Economy

[ford man xf]

Originally Posted by z80

here is an account of life in Greece as told by a member of another group i subscribe to:-

Greece is falling apart and the flow on affect to other nations will pull them apart too. There biggest mistake (like a lot of other European nations) was switching from their national currency to the Euro, because now there locked in with the Euro they cannot deliberately de-value their currency so that exporting becomes more practical. Because they are stuck with the strength of the Euro exporting is difficult because of the strong value.

[ford man xf]

And my other point is that the Greeks have partially brought this upon themselves because they are way too generous with retirement and benefits, it was always going to end this way, sadly they are screwed, this isn't something that they recover from in a decade this is something that takes half a century if not longer the debt is incredible.

[Keepleft]

Originally Posted by z80

We are only at the start of this crisis. What will happen next year when unemployment doubles and people lose their homes? The communist calls for revolution don't look nearly as far-fetched as they did six months ago. While
civil war doesn't look likely, a return to the military days must be a possibility.

The last thing any such country needs is a return to the bolshie left, enough of em in power now in the EU parliament.

[Bent8]

Has everyone seen this yet?...straight from the horses mouth as they say.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp-MQhssCqI

And now this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UGDTtqklSo

[Yellow_Festiva]

Originally Posted by ford man xf

Greece is falling apart and the flow on affect to other nations will pull them apart too. There biggest mistake (like a lot of other European nations) was switching from their national currency to the Euro, because now there locked in with the Euro they cannot deliberately de-value their currency so that exporting becomes more practical. Because they are stuck with the strength of the Euro exporting is difficult because of the strong value.

The Italians greatly regret the Euro from what I know and hear. Many things there went up in price when switched from Lira to Euro that was not a true reflection of the equivalent value. I have been to Italy 4 times, twice in the Lira and twice in the Euro.

Having said that, Malta on the other hand has made less of a fuss since accepting the Euro this year (or was it last year?? Time flies!). I have a favourite restaurant there, and have a favourite dish which I ALWAYS eat. I remember the rough price when I was there last in pounds and paid roughly the same, perhaps a fraction more in Euros when I was there again this year.

The tune is the same across much of Europe. Over spending, over 'investing', over paying, corruption and misuse of funds etc etc etc.

Previously there was a post on the Chinese currency. When I was in China in 2006 1 Yuan was around 16 cents. I just looked it up now, and 1 Yuan is still... well around 16 cents (and my observations over the years has shown that it has been pretty stable since I have been back).

At the same time, I also visited Russia. The conversion was simple and I still remember it now. 'Drop a 0 and half it to convert to AUD', so my 2400R (well, 'P' actually) Trans-Siberian 3rd class sleeper ticket from Irkutsk to Moscow (almost 4 days) was a whole $120.

2400 Rubles is now $76! That is a HUGE change in value. If I went there now with $120, it would now be worth around 3800 Rubles....

I wonder, has the train ticket gone up as well???

It is a great shame to hear of the situation in Greece, and I'm looking at a European destination to visit early next year... I may have to stay tuned on the predicament over there, especially the safety aspect.

[trippytaka]

I have been off air for a while... hi again!

Interesting to see the world is still trying to bail out a leaky boat with sieves.

Investors are buoyed by hopes of a euro zone solution, market goes up. Bad figures or rumours come out, market goes down.

The fact is that the world is awash with debts. Commodities, assets etc are (on the most part) overvalued. There is not enough real money to pay down the debts.

You can't keep plugging holes with more debts. At some stage there needs to be a proper correction. How, where, and how much, how long it will be? God knows.

[ford man xf]

Things are getting worse and worse by the day in the Euro zone:

European nations could lose powers, EC head's memo saysBy Nina Dos Santos, CNN
December 6, 2011 -- Updated 2303 GMT (0703 HKT)
Herman Van Rompuy's memo singled out "member states that ... have consistently failed to meet the conditionality" of their relief.STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: British PM warns he may not sign a new EU treaty if British interests are at risk
Leaked memo sets out tough measures for countries that fail to manage budgets
It comes a day after the leaders of France and Germany agreed to a new fiscal pact
European leaders are in Brussels later this week for their last summit of the year
(CNN) -- European nations could be penalized by being stripped of some powers if they fail to manage their budgets, according to a memo from European Commission President Herman Van Rompuy leaked Tuesday.

The confidential memo, sent out to leaders ahead of the final European Council meeting of the year at the end of the week, comes only a day after the leaders of Germany and France agreed in Paris on a new fiscal pact they say will help prevent another debt crisis.

But Van Rompuy's proposals, details of which were obtained by CNN, are perhaps even stricter than those of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The five-page memo proposes that the European Commission could perhaps be given the right to strip voting rights within the European Union from some countries who have been bailed out but are still not meeting their deficit targets

For "member states that are under an assistance program and have consistently failed to meet the conditionality, the (European) Commission could receive exceptional power such as ex-ante approval of all major economic reforms," the document says.



Euro countries could lose AAA rating

Italians react to new austerity measures

Countdown to save the euro

Treaty 'the will of France and Germany' As such, the executive arm of the EU could force bailed-out countries, such as Greece, Ireland and Portugal, to comply with deficit regulations, which for the entire EU currently stand at 3% of GDP.

Those rules have been in place for many years but EU leaders are looking for a way to have them more tightly enforced in order to restore confidence in eurozone debt.

Van Rompuy's proposals indicate continuing differences of opinion with other key decision-makers in Europe over how to handle the region's debt crisis.

The proposed change of protocol Van Rompuy has put forward would not need to be fully ratified by all the member states, a person familiar with the plans told CNN.

Merkel and Sarkozy, heads of the two largest economies in the 17-nation eurozone, said Monday that their pact, to be presented in detail Friday, would involve amending or rewriting the treaties that govern the EU to force members to manage their budgets in a more structured and coherent way.

They are expected to write to Van Rompuy on Wednesday to find out whether their initiative would be embraced by all 27 EU countries or just the 17 that share the single currency.

Ahead of that move, Prime Minister David Cameron warned Tuesday he would not sign any reworked EU treaty that does not protect British interests.

"What I'm saying is that if -- and eurozone countries do need to come together, do need to do more things together -- if they choose to use the European treaty to do that, Britain will be insisting on some safeguards, too, and as long as we get those, then that treaty can go ahead. If we can't get those, it won't," he told the BBC.

Resolving the eurozone crisis is a priority, Cameron said, but he would be going to Brussels to "defend and promote" British interests, including the U.K. financial services sector.

As the head of the European Commission, Van Rompuy is expected to steer discussions between the member states as they meet for the final EU summit of the year.

Both Merkel and Sarkozy ruled out Monday the concept of pooling eurozone debt under so-called "eurobonds," saying such discussions were premature.

However, Van Rompuy's memo appears to open the door to such an idea further down the line.

He recommends leaders consider "opening up the possibility in a longer term perspective of moving towards common debt issuance in a staged and criteria-based approach," according to the leaked memo.

Sarkozy said Monday in Paris that the debt crisis, which has shaken markets around the world, must be resolved by March next year.

Meanwhile, Standard and Poor's placed 15 members of the euro currency union on review for a possible downgrade Monday, as the debt crisis in the eurozone continues to worsen.

The warning applies to AAA-rated nations such as Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Finland and Luxembourg, the U.S.-based credit rating agency said in a press release.

A downgrade of France or another of the region's top-rated nations would have serious consequences for the European Financial Stability Facility.

The EFSF, a government-backed bailout fund, could lose its AAA rating if the nations that stand behind it are downgraded.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/06/wo...puy/?hpt=hp_t2

[ford man xf]

You can even gamble/bet money on whether the Euro currency will exist by the end of 2012, the odds pay quite handsomely if you think the Euro will be removed.

[ford man xf]

Looks like Australia is targeting India's rising economy, probably a wise move considering the growth India has experienced over the last decade

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politi...018-27ttl.html

Grab the tiger by the tail and improve our India trade ties
DateOctober 19, 2012

Australia would benefit from a less lopsided economic relationship.

OVER the past two decades, since it began opening up to the rest of the world, India's economy has grown at an average 6.75 per cent a year, propelling it from the ninth largest to third largest in the world, using the same measuring stick that now ranks China's economy as the second largest.

Trade has been an important driver of that growth. Exports have more than trebled as a share of India's GDP to more than 27 per cent, while India's share of world trade in goods and services has also more than trebled (although particularly in merchandise trade its share is still much smaller than China's).

Against that background, it is hardly surprising that India is a much more important trading partner for Australia than it was two decades ago. What is surprising is that the trading relationship remains so narrowly based.

Advertisement More than 83 per cent of Australia's merchandise exports to India come from just three commodities, coal (which alone accounts for 57 per cent), gold (27 per cent) and copper ores and concentrates.

Our agricultural exports to India amounted to just over $500 million in 2011, less than a tenth of the value of our agricultural exports to China. We sold less than $200 million worth of manufactured goods to India last year, compared with more than $1.2 billion worth to China.

The relationship is also rather lopsided. We imported just $2.2 billion merchandise worth from India in 2011, of which the biggest single component was medicaments, valued at $126 million. By contrast, we imported more than $42 billion of goods from China last year.

Also surprising is that the relationship has gone into reverse over the past two years. Australia's merchandise exports to India fell by 19 per cent between the 2009-10 and 2011-12 financial years. Among our other trading partners, only New Zealand and South Africa bought less from us in 2011-12 than they did two years earlier. During that time India has gone from taking 8 per cent of our exports to just 5 per cent, a smaller share than recession-hit Europe, to which our exports have risen by 25 per cent over the past two years.

Something similar has happened to our services trade with India. Though the number of Indian tourists coming to Australia has continued to rise, it has done so at a slower rate, 8 per cent a year over the past two years, down from an average of 13 per cent a year over the preceding decade. By contrast, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Australia has risen by almost 23 per cent over the past two years, up from an average of 14 per cent a year over the preceding decade. And the number of Indian students undertaking higher education in Australia has fallen from nearly 28,000 in 2009 to fewer than 15,000 in 2011.

Not all of these developments are Australia's fault. India maintains high barriers to imports of agricultural products ( and to imports of many manufactured goods. And India's economy has slowed more markedly than China's, from a China-like growth rate of 8.9 per cent in 2010 to just 5.4 per cent in the first half of this year.

China's growth rate over the remainder of this decade is likely to be slower than it has been over the past two decades, partly because of the demographic transition that China is about to have as its working-age population peaks and begins to decline, and partly as China seeks to wean itself off an investment and export-led economic growth model in favour of one more reliant on consumer spending.

Even so, India will find it hard to match a slower rate of Chinese economic growth.

India has made far less progress than China in extending primary and secondary education to its entire population, and thus is less likely to achieve the productivity gains that have helped lift China.

In our view, India ''wastes'' far more human capital through discrimination on the basis of caste and gender (and through ''reverse discrimination'' in its public sector) than China.

India's economic potential is more constrained by deficiencies in basic infrastructure than China's - which is one reason why India is much more prone to bursts of inflation than China.

India's large public-sector deficits ''crowd out'' private-sector investment to a much greater extent than in China or most other developing economies And India continues to deny itself access to ''economies of scale'' because of what we believe is a misguided adherence to Gandhi's belief in the inherent nobility of small enterprises.

India's economic achievements over the past two decades are all the more impressive because they have occurred despite these largely self-imposed obstacles. They are a tribute to the inherent talents of India's people, and to the reforms accomplished by successive governments. It is hoped that Palaniappan Chidambaram's return to a third stint at the Finance Ministry heralds a renewed vigour in India's economic reform program that has been somewhat lacking in recent years.

Australia has put most of its trade eggs in the China basket over the past decade. That has not caused us any serious problems so far, and Australia will continue to benefit from our growing and evolving economic relationship with China. But we would undoubtedly benefit from a deeper, broader and less lopsided economic relationship with India. In that context, Prime Minister Julia Gillard's visit to India this week has been especially timely.

[trippytaka]

A look at the stats reveals India's economy is no where near the kind of growth that everyone was expecting. It's not going to be another China.

[gtfpv]

It seems our economy is growing currently, hope it continues . Its all over my head. Can only hope the financial gurus know whats going on

[ford man xf]

We travelled across China and returned terrified for the economy

It's as bad as the data looks, if not worse.

China’s steel and metals markets, a barometer of the world’s second-biggest economy, are “a lot worse than you think,” according to a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst who just completed a tour of the country.

What he saw: idle cranes, empty construction sites and half-finished, abandoned buildings in several cities. Conversations with executives reinforced the “gloomy” outlook.

“China’s metals demand is plummeting,” wrote Kenneth Hoffman, the metals analyst who spent a week traveling across the country, meeting with executives, traders, industry groups and analysts.

“Demand is rapidly deteriorating as the government slows its infrastructure building and transforms into a consumer economy.”

The China Steel Profitability Index compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence barely rose in March, a time after the annual Lunar New Year when demand would usually surge, and so far this month has resumed its decline.

Steel use this year is down 3.4 per cent, after slumping as much as 4 per cent in 2014, according to BI. It had steadily risen for more than a decade.

Prices for commodities from iron ore to coal are sinking as China’s leadership tries to steer the economy away from debt-fueled property investment and smokestack industries, embracing services and domestic-led consumption. At the same time, President Xi Jinping is stepping up efforts to combat pollution, further squeezing industry.

Deteriorating economic data has led traders and analysts to speculate that China’s central bank will act to revive growth.

The bank has said it will keep an “appropriate balance between loosening and tightening” of interest rates. It has cut interest rates twice since November and lowered lenders’ reserve-requirement ratios once.

Economists are forecasting 7 per cent growth in China for this year, in line with government targets and down from 7.4 per cent in 2014, according to the median of 59 estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

That’s about half the last decade’s peak rate of 14.2 per cent in 2007.

The slowing steel and metals activity suggests the outlook could be grimmer.

“There is a big fear this is going to get worse before it gets better,” Hoffman said in an interview. “It’s as bad as the data looks, if not worse.”

https://au.pfinance.yahoo.com/educat...r-the-economy/

[buggerlugs]

http://www.news.com.au/finance/super...-1227386809222

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by buggerlugs

http://www.news.com.au/finance/super...-1227386809222

LOL, that reads like they opened a book on clichés and picked out most of the old ones

[Lotte]

Originally Posted by buggerlugs

http://www.news.com.au/finance/super...-1227386809222

As soon as I got to the name Stephen King I started thinking about what he could possibly be naming this next economic horror novel

[GASWAGON]

There are some predictions that the U.S will go into a default around september/october 2015. I think this will be because the debt ceiling will have been hit yet again and Obama will need to raise it once again.

Theyr'e over 18 TRILLION dollars now!!!!

[buggerlugs]

http://www.news.com.au/finance/econo...edd0ba3301e33e