in crunching it down. Personalizing it. Make sure you get it the instant feed. It is not advising but crunching their purposes to provide the services that is more suited for you as an individual. Absolutely. Wealth what we think of management is face to face, one to one. This is progress. To complement everything they are doing. It sevenny, we find years. 2 guys. University inmbia 18 Technology Specialist for 20 years and they devised one at , aumbia university and one Technology Specialist for 20 years and they devised this. We flashback. It did not work very well. But it shows you where we are in terms of creating data and voice patterns. That is what these guys are looking at. Voice patterns and they are taking those out rhythms algorithms and make sure you get realtime. It is all about developments. Doing it. Sse is what is most interesting is Credit Suisse is piloting and asia. I love with Goldman Sachs is doing. Complex questions i will love to take an algorithm. Put it into plain english. [laughter] yes. Speaking to the ceo tomorrow. We will indeed. We will get his views on a host of issues tomorrow. It will be markets. And how he ran the bank. An exclusive interview by manus cranny. Lets move on and what is happening next. The u. S. Drugmaker merck is in talks to acquire a pharmaceutical company. It is said to be valued at more than 7 billion. Matt campbell joins us. Cubist. Us about why are the attractive . It is all about antibiotics. Hich is interesting subject it is seen as being a much for medicine. Indeed, it was good for a while. All of the Big Pharma Companies have wanted to do something for cancer and diabetes and arthritis, Heart Disease as well. Antibiotics is seen as a poor relation. Cubist has very cutting edge drugs are run andy roddick resistance to prevent antibiotic around antibiotic resistance. Superbugs which we read about. Merck is saying, it is something we want to get into. Is in a billion that former world, a mere trifling amount of money compared to some of the numbers. 7 billion. Pharma merkel wants to do the small to midsized acquisitions. Pretty advanced. What does it tells about mercks strategy . Merck is not pursuing the megadeal strategy which others seem to be doing. Ra. Zer had a try with ast they tried with another and that did not work. In normal sleep and vicious transactions that may or may not get to the point may or mayment, they not happen. Merck is set