China is livid and fuming – “China, the largest creditor of the world’s sole superpower, has every right now to demand the United States address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China’s dollar assets” – and recommends the U.S. cut military (of course) spending and social welfare programs. See: “China tells U.S. ‘good old days’ of borrowing are over.”
Euro-region central bank governors are scrambling to make sure the S%26amp;P downgrade does not make the European sovereign debt situation even worse: “Euro-Area Central Banks to Hold Crisis Call”
Finally, Paul Krugman thinks ratings agencies are irrelevant:
The S%26amp;P downgrade is sure to cause a global fuss and ruckus. The agency has already had to issue another press release to clarify and correct assumptions it used to calculate growth in discretionary spending. S%26amp;P did well to issue its downgrade after all financial markets were closed Friday night. The timing allows breathing room for world markets to adjust to the news without the immediate pressure of buying and selling. Economists, policy makers, etc… also get time to dream up responses before feeling the pressures of financial markets. The disagreements and displays of political opportunism should thoroughly entertain us.
Arguably, the news of the downgrade comes as little surprise, but it does present an interesting scenario for a continuation of the dollar’s bounce from its July lows. All the bad news from the debt ceiling circus and various poor economic reports failed to push the dollar index to fresh 2011 lows. Thursday’s massive 4.8% sell-off in the S%26amp;P 500 sent the dollar soaring 1.7%. Unless the Federal Reserve pushes forward with QE3 (quantitative easing) or related jawboning at Tuesday, Aug 9th’s meeting, every near-term dollar-negative catalyst will finally be out of the way. The first natural target for the U.S. dollar is another test of overhead resistance at the 200-day moving average (DMA). A break above that point could launch a sustained relief rally.|||Let's put it this way - Reagan had his congress well in hand, as the country needed to borrow trillions to fight a terrible recession in the early 80s.
The Democrats let it go for the sake of the country and THEY had CONTROL of the House !!
The Republicans only had a majority in the senate 54-46, so it was not an easy task, but the Democrats stood down, as they should and let it happen for the sake of the country(to repeat myself).
Bush 41 bumped up the debt pretty much considering he had only 4 years, but he continued on to 12 years of republicans in the White House - not good, considering.
Along comes Clinton and after 8 years he leaves with a surplus !!
Whoa, then we get Bush43 and the roof caves in - end of story - Obama is continually in clean-up mode for the Bush 43 fiscal disaster.
Along comes the Tea party and BINGO - near-default - stalemate caused by them - debt ceiling bill is a croc - S %26amp; P's downgrades the USAs credit rating.
What more can I say !!??|||China has no business doing anything but waiting for treasury bonds to mature.
If they go unpaid, then they can squawk.|||No, just to spending other people's money.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Please help me summarise the key points of this article:?
And how does this have an impact on us, family and economy.
Thank you, so much
Take it red: investors fragile and wary
The sharemarket closed firmly in the red yesterday after a fall in commodity prices and as it became apparent a full resolution of the European debt crises is not imminent. The benchmark S%26amp;P/ASX 200 index was down 68.8 points, or 1.63 per cent, to 4144.9.
CMC Markets chief market strategist Michael McCarthy said investor sentiment was fragile and risk-averse.
“Any bad news is magnified and positive news tends to be ignored.” He said. “We’re all concerned about the curse on out global village and we want to burn a witch.” But a market pull-back was healthy, given recent rallies on the Australian market.
“We don’t want to see markets go in a straight line because that’s just setting itself up for a reversal,” Mr McCarthy said. The view on Europe’s debt crisis was tending back towards pessimism. It was becoming clear that the situation would not be resolved this weekend, when European leaders hold a summit. “Realistically, that’s not going to happen, and at best what we’re going to see is some containment of the potential dangers to the financial system, “Mr McCarthy said. “They’ll deal with the debt market situation but won’t be able, a short time frame, to deal in an effective manner with the longer-term structural problems, that is, the budget deficits so many of those Southern European nations are running.” Mr McCarthy said investors would stay on the sidelines until the G20 meeting on November 3. He said the mining and energy sectors were the worst performers yesterday, after a fall in commodity prices, particularly for oil and copper. Among the major miners Rio Tinto was down $2.23, or 3.4 per cent, at $62.85, BHP Billiton slipped 92 cents, or 2.2 per cent, to $12.07 after the company increased third quarter sales revenue by 27 per cent and maintained its full- year production guidance.
Newcrest reported a 16 per cent drop in gold production for the September quarter. The spot price of gold in Sydney was $US1614.79 an ounce, down $US45.08 from Wednesday’s $US1659.87.
National turnover was below average, Mr McCarthy said, at about 1.55 billion shares, worth $4.7 billion. More than twice as many stocks fell for every one that rose.|||uncertainty in europe has led to a corresponding downturn in our economy. this is not healthy as we are struggling to get off and out of the doldrums. so we need to have something concrete from G20
[alas - all hot air. nato - no action talk only]
Thank you, so much
Take it red: investors fragile and wary
The sharemarket closed firmly in the red yesterday after a fall in commodity prices and as it became apparent a full resolution of the European debt crises is not imminent. The benchmark S%26amp;P/ASX 200 index was down 68.8 points, or 1.63 per cent, to 4144.9.
CMC Markets chief market strategist Michael McCarthy said investor sentiment was fragile and risk-averse.
“Any bad news is magnified and positive news tends to be ignored.” He said. “We’re all concerned about the curse on out global village and we want to burn a witch.” But a market pull-back was healthy, given recent rallies on the Australian market.
“We don’t want to see markets go in a straight line because that’s just setting itself up for a reversal,” Mr McCarthy said. The view on Europe’s debt crisis was tending back towards pessimism. It was becoming clear that the situation would not be resolved this weekend, when European leaders hold a summit. “Realistically, that’s not going to happen, and at best what we’re going to see is some containment of the potential dangers to the financial system, “Mr McCarthy said. “They’ll deal with the debt market situation but won’t be able, a short time frame, to deal in an effective manner with the longer-term structural problems, that is, the budget deficits so many of those Southern European nations are running.” Mr McCarthy said investors would stay on the sidelines until the G20 meeting on November 3. He said the mining and energy sectors were the worst performers yesterday, after a fall in commodity prices, particularly for oil and copper. Among the major miners Rio Tinto was down $2.23, or 3.4 per cent, at $62.85, BHP Billiton slipped 92 cents, or 2.2 per cent, to $12.07 after the company increased third quarter sales revenue by 27 per cent and maintained its full- year production guidance.
Newcrest reported a 16 per cent drop in gold production for the September quarter. The spot price of gold in Sydney was $US1614.79 an ounce, down $US45.08 from Wednesday’s $US1659.87.
National turnover was below average, Mr McCarthy said, at about 1.55 billion shares, worth $4.7 billion. More than twice as many stocks fell for every one that rose.|||uncertainty in europe has led to a corresponding downturn in our economy. this is not healthy as we are struggling to get off and out of the doldrums. so we need to have something concrete from G20
[alas - all hot air. nato - no action talk only]
What is the financial crisis in Greece?
And also, what do you think are some reasons that led to the crisis?
All I know about it is that the value of the Euro currency is declining,
and that other nations in the European Union along with the International Monetary
Fund are giving them loans to pay off their debt.
According to CNN, this was caused by "years of unrestrained spending, cheap lending and failure to implement financial reforms left Greece badly exposed when the global economic downturn struck. This whisked away a curtain of partly fiddled statistics to reveal debt levels and deficits that exceeded limits set by the eurozone."
What are your thoughts? :)|||From the bondholder's perspective, it's an investment completely guaranteed by the U.S. and German taxpayer.|||sounds like they had it coming
it would be much harder on the eu if greece goes bankrupt, so they have to bail them out|||I am Belgian but have been living in Greece since 25 years and as long as I can remember this country has been mismanaged. Corruption,favoritism,plain steeling, tax evasion by the rich, you name it. Everybody complained but nobody tried to do something about it. I cannot say I did not see it coming,because I did for a very long time now.
This country has been ruled by a few very influential families and a club of "Golden Boys" who made money on the back of the Middle Class. The poor are just too poor to take anything away from them anymore.
The country has a plague of Civil Servants, who sit around and do absolutely nothing. Greece with a fourth of the population of France has almost as many as the latter. This has been costing the country enormous amounts of money, but each time before the elections thousands are promised a government-job, if they vote for one party or another.
This is just one example, there are too many to enumerate. Most of the dirt is coming to the surface now and trials will be held. I just hope that for once justice will be done, though I am not counting too much on it. We are all paying a high price for the "brigandage" of a few and I hope it will be a lesson for the generations of young Greeks to come.
Hope this gives you an idea of the nature of the problem.
All I know about it is that the value of the Euro currency is declining,
and that other nations in the European Union along with the International Monetary
Fund are giving them loans to pay off their debt.
According to CNN, this was caused by "years of unrestrained spending, cheap lending and failure to implement financial reforms left Greece badly exposed when the global economic downturn struck. This whisked away a curtain of partly fiddled statistics to reveal debt levels and deficits that exceeded limits set by the eurozone."
What are your thoughts? :)|||From the bondholder's perspective, it's an investment completely guaranteed by the U.S. and German taxpayer.|||sounds like they had it coming
it would be much harder on the eu if greece goes bankrupt, so they have to bail them out|||I am Belgian but have been living in Greece since 25 years and as long as I can remember this country has been mismanaged. Corruption,favoritism,plain steeling, tax evasion by the rich, you name it. Everybody complained but nobody tried to do something about it. I cannot say I did not see it coming,because I did for a very long time now.
This country has been ruled by a few very influential families and a club of "Golden Boys" who made money on the back of the Middle Class. The poor are just too poor to take anything away from them anymore.
The country has a plague of Civil Servants, who sit around and do absolutely nothing. Greece with a fourth of the population of France has almost as many as the latter. This has been costing the country enormous amounts of money, but each time before the elections thousands are promised a government-job, if they vote for one party or another.
This is just one example, there are too many to enumerate. Most of the dirt is coming to the surface now and trials will be held. I just hope that for once justice will be done, though I am not counting too much on it. We are all paying a high price for the "brigandage" of a few and I hope it will be a lesson for the generations of young Greeks to come.
Hope this gives you an idea of the nature of the problem.
Do you agree with Obama when he criticized Europe Debt as the source of the bad Economy Or was it Wall Street?
German observers have reacted angrily to the comments, saying that the US is in no position to criticize other countries, given its own $14-trillion pile of national debt and ongoing wrangling over the country's debt ceiling. Others claim that Obama is just trying to distract attention from the US's problems and point out that the US president was in California to raise funds and voter support ahead of his reelection campaign next year.....
The mass-circulation Bild writes:
"Obama's lecture on the euro crisis 鈥?is overbearing, arrogant and absurd. 鈥?In a nutshell, he is claiming that Europe is to blame for the current financial crisis, which is 'scaring the world.' Excuse me?" "The American president seems to have forgotten a few details. The most important trigger of the financial and economic crisis was US banks and their insane real-estate dealings. The US is still piling up debt 鈥?The American congress is crippled by a battle between the right and the left. The banks are gambling just as recklessly as they did before the crisis. The president's scolding is a pathetic attempt to distract attention from his own failures. How embarrassing."
The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:
"Dark clouds have gathered over the American president. The gloomy state of the economy is putting a dampener on Obama's future prospects. The optimism of the past is gone, replaced by a cheap search for a scapegoat." "Obama thinks he has found one. He blames the Europeans for reacting too late to the debt crisis.
The financial daily Handelsblatt writes:
Obama governs a country where, despite billions in state aid, the economy is stagnating, companies refuse to invest despite calls for patriotism, and which gets embroiled in one political trench war after another 鈥?Now this country is dispensing advice, suggestions and finger-pointing.".....In the desperate battle for his re-election he'd rather construct myths, such as claiming that the Europeans alone are responsible for the American mess. Not only is this fundamentally wrong, but -- coming as it does from a friend -- it's downright pitiful and sad."
See: http://www.spiegel.de/international/worl鈥?/a>|||Wall Street. Obama is just another closet-Republican.|||First all these ideas are not the American peoples they are Obamas and a select few socialists that are part of his administration in 2012 America will be rid of Obama and his comrades but do not label America because of a few Mad men .|||So now he his blaming other countries for his miserable failures, lol.... Guess it wasn't nothing but a matter of time before he ran out of Americans to blame....
Vote Republican 2012 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!|||it was wall street...|||The European debt is just making worse what Wall Street did to the American people in the first place.|||he can't admit the truth, that the problems have been caused by rampant liberalism. there is NO excuse for a person whose job is to keep the trays holding the fasteners for a dashboard filled for the robots to make 6 figures a year, I don't care HOW much overtime he pulls!|||I think the nasty truth is that world capitalism is in crisis.
None of the capitalist businessmen and none of the capitalist politicians has any good solution to the crisis. Therefore they blame each other.
To be sure, the face and the dimensions of our global capitalist emergency keep changing.
Really, big problems for the world economy first emerged in the 1970s, following a remarkable 25-year period of encouraging growth in the capitalist West.
It was in around 1975 that the US, Western Europe and Japan discovered that -- having successfully reindustrialized, following the catastrophic destruction of World War II, the world's leading capitalist powers were beginning to compete with each other. Dangerously, in a zero-sum fight over markets that somebody was going to lose.
Also in the 1970s, Richard Nixon in the US helped to dismantle the old Bretton Woods Agreement by ending the convertibility of US dollars into gold.
Nixon's abandonment of the Bretton Woods ssytem touched off a surge of currency speculation and economic instability in the world. And as this drove down the real value of the dollar, falling real prices for oil inspired the OPEC nations in 1973 to impose their oil boycott on Western friends of Israel -- an act that soon caused a surge in oil prices and hyper-inflation around the world.
The result was that the mid-1970s were marked by "stagflation," falling stock market values, falling capitalist profit rates, stubborning high unemployment.
By about 1979, American business magazines like "Business Week" and "Forbes" were speculating that the world economy might be entering into another global depression. A team of economic experts from the OECD countries, in a 1979 report called "Facing the Future," speculated on the same risk.
And between 1980 and 1982, the world did in fact plunge into severe recession, as the US Federal Reserve Board jacked up short-term interest rates to break the back of US inflation, and in doing so
choked off economic growth in the West along with a sovereign debt crisis in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
The world recession of the 1980s caused chaos in most Third World nations that lasted for a decade, and in the US it led to the Savings %26amp; Loan debacle of 1985 - 1989, a severe real estate recesssion from 1989 through about 1991, and a massive shutdown of American manufacturing facilities after 1987 as US corporations began to move overseas to Asia.
Global capitalism then "recovered" from the horrors of the 1980s mostly by embarking on computer-led industrial growth and the commercialization of the Internet, plus a major turn to purely financial speculation by big investment banks and hedge funds on Wall Street.
Now this temporary capitalist "solution" has led to the near-collapse of the world financial system in 2008, plus the threat of permanent stagnation and permanently high government debts today.
Obama is a capitalist politician; he has no sure cure for this crisis. The Germans and other European leaders who are criticizing him are capitalists, too, and they don't know how to fix things either. The bankers seem to be in charge, seem to be controlling many Western governments -- but the bankers also are close to ruin, because of the bad gambles they've made in the past.
So we get capitalist leaders from some of the richest and most highly industrialized nations in the world pretending to solve a global economic slowdown - with a food fight.
Ho-hum.
This is sad. Not surprising, but very, very sad.
-- democratic socialist|||I don't agree with President Obama on criticizing other countries. Someone on Wall St. needs to be prosecuted. And HE still needs to pass good reforms separating investments from banking.|||Obama has become the Blame President. Nothing is ever his fault. It used to be mainly Bush's fault that nothing that Obama tried was going right. Then it was, alternately, the fault of Rush Limbaugh, conservative talk radio in general, Wall Street bankers, the Tea Party, and "racism." Now he has expanded his blame game to countries on other continents. Apparently he is beyond embarrassment. He has become a laughing stock, a joke, to the rest of the world. In the next 13 months he is apt to run out of earthly scapegoats, and have to resort to extending his blame to interstellar space.
The mass-circulation Bild writes:
"Obama's lecture on the euro crisis 鈥?is overbearing, arrogant and absurd. 鈥?In a nutshell, he is claiming that Europe is to blame for the current financial crisis, which is 'scaring the world.' Excuse me?" "The American president seems to have forgotten a few details. The most important trigger of the financial and economic crisis was US banks and their insane real-estate dealings. The US is still piling up debt 鈥?The American congress is crippled by a battle between the right and the left. The banks are gambling just as recklessly as they did before the crisis. The president's scolding is a pathetic attempt to distract attention from his own failures. How embarrassing."
The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:
"Dark clouds have gathered over the American president. The gloomy state of the economy is putting a dampener on Obama's future prospects. The optimism of the past is gone, replaced by a cheap search for a scapegoat." "Obama thinks he has found one. He blames the Europeans for reacting too late to the debt crisis.
The financial daily Handelsblatt writes:
Obama governs a country where, despite billions in state aid, the economy is stagnating, companies refuse to invest despite calls for patriotism, and which gets embroiled in one political trench war after another 鈥?Now this country is dispensing advice, suggestions and finger-pointing.".....In the desperate battle for his re-election he'd rather construct myths, such as claiming that the Europeans alone are responsible for the American mess. Not only is this fundamentally wrong, but -- coming as it does from a friend -- it's downright pitiful and sad."
See: http://www.spiegel.de/international/worl鈥?/a>|||Wall Street. Obama is just another closet-Republican.|||First all these ideas are not the American peoples they are Obamas and a select few socialists that are part of his administration in 2012 America will be rid of Obama and his comrades but do not label America because of a few Mad men .|||So now he his blaming other countries for his miserable failures, lol.... Guess it wasn't nothing but a matter of time before he ran out of Americans to blame....
Vote Republican 2012 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!|||it was wall street...|||The European debt is just making worse what Wall Street did to the American people in the first place.|||he can't admit the truth, that the problems have been caused by rampant liberalism. there is NO excuse for a person whose job is to keep the trays holding the fasteners for a dashboard filled for the robots to make 6 figures a year, I don't care HOW much overtime he pulls!|||I think the nasty truth is that world capitalism is in crisis.
None of the capitalist businessmen and none of the capitalist politicians has any good solution to the crisis. Therefore they blame each other.
To be sure, the face and the dimensions of our global capitalist emergency keep changing.
Really, big problems for the world economy first emerged in the 1970s, following a remarkable 25-year period of encouraging growth in the capitalist West.
It was in around 1975 that the US, Western Europe and Japan discovered that -- having successfully reindustrialized, following the catastrophic destruction of World War II, the world's leading capitalist powers were beginning to compete with each other. Dangerously, in a zero-sum fight over markets that somebody was going to lose.
Also in the 1970s, Richard Nixon in the US helped to dismantle the old Bretton Woods Agreement by ending the convertibility of US dollars into gold.
Nixon's abandonment of the Bretton Woods ssytem touched off a surge of currency speculation and economic instability in the world. And as this drove down the real value of the dollar, falling real prices for oil inspired the OPEC nations in 1973 to impose their oil boycott on Western friends of Israel -- an act that soon caused a surge in oil prices and hyper-inflation around the world.
The result was that the mid-1970s were marked by "stagflation," falling stock market values, falling capitalist profit rates, stubborning high unemployment.
By about 1979, American business magazines like "Business Week" and "Forbes" were speculating that the world economy might be entering into another global depression. A team of economic experts from the OECD countries, in a 1979 report called "Facing the Future," speculated on the same risk.
And between 1980 and 1982, the world did in fact plunge into severe recession, as the US Federal Reserve Board jacked up short-term interest rates to break the back of US inflation, and in doing so
choked off economic growth in the West along with a sovereign debt crisis in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
The world recession of the 1980s caused chaos in most Third World nations that lasted for a decade, and in the US it led to the Savings %26amp; Loan debacle of 1985 - 1989, a severe real estate recesssion from 1989 through about 1991, and a massive shutdown of American manufacturing facilities after 1987 as US corporations began to move overseas to Asia.
Global capitalism then "recovered" from the horrors of the 1980s mostly by embarking on computer-led industrial growth and the commercialization of the Internet, plus a major turn to purely financial speculation by big investment banks and hedge funds on Wall Street.
Now this temporary capitalist "solution" has led to the near-collapse of the world financial system in 2008, plus the threat of permanent stagnation and permanently high government debts today.
Obama is a capitalist politician; he has no sure cure for this crisis. The Germans and other European leaders who are criticizing him are capitalists, too, and they don't know how to fix things either. The bankers seem to be in charge, seem to be controlling many Western governments -- but the bankers also are close to ruin, because of the bad gambles they've made in the past.
So we get capitalist leaders from some of the richest and most highly industrialized nations in the world pretending to solve a global economic slowdown - with a food fight.
Ho-hum.
This is sad. Not surprising, but very, very sad.
-- democratic socialist|||I don't agree with President Obama on criticizing other countries. Someone on Wall St. needs to be prosecuted. And HE still needs to pass good reforms separating investments from banking.|||Obama has become the Blame President. Nothing is ever his fault. It used to be mainly Bush's fault that nothing that Obama tried was going right. Then it was, alternately, the fault of Rush Limbaugh, conservative talk radio in general, Wall Street bankers, the Tea Party, and "racism." Now he has expanded his blame game to countries on other continents. Apparently he is beyond embarrassment. He has become a laughing stock, a joke, to the rest of the world. In the next 13 months he is apt to run out of earthly scapegoats, and have to resort to extending his blame to interstellar space.
In light of the U.S.'s recession and its large debt, why is the Fed loaning money to international firms?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-21/wall-street-aristocracy-got-1-2-trillion-in-fed-s-secret-loans.html
"Almost half of the Fed’s top 30 borrowers, measured by peak balances, were European firms. They included Edinburgh-based Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, which took $84.5 billion, the most of any non-U.S. lender, and Zurich-based UBS AG (UBSN), which got $77.2 billion. Germany’s Hypo Real Estate Holding AG borrowed $28.7 billion, an average of $21 million for each of its 1,366 employees.
The largest borrowers also included Dexia SA (DEXB), Belgium’s biggest bank by assets, and Societe Generale SA, based in Paris, whose bond-insurance prices have surged in the past month as investors speculated that the spreading sovereign debt crisis in Europe might increase their chances of default.
The $1.2 trillion peak on Dec. 5, 2008 -- the combined outstanding balance under the seven programs tallied by Bloomberg -- was almost three times the size of the U.S. federal budget deficit that year and more than the total earnings of all federally insured banks in the U.S. for the decade through 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg."
My question is why is the Fed loaning out money when the U.S. is in excessive debt. I can understand if it was a good investment for the future or to help prevent another world financial collapse but isn't it bad to loan out money when the U.S. Government is in such large debt? Also, if the Fed has so much money to loan out, why didn't it loan it out during the financial collapse instead of China and other countries? Thanks!|||I do understand your point. Central bank around the world with surplus reserves are mostly prohibited by the law to invest in a risk-taking securities or businesses.
That is why they have to buy the US Treasury bill which the lowest interest payment,1% for 5year bond,but risk-free.In the crisis, people such as in South Korea and Thailand, donated gold to the central bank as a reserve, but prohibited to use it.But in the case of the FED,what it's gonna do with the money? It can buy the US Treasury bills, too, if it wanted to affect the long-term rate.It is also a mystery power that the FED can lend the money to corporations,both domestic and foreign.|||The answer is right in the article you cite.
The Fed has said it had “no credit losses” on any of the emergency programs, and a report by Federal Reserve Bank of New York staffers in February said the central bank NETTED $13 billion in interest and fee income from the programs from August 2007 through December 2009.|||Lehman brothers may not, ever, be allowed to happen again . . . .to0 big to fail means: large enough to get government grants (loans) . . . .
As T.Boone Pickens once said "if you owe so much money to the bank that the bank can not afford to lose you as a customer . . . . you own the bank".|||The same reason the loaned money to large US banks.
Foreign banking institutions, which include foreign bank branches, agencies, and U.S.-chartered bank subsidiaries, hold approximately one-fourth of all commercial banking assets in the United States.
Foreign bank branches and agencies operating in the United States are subject to Federal Reserve regulations.
Federal Reserve services and privileges are available to foreign bank branches and agencies, but U.S. deposit insurance is not available to branches established after December 1991.
"Almost half of the Fed’s top 30 borrowers, measured by peak balances, were European firms. They included Edinburgh-based Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, which took $84.5 billion, the most of any non-U.S. lender, and Zurich-based UBS AG (UBSN), which got $77.2 billion. Germany’s Hypo Real Estate Holding AG borrowed $28.7 billion, an average of $21 million for each of its 1,366 employees.
The largest borrowers also included Dexia SA (DEXB), Belgium’s biggest bank by assets, and Societe Generale SA, based in Paris, whose bond-insurance prices have surged in the past month as investors speculated that the spreading sovereign debt crisis in Europe might increase their chances of default.
The $1.2 trillion peak on Dec. 5, 2008 -- the combined outstanding balance under the seven programs tallied by Bloomberg -- was almost three times the size of the U.S. federal budget deficit that year and more than the total earnings of all federally insured banks in the U.S. for the decade through 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg."
My question is why is the Fed loaning out money when the U.S. is in excessive debt. I can understand if it was a good investment for the future or to help prevent another world financial collapse but isn't it bad to loan out money when the U.S. Government is in such large debt? Also, if the Fed has so much money to loan out, why didn't it loan it out during the financial collapse instead of China and other countries? Thanks!|||I do understand your point. Central bank around the world with surplus reserves are mostly prohibited by the law to invest in a risk-taking securities or businesses.
That is why they have to buy the US Treasury bill which the lowest interest payment,1% for 5year bond,but risk-free.In the crisis, people such as in South Korea and Thailand, donated gold to the central bank as a reserve, but prohibited to use it.But in the case of the FED,what it's gonna do with the money? It can buy the US Treasury bills, too, if it wanted to affect the long-term rate.It is also a mystery power that the FED can lend the money to corporations,both domestic and foreign.|||The answer is right in the article you cite.
The Fed has said it had “no credit losses” on any of the emergency programs, and a report by Federal Reserve Bank of New York staffers in February said the central bank NETTED $13 billion in interest and fee income from the programs from August 2007 through December 2009.|||Lehman brothers may not, ever, be allowed to happen again . . . .to0 big to fail means: large enough to get government grants (loans) . . . .
As T.Boone Pickens once said "if you owe so much money to the bank that the bank can not afford to lose you as a customer . . . . you own the bank".|||The same reason the loaned money to large US banks.
Foreign banking institutions, which include foreign bank branches, agencies, and U.S.-chartered bank subsidiaries, hold approximately one-fourth of all commercial banking assets in the United States.
Foreign bank branches and agencies operating in the United States are subject to Federal Reserve regulations.
Federal Reserve services and privileges are available to foreign bank branches and agencies, but U.S. deposit insurance is not available to branches established after December 1991.
Are you ready for the GLOBAL DEBT BOMB?
Let鈥檚 play a little game called Disaster. Imagine an event that could trigger a genuine, knock 鈥檈m down, worldwide catastrophe. Think of Pearl Harbor, multiplied by 10, or even 100.
We鈥檒l limit the options to man-made events, but eliminate traditional candidates like nuclear war or co-ordinated terrorist attacks. Climate change scientists might put their money on a massive greenhouse gas-induced drought that triggers uncontrollable emigration鈥攅ntire countries emptying out, their citizens swelling the populations of Europe and North America. Doomsday economists, on the other hand, could raise the spectre of a global debt bomb: When industrial and emerging economies all exceed debt thresholds, a sovereign default by one country spreads like a firestorm, and triggers a global depression.
There鈥檚 no telling when, or if, the climate-change scenario could take place. Unfortunately, that鈥檚 not true of the second one. Debt bomblets have already exploded. And the big one鈥攖he Daisy Cutter鈥攊s being primed for action.
Greece is ground zero. Look at the damage the country inflicted on European debt, equity and currency markets this spring. How could a nation that accounts for less than 3% of the European Union鈥檚 gross domestic product (GDP) be so destructive?
There are two possible explanations. The first is that Greece鈥檚 fiscal problems belied its size. When Argentina, a country much wealthier than Greece, defaulted on its debt in 2001, the country鈥檚 annual budget deficit was the equivalent of 3% of its annual GDP. Its total accumulated public debt was 50% and its yearly international current-account deficit was 2%. And Greece? Its budget deficit last year was a whopping 13.6% of GDP, its public debt was 115% and its current-account deficit was 10%.
The second is that Greece is not a special case. Some of the world鈥檚 largest developed countries have budget deficits almost as large, relative to the size of their economies. The United Kingdom鈥檚 deficit weighs in at 11.4% of GDP, Spain at 11.2% and the United States at 9.9%. As deficits climb, so do national debts. Federal debt in the United States has climbed by half since 2006, to $12.3 trillion (U.S.) at the end of last year, swelling the debt-to-GDP ratio to 84%. Japan and Italy have debt ratios well beyond 100%. Almost every other country in the 30-nation Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development is watching its debt ratio climb relentlessly toward triple digits. Enormous debt loads used to be a problem for emerging economies. Today those burdens are also a problem for the allegedly wealthy countries.
More columns from this month's ROB magazine
鈥oes Japan's decline fortell our future
鈥ashington struggles to corral U.S. banks
鈥 manager who鈥檚 tamed bulls and bears
鈥 high-yield alternative to income trusts
National debt loads in the West will continue to climb as economies struggle to recover. The debts are only affordable now because central bankers have kept interest rates near zero. Watch what happens when interest rates rise. Economic growth isn鈥檛 rapid enough to stabilize debt-to-GDP ratios. Tax revenues have yet to recover, and no politician dares to take an axe to stimulus spending if it means plunging the economy back into recession. With governments, businesses and consumers still carrying such heavy debt loads, another major banking disaster could trigger another round of costly bailouts or nationalizations. Oh yes, aging populations will also inevitably create a pension crisis.
Economists Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart, authors of the 2009 book This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries Of Financial Folly, calculated that, on average, countries add 86% to their debt loads within three years of a credit crisis. Governments of mature economies will issue an estimated $4.5 trillion (U.S.) worth of bonds this year.
The upshot is that some major countries face debt restructurings, debt defaults or both. High debt-to-GDP ratios alone can kill growth, as governments soak up private savings to pay interest charges and borrow more. Since 1980, Mexico, Russia and Argentina have all defaulted on their debt. The same thing could happen in bigger Western countries鈥攖he Daisy Cutter event.
Sovereign defaults can wreck economies. Banks can go bust as the prices of government bonds they hold plunge to cents on the dollar of face value. They can鈥檛 lend any more, which paralyzes businesses big and small. Currency devaluations destroy consumers鈥?buying power. Yes, eventually a mess can sort itself out, but that could take years, even decades. The Mexican peso crisis of 1994 walloped the rest of Latin America, and as late as 2002, some Brazilian bonds traded as low as 40 cents on the dollar.
Here鈥檚 a guess: Governments will take the cowardly option and try to inflate their debts away. They won鈥檛 stop spending, and the currency printing presses will run flat out. But that strategy often backfires, and t|||Wow did you write that yourself or copy and paste it? You sound really intelligent, and I think you know what your talking about. as for your guess "the governments will take the cowardly option and try to inflate their debts away". i hate to burst your "debt bomb" so to speak, but theyve been doing that for YEARS.|||Only someone completely clueless would post this TODAY, when the market was up 300 points because China said it has confidence in Europe and won't be selling it's debt.|||Absolutely, that's why gold is at all time high|||The problem is different now - we have a global economy now so any restructuring of currency or debt would be done a a global scale - which is actually the scary part.
I could see the US restructuring some of its debt, but reshaping the entire global economy is scary especially for the US since we are on top - we will suffer the most when brought down to the levels of other countries.|||Yep, and the worst economies are also the grossest overpopulating ones, which reduces their ability to recover, strains their resources and causes their excess to flood into the Euro-cultures who have stopped overpopulating. That drags down those weakened (from what you describe) economies into depression tipped by undercut salaries and taking jobs thus defaulting personal debt.
We鈥檒l limit the options to man-made events, but eliminate traditional candidates like nuclear war or co-ordinated terrorist attacks. Climate change scientists might put their money on a massive greenhouse gas-induced drought that triggers uncontrollable emigration鈥攅ntire countries emptying out, their citizens swelling the populations of Europe and North America. Doomsday economists, on the other hand, could raise the spectre of a global debt bomb: When industrial and emerging economies all exceed debt thresholds, a sovereign default by one country spreads like a firestorm, and triggers a global depression.
There鈥檚 no telling when, or if, the climate-change scenario could take place. Unfortunately, that鈥檚 not true of the second one. Debt bomblets have already exploded. And the big one鈥攖he Daisy Cutter鈥攊s being primed for action.
Greece is ground zero. Look at the damage the country inflicted on European debt, equity and currency markets this spring. How could a nation that accounts for less than 3% of the European Union鈥檚 gross domestic product (GDP) be so destructive?
There are two possible explanations. The first is that Greece鈥檚 fiscal problems belied its size. When Argentina, a country much wealthier than Greece, defaulted on its debt in 2001, the country鈥檚 annual budget deficit was the equivalent of 3% of its annual GDP. Its total accumulated public debt was 50% and its yearly international current-account deficit was 2%. And Greece? Its budget deficit last year was a whopping 13.6% of GDP, its public debt was 115% and its current-account deficit was 10%.
The second is that Greece is not a special case. Some of the world鈥檚 largest developed countries have budget deficits almost as large, relative to the size of their economies. The United Kingdom鈥檚 deficit weighs in at 11.4% of GDP, Spain at 11.2% and the United States at 9.9%. As deficits climb, so do national debts. Federal debt in the United States has climbed by half since 2006, to $12.3 trillion (U.S.) at the end of last year, swelling the debt-to-GDP ratio to 84%. Japan and Italy have debt ratios well beyond 100%. Almost every other country in the 30-nation Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development is watching its debt ratio climb relentlessly toward triple digits. Enormous debt loads used to be a problem for emerging economies. Today those burdens are also a problem for the allegedly wealthy countries.
More columns from this month's ROB magazine
鈥oes Japan's decline fortell our future
鈥ashington struggles to corral U.S. banks
鈥 manager who鈥檚 tamed bulls and bears
鈥 high-yield alternative to income trusts
National debt loads in the West will continue to climb as economies struggle to recover. The debts are only affordable now because central bankers have kept interest rates near zero. Watch what happens when interest rates rise. Economic growth isn鈥檛 rapid enough to stabilize debt-to-GDP ratios. Tax revenues have yet to recover, and no politician dares to take an axe to stimulus spending if it means plunging the economy back into recession. With governments, businesses and consumers still carrying such heavy debt loads, another major banking disaster could trigger another round of costly bailouts or nationalizations. Oh yes, aging populations will also inevitably create a pension crisis.
Economists Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart, authors of the 2009 book This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries Of Financial Folly, calculated that, on average, countries add 86% to their debt loads within three years of a credit crisis. Governments of mature economies will issue an estimated $4.5 trillion (U.S.) worth of bonds this year.
The upshot is that some major countries face debt restructurings, debt defaults or both. High debt-to-GDP ratios alone can kill growth, as governments soak up private savings to pay interest charges and borrow more. Since 1980, Mexico, Russia and Argentina have all defaulted on their debt. The same thing could happen in bigger Western countries鈥攖he Daisy Cutter event.
Sovereign defaults can wreck economies. Banks can go bust as the prices of government bonds they hold plunge to cents on the dollar of face value. They can鈥檛 lend any more, which paralyzes businesses big and small. Currency devaluations destroy consumers鈥?buying power. Yes, eventually a mess can sort itself out, but that could take years, even decades. The Mexican peso crisis of 1994 walloped the rest of Latin America, and as late as 2002, some Brazilian bonds traded as low as 40 cents on the dollar.
Here鈥檚 a guess: Governments will take the cowardly option and try to inflate their debts away. They won鈥檛 stop spending, and the currency printing presses will run flat out. But that strategy often backfires, and t|||Wow did you write that yourself or copy and paste it? You sound really intelligent, and I think you know what your talking about. as for your guess "the governments will take the cowardly option and try to inflate their debts away". i hate to burst your "debt bomb" so to speak, but theyve been doing that for YEARS.|||Only someone completely clueless would post this TODAY, when the market was up 300 points because China said it has confidence in Europe and won't be selling it's debt.|||Absolutely, that's why gold is at all time high|||The problem is different now - we have a global economy now so any restructuring of currency or debt would be done a a global scale - which is actually the scary part.
I could see the US restructuring some of its debt, but reshaping the entire global economy is scary especially for the US since we are on top - we will suffer the most when brought down to the levels of other countries.|||Yep, and the worst economies are also the grossest overpopulating ones, which reduces their ability to recover, strains their resources and causes their excess to flood into the Euro-cultures who have stopped overpopulating. That drags down those weakened (from what you describe) economies into depression tipped by undercut salaries and taking jobs thus defaulting personal debt.
How are we in so much debt that we have to borrow from other countries,yet our Federal Reserve can lend money?
...to Europe?
http://blog.taragana.com/business/2010/0鈥?/a>|||We almost have no choice but to do some lending to counter-balance our borrowing. Borrowers are consumers, while lenders are producers. Might as well make ourselves some money, rather than just spending.
But you did ask "how". Well, it's all paper! It's all paper!|||Because the Federal Reserve is not run by the government. They are separate entities. We created them so that the government could not control the money supply, that is, print money. In a lot of countries where money supply is controlled by the government, you might find yourself taking a wheel barrow full of currency to the grocery to buy ONE loaf of bread. This was actually the case for citizens in Germany post WWII.|||Fooker got it right. The Fed is the Central Bank and not part of the government although the chairman may like or dislike the HNIC and tinker with the interest rates at which they lend money to banks. The Fed should not loan money to other countries, only American banks, so I don't get this retarded move on their part. I had no idea that their charter reads that they can lend money to other county's central banks.|||$6.64 billion is not very much money compared to the deficit and the federal budget that is measured in trillions.
the fed is not controlled by the government
part of the feds job is to stabilize currency exchange rate, and this will help do it.
a currency swap is not the same as a loan. see http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/curr鈥?/a>|||They just print more which in turn causes inflation and the devaluing of the dollar. At least when we borrow money its value is based on the countries currency we borrow it from, so it doesn't effect our own.|||It would take me 12 pages to explain that. Just start by reading the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and think deeply about the meaning of interest.|||interesting they gave so much to japan, who is as of a couple months ago, the largest single holder of US debt|||Because we are a nation of suckers ruled by a corrupt political class.
For proof see TARP bailouts.|||Because money is worthless, the only value it has is what we give it.|||Because Obama can just print more.
http://blog.taragana.com/business/2010/0鈥?/a>|||We almost have no choice but to do some lending to counter-balance our borrowing. Borrowers are consumers, while lenders are producers. Might as well make ourselves some money, rather than just spending.
But you did ask "how". Well, it's all paper! It's all paper!|||Because the Federal Reserve is not run by the government. They are separate entities. We created them so that the government could not control the money supply, that is, print money. In a lot of countries where money supply is controlled by the government, you might find yourself taking a wheel barrow full of currency to the grocery to buy ONE loaf of bread. This was actually the case for citizens in Germany post WWII.|||Fooker got it right. The Fed is the Central Bank and not part of the government although the chairman may like or dislike the HNIC and tinker with the interest rates at which they lend money to banks. The Fed should not loan money to other countries, only American banks, so I don't get this retarded move on their part. I had no idea that their charter reads that they can lend money to other county's central banks.|||$6.64 billion is not very much money compared to the deficit and the federal budget that is measured in trillions.
the fed is not controlled by the government
part of the feds job is to stabilize currency exchange rate, and this will help do it.
a currency swap is not the same as a loan. see http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/curr鈥?/a>|||They just print more which in turn causes inflation and the devaluing of the dollar. At least when we borrow money its value is based on the countries currency we borrow it from, so it doesn't effect our own.|||It would take me 12 pages to explain that. Just start by reading the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and think deeply about the meaning of interest.|||interesting they gave so much to japan, who is as of a couple months ago, the largest single holder of US debt|||Because we are a nation of suckers ruled by a corrupt political class.
For proof see TARP bailouts.|||Because money is worthless, the only value it has is what we give it.|||Because Obama can just print more.
Is Obama serious when he says he's 'VERY CONCERNED' about Greece's debt?
President Barack Obama stated in an interview released Saturday from Russia’s Channel Rossiya that he was “very concerned” about the Greek debt crisis and its impact on European economies.
“I am very concerned about what’s happening in Europe,” Obama said during the interview conducted at the White House on Thursday.
http://usa.greekreporter.com/2010/05/09/…|||No. He is leading Us down the same path and doesn't care|||I am willing to bet he was much more concerned than bush was about the debt he was responsible for in this country (the United States).|||Concerned, because if that country fails it affects the world as a whole
Don't be so paranoid(and narrow-minded)|||probably ya why wouldn't he be concerned?
edit: ahh ok another silly rant. next!|||Yes, he's always serious|||I doubt it because he's leading America down that exact same path, BEWARE!!|||no
“I am very concerned about what’s happening in Europe,” Obama said during the interview conducted at the White House on Thursday.
http://usa.greekreporter.com/2010/05/09/…|||No. He is leading Us down the same path and doesn't care|||I am willing to bet he was much more concerned than bush was about the debt he was responsible for in this country (the United States).|||Concerned, because if that country fails it affects the world as a whole
Don't be so paranoid(and narrow-minded)|||probably ya why wouldn't he be concerned?
edit: ahh ok another silly rant. next!|||Yes, he's always serious|||I doubt it because he's leading America down that exact same path, BEWARE!!|||no
Why is Obama MORE CONCERNED about Greece's debt, than the debt he is creating in the USA?
President Barack Obama stated in an interview released Saturday from Russia’s Channel Rossiya that he was “very concerned” about the Greek debt crisis and its impact on European economies.
“I am very concerned about what’s happening in Europe,” Obama said during the interview conducted at the White House
http://usa.greekreporter.com/2010/05/09/…|||Greece's economic problems have been bringing down the world markets. The support plan for Greece and other countries has helped the markets rebound. Our national debt is a continuing issue but a fairly stable one.
Remember that in 1946, our national debt was 122% of our GDP. We nevertheless were able to help other countries. We prospered and so did they.|||His deficits go down every year, whether you ask him or the CBO. Name one conservative president who's deficits went down once never mind every year?
What makes you think that just because someone is concerned about something they are not concerned about something else? Is your IQ really that low?|||Because he can't keep blaming Bush forever and it is easier to point at others and ignore your own situation.|||if he said he was not at all concerned, (after all; he is supposed to be happy about destruction of economies-according to cons,) would that make you happy?
and you forgot to give us a link to the other half of the quote, where he actually says he is less concerned with US debt
you do have a source for the most pertinent part of your question: MORE CONCERNED...than the debt... in the USA
don't you?|||He's not, and your quote does not support your premise.
If I say I am concerned about your health, that does not mean that I am MORE concerned about your health than my own.|||Actually, Obama is concerned about out National Debt which is why he constructed the "National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform". The panel consists of both Republicans and Democrats including former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming, former White House aide Erskine Bowles, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), Andy Stern, etc.
"the Commission’s objective is to put forward proposals to balance the budget excluding interest payments on the debt (the so-called primary budget) by 2015 and to meaningfully improve the long-term fiscal outlook. Meeting the medium-term target means that by the middle of this decade, we would be paying for the operations and programs of the federal government and not increasing our debt relative to the size of the economy; under current projections, the result would be stable overall deficits (including interest payments) hovering around 3 percent of GDP. The Commission will also examine changes to address the growth of entitlement spending and the gap between the projected revenues and expenditures of the Federal government over the long term."
The problem has been that we have been in a major economic downturn, and cutting government spending during a recession is one of the stupidest things you can do. Program cuts and spending reductions can only be responsibly done when the economy is stable, which is why that has to be accomplished first.
“I am very concerned about what’s happening in Europe,” Obama said during the interview conducted at the White House
http://usa.greekreporter.com/2010/05/09/…|||Greece's economic problems have been bringing down the world markets. The support plan for Greece and other countries has helped the markets rebound. Our national debt is a continuing issue but a fairly stable one.
Remember that in 1946, our national debt was 122% of our GDP. We nevertheless were able to help other countries. We prospered and so did they.|||His deficits go down every year, whether you ask him or the CBO. Name one conservative president who's deficits went down once never mind every year?
What makes you think that just because someone is concerned about something they are not concerned about something else? Is your IQ really that low?|||Because he can't keep blaming Bush forever and it is easier to point at others and ignore your own situation.|||if he said he was not at all concerned, (after all; he is supposed to be happy about destruction of economies-according to cons,) would that make you happy?
and you forgot to give us a link to the other half of the quote, where he actually says he is less concerned with US debt
you do have a source for the most pertinent part of your question: MORE CONCERNED...than the debt... in the USA
don't you?|||He's not, and your quote does not support your premise.
If I say I am concerned about your health, that does not mean that I am MORE concerned about your health than my own.|||Actually, Obama is concerned about out National Debt which is why he constructed the "National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform". The panel consists of both Republicans and Democrats including former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming, former White House aide Erskine Bowles, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), Andy Stern, etc.
"the Commission’s objective is to put forward proposals to balance the budget excluding interest payments on the debt (the so-called primary budget) by 2015 and to meaningfully improve the long-term fiscal outlook. Meeting the medium-term target means that by the middle of this decade, we would be paying for the operations and programs of the federal government and not increasing our debt relative to the size of the economy; under current projections, the result would be stable overall deficits (including interest payments) hovering around 3 percent of GDP. The Commission will also examine changes to address the growth of entitlement spending and the gap between the projected revenues and expenditures of the Federal government over the long term."
The problem has been that we have been in a major economic downturn, and cutting government spending during a recession is one of the stupidest things you can do. Program cuts and spending reductions can only be responsibly done when the economy is stable, which is why that has to be accomplished first.
Does the nationality of the next IMF director really matter all that much?
There's already a debate about the nationality of the next IMF managing director. Some newspapers say that European countries want an European for the post, given the Euro debt crisis. Others say that 'emerging economies' are pushing to put through someone from those countries (China, Turkey, Mexico). But does it really matter? Financial interests act worldwide, and capitals don't really have a nationality...|||From an economic standpoint it doesn't matter at all. But if you think the IMF is all about economics rather than politics, you would be mistaken.|||It has been a collusion between two camps, the US gets the world bank,Europe gets the IMF. The IMF is now very important to Europe recovery,especially Greece and Ireland. They won't let it go.
Europe's debt crisis? Cutting the fat?
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Fiscal-cri鈥?/a>
What will Europeans do if they have to go back to working as much as Americans? Will their knee jerk reaction of violent protests (such as we have seen in Greece) spread across Europe?|||They will indeed riot and bust-up their own potential employers' shops.|||They will blame it on Bush and riot in Dallas.~|||There needs to be a balance of work and leisure in life.
American CEOs are earning hundreds of millions of dollars every year while their employees barely survive, that is a problem.
The worker is also the consumer. If they do not have money or time to spend then the economy starts having problems.|||"...if they have to go back to working as much as Americans"?? Whaaaaaat? You know, I think...no, I KNOW, that Europeans work already MORE than americans, sorry.|||Hopefully.
But the real question is: when will Americans react violent against their corporate overlords?|||What is the NHS going to do, make doctors work for no pay?
"I think...no, I KNOW, that Europeans work already MORE than americans, sorry."
-I don't know any working middle class American that gets six weeks of vacation a year. No, they don't.|||They may need to cut government benefits for retirement and unemployment but I don't see any relationship between government benefits and vacation time, and nothing in your link explained what they meant in the leading sentence. It seems to me that if people worked longer hours there would be fewer jobs and more unemployment, not less.|||They are used to the social hand outs and will burn down their own city's to keep it.
What will Europeans do if they have to go back to working as much as Americans? Will their knee jerk reaction of violent protests (such as we have seen in Greece) spread across Europe?|||They will indeed riot and bust-up their own potential employers' shops.|||They will blame it on Bush and riot in Dallas.~|||There needs to be a balance of work and leisure in life.
American CEOs are earning hundreds of millions of dollars every year while their employees barely survive, that is a problem.
The worker is also the consumer. If they do not have money or time to spend then the economy starts having problems.|||"...if they have to go back to working as much as Americans"?? Whaaaaaat? You know, I think...no, I KNOW, that Europeans work already MORE than americans, sorry.|||Hopefully.
But the real question is: when will Americans react violent against their corporate overlords?|||What is the NHS going to do, make doctors work for no pay?
"I think...no, I KNOW, that Europeans work already MORE than americans, sorry."
-I don't know any working middle class American that gets six weeks of vacation a year. No, they don't.|||They may need to cut government benefits for retirement and unemployment but I don't see any relationship between government benefits and vacation time, and nothing in your link explained what they meant in the leading sentence. It seems to me that if people worked longer hours there would be fewer jobs and more unemployment, not less.|||They are used to the social hand outs and will burn down their own city's to keep it.
What spending cuts has the American Government made to deal with the budget deficit?
Just wondering , in Europe at the moment there is massive slashing going on across the Continent so what is the US doing about their problem?
Here's an insight
http://www.independent.ie/business/europ鈥?/a>|||well, there's the cuts to education, to the space program, to medicare, basically anything that benefits civilians..
but the IRS is getting all the funds it needs to hire more tax collectors!|||We are not Europe.
So, not as much.|||Just print money!
Here's an insight
http://www.independent.ie/business/europ鈥?/a>|||well, there's the cuts to education, to the space program, to medicare, basically anything that benefits civilians..
but the IRS is getting all the funds it needs to hire more tax collectors!|||We are not Europe.
So, not as much.|||Just print money!
In the European Union, can countries like Spain, Germany, France, Italy etc all borrow at the same interest?
Or do they pay a different interest? I heard on TV that countries like Greece took on much more debt since their interest rates were lowered when they joined the Euro. So the debt crisis is supposedly a direct result of that. Before that they would have borrowed far less since the interest payments were higher.
But does that really make sense? Do all countries in the EU borrow money at the same rates or do some countries borrow at lower rates than others?|||It does really make sense to me. I don't really understand why having the same currency means that when a country has a problem the rest should go and bail it out.
And why the bankruptcy of a country would be a problem for the stability of the currency?
It's like if a big company like..... let's say Enron, goes bankrupt the rest of the companies should bail Enron out like if Enron's bankruptcy was going to mean the end of the $.
In old-style economy governments would overspend and then use the central bank to print more money to solve the deficit problem. That creates a lot of troubles. With this policy the governments have to be really accurate about their finances.
But of course old-time school is always there and it seems that the ECB is going after FED and making the same mistakes.|||Countries with the same risk rating can borrow at the same rate of interest. One country with a worse risk profile cannot and should not receive the same interest rates as a less risky alternative, in an open market, and typically won't get the same effective rate unless it is subsidized in some way|||Without any help from the EU and IMF they will pay the different rates based on market sentiment. Greece and Ireland bond rates were almost 6% when the problems came out. But all have to pay back their debts equally, North or South.|||Different countries = different rates. Government of a country is the borrower, and borrowers with less income and more risk have to pay higher risk.|||No. That would be like saying that all residents of Minnesota can borrow at the same rate irrespective of their credit risk.
But does that really make sense? Do all countries in the EU borrow money at the same rates or do some countries borrow at lower rates than others?|||It does really make sense to me. I don't really understand why having the same currency means that when a country has a problem the rest should go and bail it out.
And why the bankruptcy of a country would be a problem for the stability of the currency?
It's like if a big company like..... let's say Enron, goes bankrupt the rest of the companies should bail Enron out like if Enron's bankruptcy was going to mean the end of the $.
In old-style economy governments would overspend and then use the central bank to print more money to solve the deficit problem. That creates a lot of troubles. With this policy the governments have to be really accurate about their finances.
But of course old-time school is always there and it seems that the ECB is going after FED and making the same mistakes.|||Countries with the same risk rating can borrow at the same rate of interest. One country with a worse risk profile cannot and should not receive the same interest rates as a less risky alternative, in an open market, and typically won't get the same effective rate unless it is subsidized in some way|||Without any help from the EU and IMF they will pay the different rates based on market sentiment. Greece and Ireland bond rates were almost 6% when the problems came out. But all have to pay back their debts equally, North or South.|||Different countries = different rates. Government of a country is the borrower, and borrowers with less income and more risk have to pay higher risk.|||No. That would be like saying that all residents of Minnesota can borrow at the same rate irrespective of their credit risk.
Will the economy of Ireland fall apart (taking the govt. with them)?
Read the articles and reply.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/鈥?/a>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/鈥?/a>
Although not in the article, I find it interesting the word used to describe the 4 failing economies that are part of the Eurozone.
P.I.G.S. (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain)|||To the author PIGS is Portugal Italy Greece and Spain. Ireland is not part of PIGS, Ireland is part of PIIGS.
And i think you should read about the STUPID economies...it would be good for you (Slovakia, Turky, United Kigdom, Poland, Italy and Dubai)
As you can see, marckets have words for everyone...greetings from a portuguese...|||I think they are trying to solve the problem the wrong way. They should be pumping money into creating jobs. Give people work and they will get more revenue from taxes and not have so many people on benefit. They don't realise that increasing taxes is putting more strain on the working class. More people will default on mortgages which will make more bad loans because the housing market is bad and the banks won't be able to sell repossessions. Invest in the people. Ireland will eventually need a bail out and that will seriously affect our standing in Europe. Regardless of all that, the current government should go!|||PIGS! I Love it!
I am Italian and I heard the funniest thing today - someone said that greek food is italian food on crack lol
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/鈥?/a>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/鈥?/a>
Although not in the article, I find it interesting the word used to describe the 4 failing economies that are part of the Eurozone.
P.I.G.S. (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain)|||To the author PIGS is Portugal Italy Greece and Spain. Ireland is not part of PIGS, Ireland is part of PIIGS.
And i think you should read about the STUPID economies...it would be good for you (Slovakia, Turky, United Kigdom, Poland, Italy and Dubai)
As you can see, marckets have words for everyone...greetings from a portuguese...|||I think they are trying to solve the problem the wrong way. They should be pumping money into creating jobs. Give people work and they will get more revenue from taxes and not have so many people on benefit. They don't realise that increasing taxes is putting more strain on the working class. More people will default on mortgages which will make more bad loans because the housing market is bad and the banks won't be able to sell repossessions. Invest in the people. Ireland will eventually need a bail out and that will seriously affect our standing in Europe. Regardless of all that, the current government should go!|||PIGS! I Love it!
I am Italian and I heard the funniest thing today - someone said that greek food is italian food on crack lol
Can you think of a more positive way to spin unemployment rising to 9.7%?? (AP is pretty good at it)?
My favorite line was:
"The jobless rate rose to 9.9 percent as people streamed back into the market looking for work."
what???
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100507/ap_o鈥?/a>
WASHINGTON 鈥?More confident employers stepped up job creation in April, expanding payrolls by 290,000, the most in four years. The jobless rate rose to 9.9 percent as people streamed back into the market looking for work.
The hiring of 66,000 temporary government workers to conduct the census helped overall payroll growth last month. However, private employers 鈥?the backbone of the economy 鈥?boosted jobs, too. They added a surprisingly strong 231,000 positions last month, also the most since March 2006, the Labor Department reported Friday.
"Clearly companies have a newfound confidence in the future of the economic recovery and on the part of their own business prospects," said Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors. "The broadbased job gains are an indication that businesses are feeling more comfortable about expanding their work forces," he said.........................Friday's report sketched out a picture of a healing jobs market and an economy picking up momentum in the early spring. The improvements, however, were taking place before the stock market plunged this week on concerns that the European debt crisis could spread. There are fears the crisis could make companies more cautious about hiring in the future, economists warned.
All told, 15.3 million people were out of work in April.
Counting people who have given up looking for work and part-timers who would prefer to be working full time, the so-called underemployment rate rose to 17.1 in April. That's close to the record high of 17.4 percent in October and shows just how difficult it is for jobseekers to find work.
Another grim statistic: The number of people out of work six months or longer reached 6.7 million in April, a new high. These people made up 45.9 percent of all unemployed people, also a record high.|||That's pretty good.
It reminds me of 1984 when INGSOC lowers chocolate rations and actually issues a press release saying that the rations were increasing.
Liberal AP and all liberal media takes its cues from the 1984 playbook.|||LOL|||But shouldn't we be thankful for all Obama has done? LOL|||I wonder just how cluster faux tv is telling the story.|||Actually, it didn't rise to 9.7%. It rose from 9.7% in March to 9.9% today. Says so in your link.|||Along with a takeover of congress in 2006 by the dems the media helped damage this economy by their drumbeat of 'the economy is bad' under Bush, undermining consumer confidence. Now that 0bowma has created an unfriendly business climate the media is trying to undo what they did. I'd like to know how the number of people starting to look for a job again can be measured, I think they reach around their backside and pull this number out of the same orfice they pull the number of jobs 'saved'.
The broader numbers are not so easy to spin:
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/05/0鈥?/a>|||Yeah, just point at Greece and say "At least we aren't doing as bad as they are"|||Yeah. I saw this article too. The general public is not as observant as you. This is what the "spin" is hoping for. Our government does not create jobs.The private sector needs to get off their collective behinds and do what is necessary to move employment and this economy for forward. The small banks depends on the larger banks for the flow of credit. This has come to all but a complete stop. The TARP did nothing to stop this process. We don't have a clue where that money is and how many entities benefited. What we do know is that unemployment is still high and banks are getting paid twice throught TARP and the mortagages they are still collecting even though TARP bought off these "troubled assets."|||Sorry you don't understand economics of job creation.
"The jobless rate rose to 9.9 percent as people streamed back into the market looking for work."
what???
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100507/ap_o鈥?/a>
WASHINGTON 鈥?More confident employers stepped up job creation in April, expanding payrolls by 290,000, the most in four years. The jobless rate rose to 9.9 percent as people streamed back into the market looking for work.
The hiring of 66,000 temporary government workers to conduct the census helped overall payroll growth last month. However, private employers 鈥?the backbone of the economy 鈥?boosted jobs, too. They added a surprisingly strong 231,000 positions last month, also the most since March 2006, the Labor Department reported Friday.
"Clearly companies have a newfound confidence in the future of the economic recovery and on the part of their own business prospects," said Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors. "The broadbased job gains are an indication that businesses are feeling more comfortable about expanding their work forces," he said.........................Friday's report sketched out a picture of a healing jobs market and an economy picking up momentum in the early spring. The improvements, however, were taking place before the stock market plunged this week on concerns that the European debt crisis could spread. There are fears the crisis could make companies more cautious about hiring in the future, economists warned.
All told, 15.3 million people were out of work in April.
Counting people who have given up looking for work and part-timers who would prefer to be working full time, the so-called underemployment rate rose to 17.1 in April. That's close to the record high of 17.4 percent in October and shows just how difficult it is for jobseekers to find work.
Another grim statistic: The number of people out of work six months or longer reached 6.7 million in April, a new high. These people made up 45.9 percent of all unemployed people, also a record high.|||That's pretty good.
It reminds me of 1984 when INGSOC lowers chocolate rations and actually issues a press release saying that the rations were increasing.
Liberal AP and all liberal media takes its cues from the 1984 playbook.|||LOL|||But shouldn't we be thankful for all Obama has done? LOL|||I wonder just how cluster faux tv is telling the story.|||Actually, it didn't rise to 9.7%. It rose from 9.7% in March to 9.9% today. Says so in your link.|||Along with a takeover of congress in 2006 by the dems the media helped damage this economy by their drumbeat of 'the economy is bad' under Bush, undermining consumer confidence. Now that 0bowma has created an unfriendly business climate the media is trying to undo what they did. I'd like to know how the number of people starting to look for a job again can be measured, I think they reach around their backside and pull this number out of the same orfice they pull the number of jobs 'saved'.
The broader numbers are not so easy to spin:
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/05/0鈥?/a>|||Yeah, just point at Greece and say "At least we aren't doing as bad as they are"|||Yeah. I saw this article too. The general public is not as observant as you. This is what the "spin" is hoping for. Our government does not create jobs.The private sector needs to get off their collective behinds and do what is necessary to move employment and this economy for forward. The small banks depends on the larger banks for the flow of credit. This has come to all but a complete stop. The TARP did nothing to stop this process. We don't have a clue where that money is and how many entities benefited. What we do know is that unemployment is still high and banks are getting paid twice throught TARP and the mortagages they are still collecting even though TARP bought off these "troubled assets."|||Sorry you don't understand economics of job creation.
Should we be scared of a depression and maybe hyperinflation?
The European debt crisis. Our continuing jobs gloom. Oh, and let's not forget the rocketing national debt that is financing the entire stock-market boom. In past months I've been watching with amazement as Wall Street -- and a lot of investors -- have been trying to sweep these under the carpet. But they won't stay there. On Thursday, markets were spooked when Moody's downgraded Spain's government debt. But why is anyone surprised? Had investors been paying attention, they would have known that the market for default risk was already sending serious warning signals about Spain and Portugal's credit -- not to mention that of Greece.
Also from the lows of two years ago, the S%26amp;P 500 has almost exactly doubled. By any measure, it's been a remarkable boom. The Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks has soared 130%. So has the S%26amp;P Mid Cap 400 index of medium-sized companies, taking it to a new record high. But look at the fundamentals. Over that time economic growth has been sluggish. The economy today is no bigger, in real terms, than it was three years ago. The true jobs picture remains a disaster, and far worse than the official data will tell you. Wages have been stagnant. Yes, companies have boosted profits -- to near-record levels -- by slashing costs. But how far can that take you? (Perhaps in the end there will just be one, very productive guy left with a job. It would be Apple's Steve Jobs, of course. But then, alas, he'd have to buy all those new iPads himself.)|||Increased inflation is inevitable.
There are three ways to resolve the massive Government debt that we are now encumbered with: (1) Rapid growth in economic productivity to grow our way out of the Federal Debt burden, (2) Public Sector Default, or (3) high inflation to to reduce the effective debt burden in real terms.
I see no evidence of #1, above, happening given our tepid and fragile economic recovery and persistently high unemployment levels. Option #2 cannot happen in an orderly fashion at the State level (State bankruptcy in not permitted under US law) and would be an absolute last resort at the Federal level, although increased levels of default and bankruptcy are likely at the municipal level (School Districts, Municipalities, local revenue bond issuers, etc.).
That leaves Option #3, high inflation. We have already seen some effort to monetize a portion of the Debt through Quantitative Easing. Additionally, since our major social programs (Social Security, Madicare and Madicaid) are already on a "pay-as-you-go" basis, they are unsustainable without either severe rationing of services, significant tax increases to fund the programs going forward, or inflating our currency. The first two options are too palatably unsavory to politicians to contemplate, which leaves inflation as the most likely alternative.
The best case outcome is Stagflation similar to that which we lived through in the 1970s. The other likely outcomes are much more unpleasant, but may prove to be unavoidable....
The real question for investors is how to preserve principal and purchasing power in the years to come. I don't want to highjack your thread, but I would be interested in members' thoughts on how to best accomplish that.
Also from the lows of two years ago, the S%26amp;P 500 has almost exactly doubled. By any measure, it's been a remarkable boom. The Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks has soared 130%. So has the S%26amp;P Mid Cap 400 index of medium-sized companies, taking it to a new record high. But look at the fundamentals. Over that time economic growth has been sluggish. The economy today is no bigger, in real terms, than it was three years ago. The true jobs picture remains a disaster, and far worse than the official data will tell you. Wages have been stagnant. Yes, companies have boosted profits -- to near-record levels -- by slashing costs. But how far can that take you? (Perhaps in the end there will just be one, very productive guy left with a job. It would be Apple's Steve Jobs, of course. But then, alas, he'd have to buy all those new iPads himself.)|||Increased inflation is inevitable.
There are three ways to resolve the massive Government debt that we are now encumbered with: (1) Rapid growth in economic productivity to grow our way out of the Federal Debt burden, (2) Public Sector Default, or (3) high inflation to to reduce the effective debt burden in real terms.
I see no evidence of #1, above, happening given our tepid and fragile economic recovery and persistently high unemployment levels. Option #2 cannot happen in an orderly fashion at the State level (State bankruptcy in not permitted under US law) and would be an absolute last resort at the Federal level, although increased levels of default and bankruptcy are likely at the municipal level (School Districts, Municipalities, local revenue bond issuers, etc.).
That leaves Option #3, high inflation. We have already seen some effort to monetize a portion of the Debt through Quantitative Easing. Additionally, since our major social programs (Social Security, Madicare and Madicaid) are already on a "pay-as-you-go" basis, they are unsustainable without either severe rationing of services, significant tax increases to fund the programs going forward, or inflating our currency. The first two options are too palatably unsavory to politicians to contemplate, which leaves inflation as the most likely alternative.
The best case outcome is Stagflation similar to that which we lived through in the 1970s. The other likely outcomes are much more unpleasant, but may prove to be unavoidable....
The real question for investors is how to preserve principal and purchasing power in the years to come. I don't want to highjack your thread, but I would be interested in members' thoughts on how to best accomplish that.
Should we be scared of entering a depression?
The European debt crisis. Our continuing jobs gloom. Oh, and let's not forget the rocketing national debt that is financing the entire stock-market boom. In past months I've been watching with amazement as Wall Street -- and a lot of investors -- have been trying to sweep these under the carpet. But they won't stay there. On Thursday, markets were spooked when Moody's downgraded Spain's government debt. But why is anyone surprised? Had investors been paying attention, they would have known that the market for default risk was already sending serious warning signals about Spain and Portugal's credit -- not to mention that of Greece.
Also from the lows of two years ago, the S%26amp;P 500 has almost exactly doubled. By any measure, it's been a remarkable boom. The Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks has soared 130%. So has the S%26amp;P Mid Cap 400 index of medium-sized companies, taking it to a new record high. But look at the fundamentals. Over that time economic growth has been sluggish. The economy today is no bigger, in real terms, than it was three years ago. The true jobs picture remains a disaster, and far worse than the official data will tell you. Wages have been stagnant. Yes, companies have boosted profits -- to near-record levels -- by slashing costs. But how far can that take you? (Perhaps in the end there will just be one, very productive guy left with a job. It would be Apple's Steve Jobs, of course. But then, alas, he'd have to buy all those new iPads himself.)|||We are already in a mini depression.Don't pay attention to what the Government tells you .Pay attention to what is going on around you,like you are doing.All we can do is try to have a plan to take care of are own and try to get the Politicians to actually do the work to stop it.They seem to have no real urgency to the problem.I guess because they are isolated from the real world and real working people and not just wall street,and other Politicians that have no idea what is going on.|||We are entering a depression.
Whether it scares you or not is up to you.|||We aren't entering a depression.
Also from the lows of two years ago, the S%26amp;P 500 has almost exactly doubled. By any measure, it's been a remarkable boom. The Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks has soared 130%. So has the S%26amp;P Mid Cap 400 index of medium-sized companies, taking it to a new record high. But look at the fundamentals. Over that time economic growth has been sluggish. The economy today is no bigger, in real terms, than it was three years ago. The true jobs picture remains a disaster, and far worse than the official data will tell you. Wages have been stagnant. Yes, companies have boosted profits -- to near-record levels -- by slashing costs. But how far can that take you? (Perhaps in the end there will just be one, very productive guy left with a job. It would be Apple's Steve Jobs, of course. But then, alas, he'd have to buy all those new iPads himself.)|||We are already in a mini depression.Don't pay attention to what the Government tells you .Pay attention to what is going on around you,like you are doing.All we can do is try to have a plan to take care of are own and try to get the Politicians to actually do the work to stop it.They seem to have no real urgency to the problem.I guess because they are isolated from the real world and real working people and not just wall street,and other Politicians that have no idea what is going on.|||We are entering a depression.
Whether it scares you or not is up to you.|||We aren't entering a depression.
The Federal Reserve lending money to Europe?
The fed has announced a plan to lend money to banks in hopes of helping the European debt crisis. The United State in a huge amount of debt itself. How can we afford to loan money to other countries? Oh I remember, the Fed just prints more money. Doesn't this devalue the dollar? "Currency swaps are just more smoke and mirrors designed to stave off 鈥?yet again 鈥?the inevitable collapse of Western economies drowning in debt and addicted to easy money and credit."
How much longer can we put off a big worldwide financial crash?
http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/se鈥?/a>|||Just "HOW" are we in a position to be Lending Money ?
We OWE CHINA...Remember ? ( Be not a Borrower nor
a Lender)......|||Technically, the Fed is not part of the United States government. Thus, the government is not loaning the money.
How much longer can we put off a big worldwide financial crash?
http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/se鈥?/a>|||Just "HOW" are we in a position to be Lending Money ?
We OWE CHINA...Remember ? ( Be not a Borrower nor
a Lender)......|||Technically, the Fed is not part of the United States government. Thus, the government is not loaning the money.
Right now the hacking scandal has died down a little, are we all doomed?
Looks like Greece will default on it's debt, the contagion is spreading to Italy and even the U.S. is having difficulty balancing it's budget and may have it's credit rating cut.
Are the Events of the banking crisis of 2008 finally coming home to roost. Are we on the cusp of a recession turning into a depression.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/07/20鈥?/a>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/鈥?/a>|||We have been on the cusp of a depression here in US for a little over 2 years now. We were supposed to peak this summer and then be in recovery cycle. Now, analyst are tell us recovery won't start to happen till the end of next year.|||Money money money, it's so funny... What is money? Really, why do people put all their efforts into an invisible line? That line can vanish and be nothing. Money, it seems, is just a thing that represents a slice of cake. It isn't the cake. It never was.
If your apparent wealth, that you worked for, can be turned into a debt, then the debt can be turned into wealth. It's lines in the shifting sand. If it can be taken, it can be taken back.|||No, I don't think so.
This is where we find out that it's all Emperor's new clothes anyway... :) I mean - who owes what to who ultimately?
When everyone owes everyone else 29 thousand zillion squillions - the world quietly stops counting.|||scandal is not over, israel has yet to help america become the new Palestine, take their vaccines and commit suicide|||" Much to do about nothing"...|||I had just finished quantitative easing and then you said that...I`ve got to go back to it now..
Are the Events of the banking crisis of 2008 finally coming home to roost. Are we on the cusp of a recession turning into a depression.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/07/20鈥?/a>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/鈥?/a>|||We have been on the cusp of a depression here in US for a little over 2 years now. We were supposed to peak this summer and then be in recovery cycle. Now, analyst are tell us recovery won't start to happen till the end of next year.|||Money money money, it's so funny... What is money? Really, why do people put all their efforts into an invisible line? That line can vanish and be nothing. Money, it seems, is just a thing that represents a slice of cake. It isn't the cake. It never was.
If your apparent wealth, that you worked for, can be turned into a debt, then the debt can be turned into wealth. It's lines in the shifting sand. If it can be taken, it can be taken back.|||No, I don't think so.
This is where we find out that it's all Emperor's new clothes anyway... :) I mean - who owes what to who ultimately?
When everyone owes everyone else 29 thousand zillion squillions - the world quietly stops counting.|||scandal is not over, israel has yet to help america become the new Palestine, take their vaccines and commit suicide|||" Much to do about nothing"...|||I had just finished quantitative easing and then you said that...I`ve got to go back to it now..
The world around seems to be enveloped in turmoil?
global economic crisis after the infamous sub prime crisis, the short recovery , thanks to federal govt around world going into funding and stimulus packages. Yet again the european debt crisis huge Sovereign debts and threats of defaults. The turmoil that have been set off by the austerity measures of govts in these regions of world. Brings into question the ligitimacy of the govts which undertake policy decisions in name of public but largely targeting a small highly influential section of a Society. Has the time come to justify "Anarchy"? "Anarchy" here refers to replacing the central authority of state by multiple decentralized power structures which will have to achieve co-ordination through mutual contacts and interaction. In a global village wouldn't this be a viable concept to implement. We do not support chaos. But if chaos leads to order can we stop it, Is it wise to do so???|||The change you're looking for, if it ever comes, will take a long time to get here. It means that the rulers of the universe will have to give up power. They just can't do that. And people have to start building, from the ground up, the new system you're describing. It's almost impossible for it to happen in a few years. People are too marginalized, scared, and controlled by such massive propaganda, that it may take hundreds of years. But there are some that are thinking of how this future better world may look. Imagine if you were in the 1500's and someone came out and said "slavery is wrong and we should abolish it". Would anyone believe it to be possible? You may say that slavery is still around in other forms, but we certainly made progress. So keep believing and the key is to organize and make others want something better.|||Please tell me of a time when the world was not enveloped in turmoil.|||Clearly, you were not around between, say 1932 and 1968.
Repubs and Dems: is it time to face these facts, too? (Part 2)?
20 According to the Pentagon, there are minerals worth over a trillion dollars under the ground in Afghanistan. Now, J.P. Morgan is starting to tap those riches with the help of the U.S. military.
#21 Speaking of J.P. Morgan, most Americans don't realize that they are actually the largest processor of food stamp benefits in the United States. In fact, the more Americans that go on food stamps the more money that J.P. Morgan makes.
#22 When 2007 began, there were about 26 million Americans on food stamps. Today, there are over 44 million on food stamps, and one out of every four American children is on food stamps.
#23 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid. Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.
#24 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year. That was the lowest level that has ever been recorded in all of U.S. history.
#25 The financial system is more vulnerable today than it was back in 2008 before the financial panic. Today, the world financial system has been turned into a giant financial casino where bets are made on just about anything you can possibly imagine, and the major Wall Street banks make a ton of money from this betting system. The system is largely unregulated (the new "Wall Street reform" law has only changed this slightly) and it is totally dominated by the big international banks. The danger from derivatives is so great that Warren Buffet once called them "financial weapons of mass destruction". It is estimated that the "derivatives bubble" is somewhere in the neighborhood of a quadrillion dollars, and once it pops there isn't going to be enough money in the entire world to bail everyone out.
#26 Between December 2000 and December 2010, the United States ran a total trade deficit of 6.1 trillion dollars with the rest of the world, and the U.S. has had a negative trade balance every single year since 1976.
#27 The United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobs per month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, and the U.S. trade deficit with China is now 27 times larger than it was back in 1990.
#28 In 2010, the number one U.S. export to China was "scrap and trash".
#29 All over the United States, many of our once great manufacturing cities are being transformed into hellholes. In the city of Detroit today, there are over 33,000 abandoned houses, 70 schools are being permanently closed down, the mayor wants to bulldoze one-fourth of the city and you can literally buy a house for one dollar in the worst areas.
#30 During the first three months of this year, less new homes were sold in the U.S. than in any three month period ever recorded.
#31 New home sales in the United States are now down 80% from the peak in July 2005.
#32 America's real estate crisis just seems to get worse and worse. U.S. home prices have now fallen a whopping 33% from where they were at during the peak of the housing bubble.
#33 According to a new report from the AFL-CIO, the average CEO made 343 times more money than the average American did last year.
#34 The European debt crisis could cause a global financial collapse like the one that we saw in 2008 at any time. The world economy is incredibly interconnected today, and the United States would not be immune. A recent IMF report stated the following about the growing sovereign debt crisis in Europe....
Strong policy responses have successfully contained the sovereign debt and financial-sector troubles in the euro area periphery so far. But contagion to the core euro area and then onward to emerging Europe remains a tangible risk.
#35 According to one study, the 50 U.S. state governments are collectively 3.2 trillion dollars short of what they need to meet their pension obligations.
#36 A different study has shown that individual Americans are $6.6 trillion short of what they need to retire comfortably.
#37 The cost of college tuition in the United States has gone up by over 900 percent since 1978.
#38 According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, health care costs accounted for just 9.5% of all personal consumption back in 1980. Today they account for approximately 16.3%.
#39 One study found that approximately 41 percent of working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.
#40 The combined debt of the major GSEs (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Sallie Mae) has increased from 3.2 trillion in 2008 to 6.4 trillion in 2011. Thanks to our politicians, U.S. taxpayers are standing behind that debt.|||Again, most of this is the work of private companies. Pointing this out makes you sound pretty liberal.|||when a civilization corrupts its integrity the results are a decay of standards. democrats compromised justice and equality in exchange for control. the lust for power created a system where people were rewarded someone else s wealth to vote democrat. as the groups flourished so did the democrats. eventually administration cost drained the budget. now a large government agency with union lawyers demand a total power exchange. we will exist to serve government if we dont change course.
#21 Speaking of J.P. Morgan, most Americans don't realize that they are actually the largest processor of food stamp benefits in the United States. In fact, the more Americans that go on food stamps the more money that J.P. Morgan makes.
#22 When 2007 began, there were about 26 million Americans on food stamps. Today, there are over 44 million on food stamps, and one out of every four American children is on food stamps.
#23 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid. Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.
#24 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year. That was the lowest level that has ever been recorded in all of U.S. history.
#25 The financial system is more vulnerable today than it was back in 2008 before the financial panic. Today, the world financial system has been turned into a giant financial casino where bets are made on just about anything you can possibly imagine, and the major Wall Street banks make a ton of money from this betting system. The system is largely unregulated (the new "Wall Street reform" law has only changed this slightly) and it is totally dominated by the big international banks. The danger from derivatives is so great that Warren Buffet once called them "financial weapons of mass destruction". It is estimated that the "derivatives bubble" is somewhere in the neighborhood of a quadrillion dollars, and once it pops there isn't going to be enough money in the entire world to bail everyone out.
#26 Between December 2000 and December 2010, the United States ran a total trade deficit of 6.1 trillion dollars with the rest of the world, and the U.S. has had a negative trade balance every single year since 1976.
#27 The United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobs per month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, and the U.S. trade deficit with China is now 27 times larger than it was back in 1990.
#28 In 2010, the number one U.S. export to China was "scrap and trash".
#29 All over the United States, many of our once great manufacturing cities are being transformed into hellholes. In the city of Detroit today, there are over 33,000 abandoned houses, 70 schools are being permanently closed down, the mayor wants to bulldoze one-fourth of the city and you can literally buy a house for one dollar in the worst areas.
#30 During the first three months of this year, less new homes were sold in the U.S. than in any three month period ever recorded.
#31 New home sales in the United States are now down 80% from the peak in July 2005.
#32 America's real estate crisis just seems to get worse and worse. U.S. home prices have now fallen a whopping 33% from where they were at during the peak of the housing bubble.
#33 According to a new report from the AFL-CIO, the average CEO made 343 times more money than the average American did last year.
#34 The European debt crisis could cause a global financial collapse like the one that we saw in 2008 at any time. The world economy is incredibly interconnected today, and the United States would not be immune. A recent IMF report stated the following about the growing sovereign debt crisis in Europe....
Strong policy responses have successfully contained the sovereign debt and financial-sector troubles in the euro area periphery so far. But contagion to the core euro area and then onward to emerging Europe remains a tangible risk.
#35 According to one study, the 50 U.S. state governments are collectively 3.2 trillion dollars short of what they need to meet their pension obligations.
#36 A different study has shown that individual Americans are $6.6 trillion short of what they need to retire comfortably.
#37 The cost of college tuition in the United States has gone up by over 900 percent since 1978.
#38 According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, health care costs accounted for just 9.5% of all personal consumption back in 1980. Today they account for approximately 16.3%.
#39 One study found that approximately 41 percent of working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.
#40 The combined debt of the major GSEs (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Sallie Mae) has increased from 3.2 trillion in 2008 to 6.4 trillion in 2011. Thanks to our politicians, U.S. taxpayers are standing behind that debt.|||Again, most of this is the work of private companies. Pointing this out makes you sound pretty liberal.|||when a civilization corrupts its integrity the results are a decay of standards. democrats compromised justice and equality in exchange for control. the lust for power created a system where people were rewarded someone else s wealth to vote democrat. as the groups flourished so did the democrats. eventually administration cost drained the budget. now a large government agency with union lawyers demand a total power exchange. we will exist to serve government if we dont change course.
Debt crisis in United Kingdom?
If the UK was to recall all its loans and hand outs to other countries IE: African, Mid %26amp; Far East and Eastern Europeans. Plus all the benefits given out to illegals. Would we now be the richest country on this planet|||UK debt: 拢1 trillion
UK overseas aid budget: 拢8 billion
Illegal immigrants cannot claim benefits.
拢1 trillion - 拢8 billion = 拢992 billion, so no.
EDIT: Eh? I should stop listening to right wing rhetoric how does that make sense?
Illegal immigrants CAN NOT claim benefits it is impossible. To clain benefits you have to prove you are a citizen, provide proof of identity etc. An illegal immigrant cannot do that, the whole point is they want to stay anonymous and out of the system else they'd get deported. The idea of illegal immigrants claiming benefits is ridiculous.
Well it's 8 billion per year so if we completely cut foreign aid it would take over 100 years to pay off the 拢1 trillion debt with just that saving. Either way we're not going to be the richest country on the planet by saving 拢8 billion per year.
UK overseas aid budget: 拢8 billion
Illegal immigrants cannot claim benefits.
拢1 trillion - 拢8 billion = 拢992 billion, so no.
EDIT: Eh? I should stop listening to right wing rhetoric how does that make sense?
Illegal immigrants CAN NOT claim benefits it is impossible. To clain benefits you have to prove you are a citizen, provide proof of identity etc. An illegal immigrant cannot do that, the whole point is they want to stay anonymous and out of the system else they'd get deported. The idea of illegal immigrants claiming benefits is ridiculous.
Well it's 8 billion per year so if we completely cut foreign aid it would take over 100 years to pay off the 拢1 trillion debt with just that saving. Either way we're not going to be the richest country on the planet by saving 拢8 billion per year.
Why are people worrying about this - Can it get serious?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-鈥?/a>|||Really, people/investors are timid with their money right now as violent times rock the boat.
This is just a passing fad though, Korea is just a blip on the radar and the EU debt crisis will only explode badly in the "Club Med" nations of Spain, Greece. Italy and Portugal.
That will affect Europe yes, but in the long run Greece leaving the Euro is the only thing that can really make things take a dive, that probably won't happen just like a Korean war.
Things will be slow, but overall the market will calm down soon enough.|||.....to continue Jon J's answer - We HOPE!
This is just a passing fad though, Korea is just a blip on the radar and the EU debt crisis will only explode badly in the "Club Med" nations of Spain, Greece. Italy and Portugal.
That will affect Europe yes, but in the long run Greece leaving the Euro is the only thing that can really make things take a dive, that probably won't happen just like a Korean war.
Things will be slow, but overall the market will calm down soon enough.|||.....to continue Jon J's answer - We HOPE!
Are Southern Europeans Lazy?
The whole "European Debt Crisis" is because countries like Italy, Spain and Greece are in debt and don't produce anything. They are dragging down the rest of Europe with them. Now countries like Germany and the UK have to bail them out along with the rest of Europe which is leeching off of them. Are Northern Europeans just harder workers/more intelligent than Southern Europeans?|||Southern Europeans tend to not pay their taxes and/or evade paying their taxes. There is more honesty in the North.|||The power of stereotypes.
Southern European countries being lazy is BS. When you look at actual figures, the data simple doesn't match the 'they're just lazy' claims. Working hours of Spain and Italy are well above countries such as the UK. Problem is that salaries are way lower so people have less money to spend while the prices of most items, including real estate, does match that of northern european countries.
And lets not forget that both Greece and Spain are relatively young democracies. They've had to adopt a democratic system (and often dealt and still deal with the remains of the old dictatorial regimes) in a very short period of time. Spain's infrastructure for instance was virtually non-existant. For strategic reasons, dictator Franco never build a high-way system between large cities such as Barcelona, Valencia and Madrid (to avoid attacking troops reaching his Madrid stronghold in case of a coup).
%26lt;%26lt;Now countries like Germany and the UK have to bail them out%26gt;%26gt;
The UK is not in the Eurozone so it isn't bailing anyone out.
How about you get your facts right first before accusing others of being 'just too lazy'?|||I think its due to a difference in government structures. Northern European states tend to be more socialist (not necessarily a good thing, but works for Sweden) or the governments provide for their people. Southern Europeans are not used to the same benefits. Their governments have been torn apart by socialism/communism/corruptness and the people do not trust the governments therefore they don't like paying taxes.|||That's a ridiculous thing to say. Spain produces most of the world's olive oil. It also produces much of the UK's fruit and vegetables through the winter. Almost all of the UK's strawberries through the winter come from Huelva Province. All of the world's sherry comes from Jerez in Spain, so time to re-evaluate your question!
Seat cars are produced in Spain. That is unlike the UK that has no cars to identify to the country. Companies such as Leyland have long since disappeared!|||Spanish are known to be lazy if you are in Spain you will find people idling and lazing off on the streets and they spend most of their time watching bullfights it was shown on discovery sorry if it hurts someone|||you can always point at socialist policies that became a gigantic burden for the tax payers to pay into. for the past 50 yrs.
or just say
world economic recession
Southern European countries being lazy is BS. When you look at actual figures, the data simple doesn't match the 'they're just lazy' claims. Working hours of Spain and Italy are well above countries such as the UK. Problem is that salaries are way lower so people have less money to spend while the prices of most items, including real estate, does match that of northern european countries.
And lets not forget that both Greece and Spain are relatively young democracies. They've had to adopt a democratic system (and often dealt and still deal with the remains of the old dictatorial regimes) in a very short period of time. Spain's infrastructure for instance was virtually non-existant. For strategic reasons, dictator Franco never build a high-way system between large cities such as Barcelona, Valencia and Madrid (to avoid attacking troops reaching his Madrid stronghold in case of a coup).
%26lt;%26lt;Now countries like Germany and the UK have to bail them out%26gt;%26gt;
The UK is not in the Eurozone so it isn't bailing anyone out.
How about you get your facts right first before accusing others of being 'just too lazy'?|||I think its due to a difference in government structures. Northern European states tend to be more socialist (not necessarily a good thing, but works for Sweden) or the governments provide for their people. Southern Europeans are not used to the same benefits. Their governments have been torn apart by socialism/communism/corruptness and the people do not trust the governments therefore they don't like paying taxes.|||That's a ridiculous thing to say. Spain produces most of the world's olive oil. It also produces much of the UK's fruit and vegetables through the winter. Almost all of the UK's strawberries through the winter come from Huelva Province. All of the world's sherry comes from Jerez in Spain, so time to re-evaluate your question!
Seat cars are produced in Spain. That is unlike the UK that has no cars to identify to the country. Companies such as Leyland have long since disappeared!|||Spanish are known to be lazy if you are in Spain you will find people idling and lazing off on the streets and they spend most of their time watching bullfights it was shown on discovery sorry if it hurts someone|||you can always point at socialist policies that became a gigantic burden for the tax payers to pay into. for the past 50 yrs.
or just say
world economic recession
Is economic collpase imminent?
Seriously, oil prices skyrocketing, middle east out of control, and Japan on the brink of disaster, food prices soaring, 3 wars, drug cartels taking out mexican military, and debt 100 percent of gdp, and oil prices about to torpedo. America has taken alot, but could this be the end? Also, the European debt crisis is still ongoing. Portugal has just ousted austerity measure proposal and president has quit. How likely is an economic collapse and how likely is a global economic collapse?|||No.
If you listen to all the doomsday disaster-mongering that television news networks spew out, you'd never know it, but the American economy is actually getting much better. People seem to love to think that the end of the world is right around the corner. But we're actually doing okay right now.
High oil prices are actually a sign that the economy is getting better. People have more money, and that's why demand for oil is going up. As you know from Econ 101, high demand means high prices.
Unemployment finally dropped under 9% last month. The economy has grown steadily since the middle of 2009. Yes, public debt is an issue of concern, but it is finally getting a lot of attention in Congress, so it is likely that something will finally be done about it. Even so, there are many economists who would argue that we don't really have to worry about our debt level.
On a global scale, some countries are doing well, and some less so. But there's no reason to believe that the global economy won't continue to grow.
Stop worrying!|||Portuguese president didn't quit, the prime-minister did.
The IMF will enter Portugal eventually and recover the country by imposing stricter messures on companies, politions and enterprises.
As for the Doomsday stuff, it's not that bad, it's only of the economical 25 years cycles but while the west crumbles Asia and Africa flourish which in turn leads them to investing and buying debt from the west.
If you listen to all the doomsday disaster-mongering that television news networks spew out, you'd never know it, but the American economy is actually getting much better. People seem to love to think that the end of the world is right around the corner. But we're actually doing okay right now.
High oil prices are actually a sign that the economy is getting better. People have more money, and that's why demand for oil is going up. As you know from Econ 101, high demand means high prices.
Unemployment finally dropped under 9% last month. The economy has grown steadily since the middle of 2009. Yes, public debt is an issue of concern, but it is finally getting a lot of attention in Congress, so it is likely that something will finally be done about it. Even so, there are many economists who would argue that we don't really have to worry about our debt level.
On a global scale, some countries are doing well, and some less so. But there's no reason to believe that the global economy won't continue to grow.
Stop worrying!|||Portuguese president didn't quit, the prime-minister did.
The IMF will enter Portugal eventually and recover the country by imposing stricter messures on companies, politions and enterprises.
As for the Doomsday stuff, it's not that bad, it's only of the economical 25 years cycles but while the west crumbles Asia and Africa flourish which in turn leads them to investing and buying debt from the west.
Current credit/bad debt crisis question.?
I understand how we got into our current credit situation and how it is affecting us in the USA. However, I do not understand how it's now affecting European and other countries. How is our problem spilling over to these other countries, or are they having the same problems and just realizing it now?|||Actually, the European banks were doing the same thing in their Countries and if you were paying attention a couple of weeks ago, you would have known that they were doing the same things that our government was doing to strengthen the banking system. It just seems to be hitting our air ways now.
What exactly caused the Greek, Spain, France, and Italia/*Eurozone* debt Crisis? Too much borrowing from ECB?
I want to know, and to tell you the truth I should probably know because of how much I know about our debt. I know that China sold about 125B of our debt to Japan to make it the No.1 holder of our debt, probably at about 1T, so it surprises me that Congress can be so harsh to Toyota. xD
I know Beck is harping about it right now, but I have been at school too much to really learn about it.
Would it be the ECB (European Central Bank)'s problem? Becuase I know none of these countries have a sovereign currency, except Britain (pound Sterling), and it seems to be doing well against the dollar.|||hard line zionists
I know Beck is harping about it right now, but I have been at school too much to really learn about it.
Would it be the ECB (European Central Bank)'s problem? Becuase I know none of these countries have a sovereign currency, except Britain (pound Sterling), and it seems to be doing well against the dollar.|||hard line zionists
Exactly HOW is the Greek Debt Crisis spreading like a "contagion", as is being widely reported?
1) How does an economic "contagion" function, in detail?
2) What are the "intermediate steps" in the "contagion process"?
It's starting to look to me like no matter what Greece does, it will end up defaulting sooner or later.
3) Wouldn't Germany and France (and all the European countries footing the bailout bill) be better off:
a) FIRST taking EVERY MEASURE POSSIBLE to weather and somehow survive a Greek Debt Default (and all the similar possible defaults by Portugal, Spain, and others)
b) THEN go ahead and let Greece etc default now, instead of throwing BILLIONS of good euros after bad?
5) If the defaults happen like dominoes, will there be another global stock market plunge, and if so, how long to recover from a new plunge?
.|||(1) It isn't a contagion, it's a panic. Contagion is some underlying "contaminating" financial element that unravels spreading financial instability through connected systems. A panic is when the greater financial world fears a problem won't be solved and the resulting default will undermine the financial stability of institutions beyond the boarders of the defaulting entity.
(2) Faith. Trust is the primarily stuff of which the trading process depends -- experts often talk about it "lubricating the system." Without trust (that your partner in an agreement can %26amp; will do what he says), the whole ball of wax can collapse. Aka, the credit crisis of 2008-9.
3a) That really isn't the primarily problem in this case: what does a democracy do when significant numbers of citizen refuse (for different reason) to do what is in the best interest of all? The Greeks are behaving like spoiled little adolescents and the Germans %26amp; French officials are very worried that without Greek humility, they will be unable to fix the problem and remain in power.
3b) a Greek default all by itself would be mostly irrelevant. I think you are overlooking the point that Greece isn't a financially independent country anymore. It is tied to France %26amp; Germany through the EU. A Greek default is also an EU default, a French default %26amp; a German default. It makes the whole ball of wax as weak as its weakest link.
2) What are the "intermediate steps" in the "contagion process"?
It's starting to look to me like no matter what Greece does, it will end up defaulting sooner or later.
3) Wouldn't Germany and France (and all the European countries footing the bailout bill) be better off:
a) FIRST taking EVERY MEASURE POSSIBLE to weather and somehow survive a Greek Debt Default (and all the similar possible defaults by Portugal, Spain, and others)
b) THEN go ahead and let Greece etc default now, instead of throwing BILLIONS of good euros after bad?
5) If the defaults happen like dominoes, will there be another global stock market plunge, and if so, how long to recover from a new plunge?
.|||(1) It isn't a contagion, it's a panic. Contagion is some underlying "contaminating" financial element that unravels spreading financial instability through connected systems. A panic is when the greater financial world fears a problem won't be solved and the resulting default will undermine the financial stability of institutions beyond the boarders of the defaulting entity.
(2) Faith. Trust is the primarily stuff of which the trading process depends -- experts often talk about it "lubricating the system." Without trust (that your partner in an agreement can %26amp; will do what he says), the whole ball of wax can collapse. Aka, the credit crisis of 2008-9.
3a) That really isn't the primarily problem in this case: what does a democracy do when significant numbers of citizen refuse (for different reason) to do what is in the best interest of all? The Greeks are behaving like spoiled little adolescents and the Germans %26amp; French officials are very worried that without Greek humility, they will be unable to fix the problem and remain in power.
3b) a Greek default all by itself would be mostly irrelevant. I think you are overlooking the point that Greece isn't a financially independent country anymore. It is tied to France %26amp; Germany through the EU. A Greek default is also an EU default, a French default %26amp; a German default. It makes the whole ball of wax as weak as its weakest link.
Isnt it odd there's a "European debt crises" threatening the global recovery while America creates record debt?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100205/ap_o鈥?/a>
BRUSSELS 鈥?Fears of another crisis spiral for the world economy deepened Friday after the Portuguese parliament defeated a government austerity plan, triggering renewed concern that the financial crisis in that country and in Greece could spread through the eurozone and spill across its borders.
Spooked investors worldwide were fleeing risky assets like stocks. And from Shanghai to Sao Paolo, people were awakening to the reality that what is happening in these European minnow states has vast implications for the fate of the fragile global economic recovery.
Stocks fell in Asia and Europe as governments in Portugal and Greece pushed against fierce political resistance at home to cutbacks aimed at getting their deficits under control................"Portugal is next in line with ... what is now a very timid attempt" to bring its deficit down, said Marco Annunziata, chief economist at UniCredit.|||The world economic situation is very troubling to me.
The only thing anyone can really do is try to protect and prepare for yourself and your own family.|||Obama will send then some new freshly printed dollars.|||Debt is the last thing America has to worry about right now. The way our government works, we could pay it all off in a month if we had no other projects. We have THOUSANDS of projects a week, for our government to fund. When the economy finishes leveling out, we will worry about that.
It is of no immediate problem at the moment.|||This is an appetizer. The dollar crashing will be the main course.|||This is the second "question" related to Portugal you've posted today, both linking to the same article.
Portugal and Greece are among the weakest EU economies. They consistently run the largest budget deficits. It's stupid to believe that a small state like Portugal could pull down the entire EU.|||Good thing Obama has Larry Summers advising him on such matters.
BRUSSELS 鈥?Fears of another crisis spiral for the world economy deepened Friday after the Portuguese parliament defeated a government austerity plan, triggering renewed concern that the financial crisis in that country and in Greece could spread through the eurozone and spill across its borders.
Spooked investors worldwide were fleeing risky assets like stocks. And from Shanghai to Sao Paolo, people were awakening to the reality that what is happening in these European minnow states has vast implications for the fate of the fragile global economic recovery.
Stocks fell in Asia and Europe as governments in Portugal and Greece pushed against fierce political resistance at home to cutbacks aimed at getting their deficits under control................"Portugal is next in line with ... what is now a very timid attempt" to bring its deficit down, said Marco Annunziata, chief economist at UniCredit.|||The world economic situation is very troubling to me.
The only thing anyone can really do is try to protect and prepare for yourself and your own family.|||Obama will send then some new freshly printed dollars.|||Debt is the last thing America has to worry about right now. The way our government works, we could pay it all off in a month if we had no other projects. We have THOUSANDS of projects a week, for our government to fund. When the economy finishes leveling out, we will worry about that.
It is of no immediate problem at the moment.|||This is an appetizer. The dollar crashing will be the main course.|||This is the second "question" related to Portugal you've posted today, both linking to the same article.
Portugal and Greece are among the weakest EU economies. They consistently run the largest budget deficits. It's stupid to believe that a small state like Portugal could pull down the entire EU.|||Good thing Obama has Larry Summers advising him on such matters.
Can someone please explain this crisis to me ?
I have been reading an article on bbcworld trying to explain the current European crisis and then I came across this statement , which makes it for me even more difficult to understand the any of this mess :
' Indeed, the only reason Italy continues to borrow at all is to meet the principal and interest payments on its existing debts.'
How on Earth does one has to borrow to pay off other debts ? Please Can someone give me a good explanation. I am not good at economics but I would like to understand, and besides it concerns me, since I live here in Europe. Thank you all.|||all that this statement is saying is that italys tax revenue are smaller than itsinterest payments.
dont worry about the calculation of this number its not important, but: if you borrow $1000 and pay 10% intrest per year you must pay about $162 a year in interest (and principle). if your income for the year is only $100, then you cant pay the interest of $162, but what you can do is borrow more money off people, and use that money that your borrowing now to pay the interest on your previous loans (you would have to borrow $62).
of course no bank in its right mind would loan you the money, but governments tend to be able to do this as they're perceived as less risky (make your own mind up about this).
of course you would have to pay more interest eventually on the newly borrowed money, and thats where the problem lies.
italy's income is its tax, so that statement means that italy's tax revenue can not cover the interest payment on its debt. so its borrowing more to pay the interest.
if you find this and other economics and finance topics interesting visit my website at insideapproach.blogspot.com|||the west is full of wealth, money, superior technology; so whats pulling western civilization down? could it be the hordes of freeloaders, lazy fat bums that r living off other peoples money? u dont have freeloaders in the BRIC. everybody is expected to work for their supper.
' Indeed, the only reason Italy continues to borrow at all is to meet the principal and interest payments on its existing debts.'
How on Earth does one has to borrow to pay off other debts ? Please Can someone give me a good explanation. I am not good at economics but I would like to understand, and besides it concerns me, since I live here in Europe. Thank you all.|||all that this statement is saying is that italys tax revenue are smaller than itsinterest payments.
dont worry about the calculation of this number its not important, but: if you borrow $1000 and pay 10% intrest per year you must pay about $162 a year in interest (and principle). if your income for the year is only $100, then you cant pay the interest of $162, but what you can do is borrow more money off people, and use that money that your borrowing now to pay the interest on your previous loans (you would have to borrow $62).
of course no bank in its right mind would loan you the money, but governments tend to be able to do this as they're perceived as less risky (make your own mind up about this).
of course you would have to pay more interest eventually on the newly borrowed money, and thats where the problem lies.
italy's income is its tax, so that statement means that italy's tax revenue can not cover the interest payment on its debt. so its borrowing more to pay the interest.
if you find this and other economics and finance topics interesting visit my website at insideapproach.blogspot.com|||the west is full of wealth, money, superior technology; so whats pulling western civilization down? could it be the hordes of freeloaders, lazy fat bums that r living off other peoples money? u dont have freeloaders in the BRIC. everybody is expected to work for their supper.
Do you believe western society will fall due to Asian rise of power and economy?
There alreasy many signs of it :
- European debt crisis
- american economic crisis
- More and more westerners youth especially who are into Anime, Cosplay and other Asian stuff said they wish to be Asian. For example in www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsW8MNSUCW4
- Etc|||Yes, I do..|||No
If you're talking about China. It doesn't matter how far China advanced economically, or even political influence on other countries, military power. One thing they don't have. FREEDOM No creativity can sprung out from that country because people there are not free.
It will take years even after China become a democratic country to catch up what the west has achieved as a truly civilized, balanced, free thinking society|||the chinese will implement their infamous human wave tactics (sending 50 zillion unarmed men, women, and children to run straight into fortified lines hoping the enemy will run out of bullets before they run out of people) all across the globe until they subjugate us enough to establish a New World Order where once again they are the great Middle Kingdom controlling the main trading routes such as the silk road.|||Nope,
and if so, why do you Asian (and everybody) come over to the west. I wouldn't want to come to a country that was going to do bad.
~think about it~|||LOL. Yep you got me. I love Chinese food. Its one of the symptoms all right.|||when western economies were stronger were the chinese 'fallen'?
no|||Western society will not fall, but the power of the US will.|||Sure whatever I still want an Asian wife though
- European debt crisis
- american economic crisis
- More and more westerners youth especially who are into Anime, Cosplay and other Asian stuff said they wish to be Asian. For example in www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsW8MNSUCW4
- Etc|||Yes, I do..|||No
If you're talking about China. It doesn't matter how far China advanced economically, or even political influence on other countries, military power. One thing they don't have. FREEDOM No creativity can sprung out from that country because people there are not free.
It will take years even after China become a democratic country to catch up what the west has achieved as a truly civilized, balanced, free thinking society|||the chinese will implement their infamous human wave tactics (sending 50 zillion unarmed men, women, and children to run straight into fortified lines hoping the enemy will run out of bullets before they run out of people) all across the globe until they subjugate us enough to establish a New World Order where once again they are the great Middle Kingdom controlling the main trading routes such as the silk road.|||Nope,
and if so, why do you Asian (and everybody) come over to the west. I wouldn't want to come to a country that was going to do bad.
~think about it~|||LOL. Yep you got me. I love Chinese food. Its one of the symptoms all right.|||when western economies were stronger were the chinese 'fallen'?
no|||Western society will not fall, but the power of the US will.|||Sure whatever I still want an Asian wife though
US debt load question?
Is the US national debt crisis equal in magnitude so to speak to the current European debt crises?
What I am saying is whether the US debt issue has strong possibilities of causing similar problems here at home that is happening right now in Europe?
Is the US debt a ticking time bomb that could explode to European proportions?|||The US has a mystery power.It can print the dollar to repay debts. It will not be like Greece whatsoever.|||No. Not to say US debt will never cause some big problem. But there are key differences. The US runs a deficit but actually has no difficulty at all borrowing enough money to meet the budget, and has no difficulty rolling over debt (selling new bonds today to generate the cash to redeem existing bonds that are maturing). Despite all the talk about the debt, interest rates on US bonds are at all-time record lows. That means, in other words, that there is plenty, plenty of demand among bond investors worldwide to buy all the bonds the US government wants to sell.
By contrast, Greece, already today, CANNOT make its budget, cannot pay its expenses, and cannot borrow further money from the bond markets. Nations don't actually file for bankruptcy -- but if they did, Greece would have already filed for it, because they are bankrupt. No hypothetical future problem here - it's the reality right now. Greece, Ireland, and Portugal all have already had to be bailed out by the European Union because they could not make their payments. Further, Spain and Italy are approaching that point.
Now that's bad enough and makes Europe's situation different than the US. But the real problem is that the EU cannot continue bailing out Greece forever ... and Greece is making no improvements at all ... they are only getting in deeper. So when the EU decides to cut its losses on Greece, and allow Greece to simply default on its bonds, things could get very disastrous in Europe. No one knows how bad it might be, but the issue is the chain reaction that may cause. And that can happen tomorrow. Any day. Europe might be 12 hours away from an unprecedented collapse ... and while it may not happen 12 hours from now, that same state holds true tomorrow and the next day ... and that fact will continue to be the case for a long time (probably until it does finally happen).
Because the US controls its own currency, it has more remedies than a single European country does. And because the US is a single nation, it can make a unified, effective response to a crisis, whereas Europe is proving to be a gaggle of competing interests and ineffective leaders. Greece does not have a central bank that can print Euros as a last resort. The US does have a central bank that can print dollars as a last resort.|||Yes, because the government is not pulling out of the 2 wars any time soon. War is very expensive.
They can only print so much money without backing. China will increase interest rates sooner or later.
What I am saying is whether the US debt issue has strong possibilities of causing similar problems here at home that is happening right now in Europe?
Is the US debt a ticking time bomb that could explode to European proportions?|||The US has a mystery power.It can print the dollar to repay debts. It will not be like Greece whatsoever.|||No. Not to say US debt will never cause some big problem. But there are key differences. The US runs a deficit but actually has no difficulty at all borrowing enough money to meet the budget, and has no difficulty rolling over debt (selling new bonds today to generate the cash to redeem existing bonds that are maturing). Despite all the talk about the debt, interest rates on US bonds are at all-time record lows. That means, in other words, that there is plenty, plenty of demand among bond investors worldwide to buy all the bonds the US government wants to sell.
By contrast, Greece, already today, CANNOT make its budget, cannot pay its expenses, and cannot borrow further money from the bond markets. Nations don't actually file for bankruptcy -- but if they did, Greece would have already filed for it, because they are bankrupt. No hypothetical future problem here - it's the reality right now. Greece, Ireland, and Portugal all have already had to be bailed out by the European Union because they could not make their payments. Further, Spain and Italy are approaching that point.
Now that's bad enough and makes Europe's situation different than the US. But the real problem is that the EU cannot continue bailing out Greece forever ... and Greece is making no improvements at all ... they are only getting in deeper. So when the EU decides to cut its losses on Greece, and allow Greece to simply default on its bonds, things could get very disastrous in Europe. No one knows how bad it might be, but the issue is the chain reaction that may cause. And that can happen tomorrow. Any day. Europe might be 12 hours away from an unprecedented collapse ... and while it may not happen 12 hours from now, that same state holds true tomorrow and the next day ... and that fact will continue to be the case for a long time (probably until it does finally happen).
Because the US controls its own currency, it has more remedies than a single European country does. And because the US is a single nation, it can make a unified, effective response to a crisis, whereas Europe is proving to be a gaggle of competing interests and ineffective leaders. Greece does not have a central bank that can print Euros as a last resort. The US does have a central bank that can print dollars as a last resort.|||Yes, because the government is not pulling out of the 2 wars any time soon. War is very expensive.
They can only print so much money without backing. China will increase interest rates sooner or later.
How Germany is using the financial crisis to conquer Europe..What are your views?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-鈥?/a>|||So Germany is pushing the other European countries to try and reduce their deficits and live within their budgets -- and this is considered evidence that the Germans are trying to conquer Europe.
Can it get any more pathetic?|||Sarkozy should remember what happened to the last French President that sold France to Germany. Petain was executed for Treason. Before that Louis Napoleon destroyed the Second Empire and died in exile.
I don't know what Netherlands will do, but Finland won't like it, Poland will rebel, and the rest will learn German like the 'good europeans' they are. Good thing Denmark is out of the Euro, otherwise Germany would have trouble on its northern border, they don't like the germans telling them what to do.
At least the UK can avoid this coup d'etat by Germany over the Euro Zone, and maybe even get the promised referendum because the UK must agree this transfer of power - even though it is not in the Euro.
This means that all of the Euro Zone states have their finances and taxes set by Germany, for Germany and is a natural step forward from the Euro that was designed for Germany and its interest rates set for Germany.
No more independent states in the Euro Zone, just provinces of Germany.
If Sarkozy thinks he will have any say, he just has to study Petain and Vichy France, because they thought the same.
Will the Euro Zone surrender be signed in a railway carriage at Compiegne?|||Merkel and Sarkozy are, at persent, proposing to bring in a banking levy to help pay the debts of failling countries failling ecconomies. This will come in at 拢13 Billion for the UK. Thats right, 拢13, 000,000,000 more, on top of the 拢7 Billion we already pay. Our 'share' will, once again, be dispropotionately high. This is all to prop up a concept of a single surrency, for a federal European superstate. Van Rumpy, the EU persident has openly said, that is the goal long term.
Add to that, the EU also wants to increase VAT by another 1% to be paid direct to them. That will be billions more of our money going the a failled socialist experiment, called the EU.
Visit the link below, and sign the petition for a vote on our membership. Add the link to your social networks, emails, twitter, etc.
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petition鈥?/a>
Sign Up Now|||When a ponzi-scheme (fractional reserve banking) collapses it is not a "crisis"
The ones who are profiting aren't the germans, it's the rich , and their preferred language is english.
Ordinary germans pay through the nose like everyone else, ask a "hartz 4"-dependent if you don't believe me|||The EU is the fief of Merkel and Sarkozy and we have and are being betrayed by our Quisling Government just as we were by the last lot.The pathetic debt ridden PIGS will simply do as they are instructed by the bosses.|||Just because somebody has courage to stand up and tell irresponsible governments begging for a handout to go and violate themselves, does not always translate to they have evil intentions or are greedy.|||Cameron and Clegg will be first in line with brown tongues. Maybe they will finish up with brown shirts if they are not careful|||This is not at all likely, they are a successful nation, they wouldn't waste resources doing this.
Can it get any more pathetic?|||Sarkozy should remember what happened to the last French President that sold France to Germany. Petain was executed for Treason. Before that Louis Napoleon destroyed the Second Empire and died in exile.
I don't know what Netherlands will do, but Finland won't like it, Poland will rebel, and the rest will learn German like the 'good europeans' they are. Good thing Denmark is out of the Euro, otherwise Germany would have trouble on its northern border, they don't like the germans telling them what to do.
At least the UK can avoid this coup d'etat by Germany over the Euro Zone, and maybe even get the promised referendum because the UK must agree this transfer of power - even though it is not in the Euro.
This means that all of the Euro Zone states have their finances and taxes set by Germany, for Germany and is a natural step forward from the Euro that was designed for Germany and its interest rates set for Germany.
No more independent states in the Euro Zone, just provinces of Germany.
If Sarkozy thinks he will have any say, he just has to study Petain and Vichy France, because they thought the same.
Will the Euro Zone surrender be signed in a railway carriage at Compiegne?|||Merkel and Sarkozy are, at persent, proposing to bring in a banking levy to help pay the debts of failling countries failling ecconomies. This will come in at 拢13 Billion for the UK. Thats right, 拢13, 000,000,000 more, on top of the 拢7 Billion we already pay. Our 'share' will, once again, be dispropotionately high. This is all to prop up a concept of a single surrency, for a federal European superstate. Van Rumpy, the EU persident has openly said, that is the goal long term.
Add to that, the EU also wants to increase VAT by another 1% to be paid direct to them. That will be billions more of our money going the a failled socialist experiment, called the EU.
Visit the link below, and sign the petition for a vote on our membership. Add the link to your social networks, emails, twitter, etc.
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petition鈥?/a>
Sign Up Now|||When a ponzi-scheme (fractional reserve banking) collapses it is not a "crisis"
The ones who are profiting aren't the germans, it's the rich , and their preferred language is english.
Ordinary germans pay through the nose like everyone else, ask a "hartz 4"-dependent if you don't believe me|||The EU is the fief of Merkel and Sarkozy and we have and are being betrayed by our Quisling Government just as we were by the last lot.The pathetic debt ridden PIGS will simply do as they are instructed by the bosses.|||Just because somebody has courage to stand up and tell irresponsible governments begging for a handout to go and violate themselves, does not always translate to they have evil intentions or are greedy.|||Cameron and Clegg will be first in line with brown tongues. Maybe they will finish up with brown shirts if they are not careful|||This is not at all likely, they are a successful nation, they wouldn't waste resources doing this.
Is the European media government controlled?
I saw how the media in Europe barely covers the European crisis and puts most of their attention on us. When they cover things, they don't cover the crisis correctly and downplay things. European banks are heavily invested in all this debt, but they refuse to restructure the debt and lose any money whatsoever. So the regular Joe on the street has to pay for it. Countries like Greece are never gonna pay back all this debt.|||Heck yes. Much more so than here, even if our media is bought and paid for.|||Europe is not a country and does not have one government, press, or press-owning company that is subject to govt. interference. Its like asking if the Canadian, US and Mexican media are "government controlled".
I would say that in general, the press in Europe is as free from government control as in the US, but in Europe the press is much more free from corporate influence. This isn't because things are "better" or "worse" there, its just that with a conglomeration of different countries its harder for media consolidation to take place like it has here in the States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrati鈥?/a>|||The world's media is controlled.
Mexxicans mens marry women and have more children with them than they can care for. Most keep their "boyfriends" too. They come and go across our porous southern borders spreading disease.
Mexicans are still angry at Americans for stealing their land, so they send their losers north to re-inhabit their lost territories. Washington retaliates by sending them our jobs. Now Obama wants to, literally, give away the farm. His immigration policies reflect just that.
Most Mexican immigrants are failures in their home countries, because they are lazy and look for the easy way. Their homelands are filled with factory jobs that had once been held by Americans on US soil. They enter the US illegally, because entering the US legally requires some effort and they want the easy way. They don't value education and, consequently, neither do their children. Many look to crime instead of work that requires education and training. After all. they're looking for the easy way.
Now Obama wants to pave the easy way for these people by giving them a free ride.|||You make Americans look very stupid. Turn off Fox, by the way it is because of our corporate conservative media you are so stupid.|||Europe is a continent.
Edit: You're cool, American, you're cool.|||Heavily controled.
Say the wrong thing and go to prison for awhile.|||yeah, so? they put most of their emphasis on us because we ARE the 800lbs gorilla, screw China
I would say that in general, the press in Europe is as free from government control as in the US, but in Europe the press is much more free from corporate influence. This isn't because things are "better" or "worse" there, its just that with a conglomeration of different countries its harder for media consolidation to take place like it has here in the States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrati鈥?/a>|||The world's media is controlled.
Mexxicans mens marry women and have more children with them than they can care for. Most keep their "boyfriends" too. They come and go across our porous southern borders spreading disease.
Mexicans are still angry at Americans for stealing their land, so they send their losers north to re-inhabit their lost territories. Washington retaliates by sending them our jobs. Now Obama wants to, literally, give away the farm. His immigration policies reflect just that.
Most Mexican immigrants are failures in their home countries, because they are lazy and look for the easy way. Their homelands are filled with factory jobs that had once been held by Americans on US soil. They enter the US illegally, because entering the US legally requires some effort and they want the easy way. They don't value education and, consequently, neither do their children. Many look to crime instead of work that requires education and training. After all. they're looking for the easy way.
Now Obama wants to pave the easy way for these people by giving them a free ride.|||You make Americans look very stupid. Turn off Fox, by the way it is because of our corporate conservative media you are so stupid.|||Europe is a continent.
Edit: You're cool, American, you're cool.|||Heavily controled.
Say the wrong thing and go to prison for awhile.|||yeah, so? they put most of their emphasis on us because we ARE the 800lbs gorilla, screw China
Will the European Union go the way of the Articles of Confederation?
I think it will.
This debt crisis is a big, big moment for Europeans.
Do they want to go back to the pre-EU system of the early 1990s, where they reimposed border controls and fragmented integration? Do they ditch the Euro?
Or will they become a Federal nation? A United States of Europe?|||United States of Europe will never happen. Far too much diversity, too many different languages, cultures etc. We'd never be able to raise cohesive armed forces or agree on anything.
What I'd like to see happen is a return to the European Economic Community. Economic integration between European nations is a good thing, a political union and the Schengen Area have not worked too well at all.|||Unlikely.
The American Experience of its early nationhood is apples %26amp; oranges to the European Experience.
There's none of that shared "we're all Americans" identity there.
They don't have that "we're all Europeans" sentiment and despite EU membership remain very much aware of their national, historical and cultural differences.|||It's possible but I don't know if the EU system will just go away or become part of a larger Federal EU nation. If I had to guess I would say that the countries that make up the EU will hang on to their sovereignty and lose the shared currency but keep the open borders.|||if i had to guess, the EU will continue to exist.
however, the Euro will not.
it's clearly possible to not pay taxes on goods traded between countries, but still not have a common currency.
i think it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing choice.
however, they will have to make countries responsible for their actions.|||The E U were always like high school girls who pretended to like each other but really do not their common bond was their envy of the most popular girl in school .They watch her every more to find fault she ignores them as she should which drives them up a wall
If Americans would take a interest in their history during and before WW 2 we would be in shock they had mutual defense treaties all over the place and really honored none of them|||I think that the EU will dissolve rather than become a single nation, and that countries will ditch the Euro and revert back to their own national currencies.|||There is no way they would ever be united under one federal nation. frankly i think that if the Euro collapses they will go back to the old system, but it wouldn't be long before they tried again.|||There is no way France and Germany want to get stuck with all the Eurotards bills. The whole idea of an EU is about to collapse.
This debt crisis is a big, big moment for Europeans.
Do they want to go back to the pre-EU system of the early 1990s, where they reimposed border controls and fragmented integration? Do they ditch the Euro?
Or will they become a Federal nation? A United States of Europe?|||United States of Europe will never happen. Far too much diversity, too many different languages, cultures etc. We'd never be able to raise cohesive armed forces or agree on anything.
What I'd like to see happen is a return to the European Economic Community. Economic integration between European nations is a good thing, a political union and the Schengen Area have not worked too well at all.|||Unlikely.
The American Experience of its early nationhood is apples %26amp; oranges to the European Experience.
There's none of that shared "we're all Americans" identity there.
They don't have that "we're all Europeans" sentiment and despite EU membership remain very much aware of their national, historical and cultural differences.|||It's possible but I don't know if the EU system will just go away or become part of a larger Federal EU nation. If I had to guess I would say that the countries that make up the EU will hang on to their sovereignty and lose the shared currency but keep the open borders.|||if i had to guess, the EU will continue to exist.
however, the Euro will not.
it's clearly possible to not pay taxes on goods traded between countries, but still not have a common currency.
i think it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing choice.
however, they will have to make countries responsible for their actions.|||The E U were always like high school girls who pretended to like each other but really do not their common bond was their envy of the most popular girl in school .They watch her every more to find fault she ignores them as she should which drives them up a wall
If Americans would take a interest in their history during and before WW 2 we would be in shock they had mutual defense treaties all over the place and really honored none of them|||I think that the EU will dissolve rather than become a single nation, and that countries will ditch the Euro and revert back to their own national currencies.|||There is no way they would ever be united under one federal nation. frankly i think that if the Euro collapses they will go back to the old system, but it wouldn't be long before they tried again.|||There is no way France and Germany want to get stuck with all the Eurotards bills. The whole idea of an EU is about to collapse.
Euro sovereign debt crisis?
What would happen to the Euro if the European Central Banks becomes too aggressive in purchasing debt issued by European countries?|||When the central bank purchases debt, it does so by manufacturing euros out of thin air, similar to quantitative easing in the us. It would reduce the value of the euro
Is global economy a colossal failure?
American workers were better off when they were isolated from the troubles in Europe. Now U.S labor force is competing with cheap overseas labor and the U.S stock markets are being dragged down by European debt crisis.|||I'd have to agree with your assessment. All that it did was enable banks to turn the world into a roulette wheel.|||Well go back to the 1920's and the American economy was far more isolationist then. It still didn't prevent the crash and slump in the US economy both at home as well as the global economy as a whole. Protectionism never really works either as you normally end up shooting your self in the foot. For example if America starts heavily tariffing foreign goods then other countries will simply do the same to American goods. As happened during the 1920's and 30's and is seen as a reason it took America longer to recover due to it stifling it's own export potential.|||Heck no!... not for the winners, you have witnessed the largest transfer of wealth for the lower classes to the top 1% in the history of the world........Alfred! More Champagne for the Horses, and make it vintage this time.....it's Bonus season.....|||It's very hard to immigrate to the US.
Why aren't European citizens expressing outrage that their governments are about to bail out Ireland?
Could you imagine the sort of outrage if President Obama announced that he was going to spend $100 billion to help Ireland with its debt crisis?
Yet there are several figureheads at the U.K. and other European countries expressing their willingness to help Ireland with its debt crisis. I could only imagine the outrage in America if the U.S made such a move, but why isn't there such a public outrage in Europe?|||They can't be bothered, or they don't really understand what it means. It seems as if most of what happens in the European Union goes on behind closed doors.
Nobody gets to vote on anything. :-/|||Ireland is apart of the EU and the Eurozone (it has adopted the Euro as it's currency) therefore it is in the interest of the EU to bail out Ireland or else it will reduce investor confidence in the Euro which will thus impact all Eurozone member states.
The UK is offering to help out Ireland but only if it requests the help; the UK has chosen to do so because the chancellor of the exchequer, George Osbourne, is aware how closely intertwined the UK and Irish economy are that it would be in the interest of the British economy to help out Ireland. However, the EU will offer an estimated bail out of 拢70 million whereas the UK government would probably only provide around 拢7 million.|||because europeans are more intelligent than americans|||The UK government are probably offering all the money Icelandic banks owe them, hopefully.|||Because that's one of the reasons the EU exist and it just not ireland.|||Europeans have this belief that there is an endless supply of entitlements.
They all owe each other a large fortune and someday it will collapse like a house of cards. They have to bail each other out.
Yet there are several figureheads at the U.K. and other European countries expressing their willingness to help Ireland with its debt crisis. I could only imagine the outrage in America if the U.S made such a move, but why isn't there such a public outrage in Europe?|||They can't be bothered, or they don't really understand what it means. It seems as if most of what happens in the European Union goes on behind closed doors.
Nobody gets to vote on anything. :-/|||Ireland is apart of the EU and the Eurozone (it has adopted the Euro as it's currency) therefore it is in the interest of the EU to bail out Ireland or else it will reduce investor confidence in the Euro which will thus impact all Eurozone member states.
The UK is offering to help out Ireland but only if it requests the help; the UK has chosen to do so because the chancellor of the exchequer, George Osbourne, is aware how closely intertwined the UK and Irish economy are that it would be in the interest of the British economy to help out Ireland. However, the EU will offer an estimated bail out of 拢70 million whereas the UK government would probably only provide around 拢7 million.|||because europeans are more intelligent than americans|||The UK government are probably offering all the money Icelandic banks owe them, hopefully.|||Because that's one of the reasons the EU exist and it just not ireland.|||Europeans have this belief that there is an endless supply of entitlements.
They all owe each other a large fortune and someday it will collapse like a house of cards. They have to bail each other out.
Why don't more Americans know that $10 billion of your tax dollars went to bail out european banks?
http://www.caivn.org/article/2010/05/04/鈥?/a>
http://blogs.forbes.com/beltway/2010/05/鈥?/a>
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/first-f鈥?/a>|||Well, it went to AIG, which owed European banks on their losses. Why can't you put the "question" in perspective?|||Ignorance is bliss.|||cuz you didn't tell them until now|||We MUST bail out our fellow Socialists in Europe.
Obama's Neo-Socialism will rule the World!|||a better question is, why don't more europeans know it|||And your share of that was what, $27 thereabouts. Talk about greedy and selfish.|||Because they are sheep!|||Statists support each other.|||US taxpayers have been paying for bailouts for dozens of countries, all over the world, for the last several decades. This is nothing new.|||We got off light.
http://blogs.forbes.com/beltway/2010/05/鈥?/a>
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/first-f鈥?/a>|||Well, it went to AIG, which owed European banks on their losses. Why can't you put the "question" in perspective?|||Ignorance is bliss.|||cuz you didn't tell them until now|||We MUST bail out our fellow Socialists in Europe.
Obama's Neo-Socialism will rule the World!|||a better question is, why don't more europeans know it|||And your share of that was what, $27 thereabouts. Talk about greedy and selfish.|||Because they are sheep!|||Statists support each other.|||US taxpayers have been paying for bailouts for dozens of countries, all over the world, for the last several decades. This is nothing new.|||We got off light.
China Has the fifth highest debt rating? Should Americans be worried about buying debt from China?
How can they be sure they will get their money back?
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04鈥?/a>|||I would NEVER buy anything from China, or anywhere else out of the country.
I just found out something I bought online (TX) came from China and my CC charged me $12.49 for out of the country fees. I just checked my statement, yep, it did came from HK, even though the transactions was made in TX.
Since I was returning my purchase, CS credited me for the fees. Right now, I'm waiting for my credit from TX.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04鈥?/a>|||I would NEVER buy anything from China, or anywhere else out of the country.
I just found out something I bought online (TX) came from China and my CC charged me $12.49 for out of the country fees. I just checked my statement, yep, it did came from HK, even though the transactions was made in TX.
Since I was returning my purchase, CS credited me for the fees. Right now, I'm waiting for my credit from TX.
How long will this American/European cash crisis go on for and what are the resolutions for those county's?
What can Spain and italy do, they have huge economy's so a bailout is improbable?
how can the united states get rid of all that debt?|||it wont stop until WW3 which will be a heavily monitarily influenced war where EU and US will fight against China and the Middle east.
callin it now. lol.
how can the united states get rid of all that debt?|||it wont stop until WW3 which will be a heavily monitarily influenced war where EU and US will fight against China and the Middle east.
callin it now. lol.
Why is the Dow almost at its all time high?
yet unemloyment is high, we have a down grade in credit, there is a European Debt Crisis etc?|||There is an underlying belief that the economy is doing much better with recent economic data. Even with all the black clouds on the horizon, corporate earnings were good and there is some pent up demand driving profits in corporations. The stock market tends to look towards the future so if any of these good news gains doesn't pan out the Dow will go back to the lows.
Myself, I am kind of a pessimist here because the Super Committee has to come up with a budget plan on November 23rd. If nothing but gridlock and bad feelings come from this committee then the Dow will take a fall because of the continuation of our debt crisis. So far, the U.S. debt crisis has taken a back seat because it is being dealt with behind close doors. That ends on November 23rd. The Dow could see new lows after Thanksgiving which is typically "Santa Claus" rally time.|||In 2012/13 all stocks will go bang and end up at pre-1990 levels.
The Dow and FTSE have been artificially high for 20 years.
The resulting meltdown will be too horrendous to contemplate.
Conspiracy theorists bang on about comet strikes and planetary alignments in 2012 as predicted by the Mayans and other ancient civilisations.
Trust me,the disaster awaiting humanity is fiscal.|||It's not. It is 2000 points below it's 2007 high. What's good about that?
Myself, I am kind of a pessimist here because the Super Committee has to come up with a budget plan on November 23rd. If nothing but gridlock and bad feelings come from this committee then the Dow will take a fall because of the continuation of our debt crisis. So far, the U.S. debt crisis has taken a back seat because it is being dealt with behind close doors. That ends on November 23rd. The Dow could see new lows after Thanksgiving which is typically "Santa Claus" rally time.|||In 2012/13 all stocks will go bang and end up at pre-1990 levels.
The Dow and FTSE have been artificially high for 20 years.
The resulting meltdown will be too horrendous to contemplate.
Conspiracy theorists bang on about comet strikes and planetary alignments in 2012 as predicted by the Mayans and other ancient civilisations.
Trust me,the disaster awaiting humanity is fiscal.|||It's not. It is 2000 points below it's 2007 high. What's good about that?
Portugal "sold 鈧?.2bn of its debt"?
Hi,
I was reading an article on CNN (http://edition.cnn.com/2011/BUSINESS/01/12/portugal.europe.debt.crisis.ft/index.html?eref=edition) and saw:
"The intensifying European debt crisis appeared to take a step back from the brink on Wednesday when besieged Portugal was able to sell more than 鈧?.2bn in long-term debt at much lower than expected interest rates."
I was just curious: what exactly do they mean when they say Portugal "sold" its long-term debt?|||they mean that Portugal is good.|||Hmm when a country sell it debts it mean the country needed 鈧?.2bn and borrowed it from the markets usually if a country is in high danger of not been able to pay the money back the investor raise the interests and buy less debt however in this case the interest where high but much of the debt was bought.
That of course shows that in reality the markets believe Portugal can pay his debt back (people wouldnt lend money to a country who they know will default) but that instead the interests are been keep high by artificial expeculation.|||In simple terms it means that it got other people to give it money to tide it over its lean period. It still has to pay those bond holders back. It seems that China and Japan both came good on their promises and bought a lot of the bonds issued.
I was reading an article on CNN (http://edition.cnn.com/2011/BUSINESS/01/12/portugal.europe.debt.crisis.ft/index.html?eref=edition) and saw:
"The intensifying European debt crisis appeared to take a step back from the brink on Wednesday when besieged Portugal was able to sell more than 鈧?.2bn in long-term debt at much lower than expected interest rates."
I was just curious: what exactly do they mean when they say Portugal "sold" its long-term debt?|||they mean that Portugal is good.|||Hmm when a country sell it debts it mean the country needed 鈧?.2bn and borrowed it from the markets usually if a country is in high danger of not been able to pay the money back the investor raise the interests and buy less debt however in this case the interest where high but much of the debt was bought.
That of course shows that in reality the markets believe Portugal can pay his debt back (people wouldnt lend money to a country who they know will default) but that instead the interests are been keep high by artificial expeculation.|||In simple terms it means that it got other people to give it money to tide it over its lean period. It still has to pay those bond holders back. It seems that China and Japan both came good on their promises and bought a lot of the bonds issued.
How come the Dow is so high--It is almost at its all -time high?
Yet we have high unemployment, low GDP, and a European Debt Crisis, Down grade in our credit ratiing, protestors etc.|||The Dow is almost 20% lower that its high of a little over 14,000 4 years ago. Most of the companies on the Dow are multinationals, and therefore make a lot of money in other countries. If they do not move their profit to the US, they reap huge profits and low taxes. By having businesses in foreign countries, they also leverage the fluctuation of the US currency, so the weaker the dollar, the more competitive and profitable they are overseas. They are very adept at maneuvering their business priorities from country to country as the world economies change. Many of these companies make more money overseas than they do in the US! I hope this helps!|||Many companies are making a lot of money. But they are holding on to the money and not hiring new workers. The downgrade of the credit rating involved the Federal government, because the Congress took to much time coming to an agreement about paying loans the government had taken.|||the same reason the the price of gasoline is high:
inflation.
inflation.
If a U.S. economic crises can affect Europe, can a European debt crises affect the United States?
Also, the United States govt. is currently operating on a "too big to fail" doctrine. But at what point will the U.S. govt. start having a debt crises?? (I mean other countries are EVENTUALLY going to realize we have no intention/means to pay any of these debt off, right??)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100428/ap_o鈥?/a>
BERLIN 鈥?Europe's debt crisis mushroomed Wednesday as Spain saw its credit rating lowered, just as Germany sought to reassure nervous investors that Greece would not be allowed to go under, saying Berlin's share of a key aid package could be approved in the next few days.
Stock and bond markets had begun to regain their composure after stinging downgrades of Greece and Portugal the day before, when Standard %26amp; Poors delivered more bad news by cutting Spain's rating to AA from AA+ amid concerns about the country's growth prospects following the collapse of a construction bubble.
"We now believe that the Spanish economy's shift away from credit-fuelled economic growth is likely to result in a more protracted period of sluggish activity than we previously assumed," Standard %26amp; Poor's credit analyst Marko Mrsnik said.
Spain is considered the key to whether Europe's debt crisis can be resolved 鈥?its economy is much larger than that of Greece and Portugal and 鈥?many in the markets postulate 鈥?may be just too big to bail out if it gets into serious trouble.
Though its overall debt burden is fairly modest at around 53 percent of national income, the country is running a high budget deficit and has done less than others to get a handle on its public finances.|||The US will affected on the trading side of business. American exports will cost more to Europeans because the Euro is continually sliding in value against the US dollar despite the massive debt we have. All American companies that export to Europe will be hurt. The entire European Union is going to go into a recession. We will see in the coming months how it will affect us. The US dollar will still go down in value still which will cause our own problems, but Europe will not be the reason for our collapse.|||Remember how Democrats pointed toward improved manufacturing numbers as a sign of an "Obama Recovery?"...much of that was because the strong Euro was making American-made goods cheap to import into Europe. I work with a couple of manufacturers who only survived the past two years because of European customers. Soon, that will all go away.|||Yes, it already has. Some of the bailout money went to European Banks.|||It's all a sign that the global recession is'nt over yet,as we were led to believe.The **** is about to hit the fan-when the euro collapses it will mean the us will lose its biggest set of buyers,this global recession has'nt even started yet,we're just past the first corner of a very long race.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100428/ap_o鈥?/a>
BERLIN 鈥?Europe's debt crisis mushroomed Wednesday as Spain saw its credit rating lowered, just as Germany sought to reassure nervous investors that Greece would not be allowed to go under, saying Berlin's share of a key aid package could be approved in the next few days.
Stock and bond markets had begun to regain their composure after stinging downgrades of Greece and Portugal the day before, when Standard %26amp; Poors delivered more bad news by cutting Spain's rating to AA from AA+ amid concerns about the country's growth prospects following the collapse of a construction bubble.
"We now believe that the Spanish economy's shift away from credit-fuelled economic growth is likely to result in a more protracted period of sluggish activity than we previously assumed," Standard %26amp; Poor's credit analyst Marko Mrsnik said.
Spain is considered the key to whether Europe's debt crisis can be resolved 鈥?its economy is much larger than that of Greece and Portugal and 鈥?many in the markets postulate 鈥?may be just too big to bail out if it gets into serious trouble.
Though its overall debt burden is fairly modest at around 53 percent of national income, the country is running a high budget deficit and has done less than others to get a handle on its public finances.|||The US will affected on the trading side of business. American exports will cost more to Europeans because the Euro is continually sliding in value against the US dollar despite the massive debt we have. All American companies that export to Europe will be hurt. The entire European Union is going to go into a recession. We will see in the coming months how it will affect us. The US dollar will still go down in value still which will cause our own problems, but Europe will not be the reason for our collapse.|||Remember how Democrats pointed toward improved manufacturing numbers as a sign of an "Obama Recovery?"...much of that was because the strong Euro was making American-made goods cheap to import into Europe. I work with a couple of manufacturers who only survived the past two years because of European customers. Soon, that will all go away.|||Yes, it already has. Some of the bailout money went to European Banks.|||It's all a sign that the global recession is'nt over yet,as we were led to believe.The **** is about to hit the fan-when the euro collapses it will mean the us will lose its biggest set of buyers,this global recession has'nt even started yet,we're just past the first corner of a very long race.
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