economic situation is dire

[snowychap]

Time to ressurrect your predictions thread snowy before the pruners get it.

Will do.

Though I did put the predictions made into a s/sheet. :winkold:

[Gringo]

yeh - why not do us some bleedin pivot tables to go with it

[snowychap]

yeh - why not do us some bleedin pivot tables to go with it

How do you feel about Pivot charts?

[Gringo]

At least some more forward thinking govts are coming up with some innovative solutions for our time of need.

Forced Smoking Economic Stimulus Program

(Hubei Province, China) The Gong'an County government has instructed its staff to smoke 230,000 packs of locally-produced cigarette brands this and every year. Fines will be assessed for those government departments which fail to meet their targets.

According to Chen Nianzu of the Gong'an Cigarette Market Supervision Team, the taxes on cigarettes will stimulate the economy through increased taxes.

However, the smoking mandate is suspiciously believed to be a scheme to prop up local cigarette brands against intense market pressure from competitors in neighboring Hunan Province.

Frankly, this forced-smoking scheme shouldn't be surprising. When the government controls the economy, incompetence and stupidity are only ameliorated by a massive level of corruption.

Nevertheless, I wonder how the government is planning to verify compliance. The only guaranteed method would be for the staffers to turn in their butts or empty packs to the Smoking Compliance Department, presumably a new set of offices in the bureaucracy.

[johnvillan]

That's more like it, we can allow/make all MP's smoke a million fags in their specially licenced smoking rooms in the houses of parliament. Then sell the research to a bio lab and save a couple of hundred beagles from certain death. Its good for the economy and great for public moral.

[snowychap]

Further slowdown in UK inflation

UK annual inflation slowed in April as consumers' energy and food bills continued to drop, figures show.

The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) fell to 2.3% from 2.9% in March, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

The decline was more than economists expected. The annual inflation reading was the lowest in more than a year.

Another measure of inflation, the Retail Prices Index (RPI), fell further to -1.2% from -0.4%, the biggest drop since records began in 1948.

'Deflation risk'

The decline in RPI inflation was larger than economists had predicted, and comes after the March figure showed the first negative reading since 1960.

The figures are a "reminder that excessively low inflation, or deflation, is still a bigger risk over the next few years than a rapid rise in inflation," said Jonathan Loynes, an economist at Capital Economics.

The ONS said the fall in the rate of annual inflation was driven by lower electricity and gas bills, as well as cheaper food costs.

RPI was driven down by the same factors, as well as lower mortgage interest payments and home insurance, the ONS added.

While the CPI is important as the rate that is targeted by the Bank of England in setting interest rates, the RPI is used by many companies as the starting point for wage bargaining.

The key difference is that the RPI measure includes mortgage costs, which have dropped significantly as the Bank has cut interest rates over the past year.

The official CPI figure is still above the government's target of 2%, but the Bank expects it to fall further during this year.

"Underlying inflationary pressure is still extremely weak, and is likely to remain so, particularly given the rapid and ongoing deterioration in the labour market," said Colin Ellis, an economist at Daiwa Securities.

The pound rose 1% against the dollar, trading at $1.5482, while it rose 0.3% against the euro to £1.1135.

[Genie]

Still no job for me, Tomorrow will mark 6 weeks since I left (contract cancelled early).

Got a few things hoping to come off so hopefully in a week or 2 I'll be back at it.

[Gringo]

It looks like gordon did indeed save the world, well sort of....

IMF praise for UK recession plan

The UK government response to the global financial crisis has been "bold and wide-ranging," the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said.

It added that "aggressive action" by the government succeeded in containing the crisis and avoiding a breakdown.

But it warned that high levels of household and bank debt meant the pace of any recovery was still uncertain.

And it urged the government to adopt more ambitious plans to reduce the huge scale of government borrowing.

It remains to be seen whether the recent efforts to recapitalise the banks will be sufficient to sustain credit provision at a level required for a robust economic recovery

IMF

The IMF is sticking to its forecast that UK GDP will decline by 4.1% this year, compared with the chancellor's forecast of about 3.5%.

[leviramsey]

Should the Anglo-American model of capitalism be replaced by the Dutch model?

On April 30, during the annual Dutch parade celebrating the royal family, a 38-year-old former security guard named Karst Tates drove his black Suzuki hatchback into a group of spectators, killing six. The intended victim, he told police officers, was the Netherlands' 71-year-old monarch Queen Beatrix. Interviewed by the Dutch paper De Telegraaf, Tates' landlord offered a possible motive: "He had been dismissed and could no longer pay the rent...He was due to have come today to transfer the keys to a new tenant."

If only Tates had waited until the following Sunday, when he could have logged on to his subsidized broadband connection, clicked over to the New York Times website, and read American author Russell Shorto's paean to the cradle-to-grave "Dutch model" of social welfare. If what Shorto tells us is accurate—the state-funded cleaning ladies for new mothers, government-financed summer vacations, free copies of Paul Verhoeven movies—Tates might simply have applied at the local welfare office for a bucket of SSRIs and a top bunk in a Rotterdam borstal.

In this time of economic uncertainty—a phrase that one hopes will be expelled from our vocabulary soon enough—ever-curious journalists are seeking out alternatives to Anglo-American capitalism and finding them in the happy and healthy states of Western Europe. Shorto isn't merely providing an unbiased accounting of how things work in the Netherlands, but wonders "whether some form of [the Dutch system] could be adopted" in the United States. Ezra Klein, a newly minted blogger for The Washington Post, cheered this suggestion, arguing that President Barack Obama should also look at "relative mobility in other Nordic countries"—nevermind that the Netherlands is not a Nordic country.

Shorto's question piqued readers' interest too, becoming the "most emailed story of the week" (and is currently in contention for the most emailed story of the month). And if the permissive Dutch attitude towards drugs and prostitution isn't your cup of tea, the following week the Times offered an A1 story on the wonderful success of Norway -- the only country whose citizens shop in Sweden for tax relief -- with the unambiguous headline, "Thriving Norway Provides an Economics Lesson." The lesson goes something like this: If your country has a small, relatively homogenous population and enormous oil deposits (a fact introduced in the eighth paragraph), you too can weather the current economic storm.

But back to the Dutch. Like its neighbors to the north, the Netherlands has "succeeded" by greatly reducing state intervention into the economy and, in bargaining with the powerful Dutch labor unions, scaling back generous sick leave and unemployment benefits. The Economist recommends the Dutch model, too—as a model for liberalization of markets and shrinking of the welfare state: "A welfare state that is too generous, and a labour market that is too rigid? Follow the Dutch example of chipping away at the first and quietly introducing flexibility into the second. Taxes that are too high and public spending that defies cutting? Look at the Dutch tax reforms that sharply lowered the burden of direct taxes, and at the finance ministry's tough spending controls."

As the Dutch economist Ruud A. de Mooij points out, public expenditure as a percentage of GDP decreased from 62 percent in 1982 to 44 percent in 2007, helping spur much of the growth in the previous two decades. But with shifting demographics and generous benefits for those who opt out of the job market, the system, he notes, is still in a perilous state:

The Dutch welfare state is under pressure. Ageing makes public finances unsustainable and globalisation tends to worsens[sic] the position of low-skilled workers. At the same time, welfare state institutions seem insufficiently adapted to changed socio-cultural circumstances and cause inactivity among elderly workers, women and social benefit recipients.

Shorto argues that the top Dutch tax rate of 52 percent might seem high (In the 1980s, it was a more Scandinavian 72 percent), but when all of the various taxes in this country are tabulated the differences melt away. But as the Dutch writer Jurgen Reinhoudt points out, Shorto ignores the panoply of indirect taxes that push that rate significantly higher: "New vehicles sold in the Netherlands, for example, are hit with a 40 percent ‘vehicle tax' in addition to the 19 percent value added tax that is added to cars as well as many consumer goods sold in the country. Dutch gasoline costs more than $6 a gallon, of which roughly 70 percent goes to the government in the form of various taxes including the VAT. The highest estate tax rate (that some people really do pay) is 68 percent: for the sake of reason this rate will be reduced to 50 percent in the years ahead."

But it is also worth noting that the Netherlands ranks extremely high—12th overall—in the 2008 Index of Economic Freedom. As the report's authors observe, the country "enjoys very high levels of business freedom, trade freedom, monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, and property rights."

Indeed, many see the country as a tax haven—the use of which, says President Obama, helps "ship our jobs overseas." The Rolling Stones, a billion dollar rock band, have long kept their large amounts of money in the country, due to Holland's exceptionally low rates of taxation on royalties. According to British press accounts, the band has paid a paltry $7.2 million in taxes on earnings of $450 million, which, The New York Times calculates, is "a tax rate of about 1.5 percent, well below the British rate of 40 percent." When Ireland killed the "artist tax exemption," the band U2, despite its consistent agitation for taxpayer-funded aid to Africa, followed the Stones' lead and set up shop with the very same Dutch tax shelter specialists.

Despite budget shortfalls, the Netherlands doesn't seem interested in returning to its 1970s model of confiscatory rates of taxation. When their economy stagnated, the government quickly moved to slash the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25.5 percent. (In the United States, it's roughly 40 percent) A recent proposal by the right-leaning government of Jan Peter Balkenende would lower inheritance tax rates from 27 percent to 20 percent for family members, and from 68 percent to 40 percent for non-family members. And with government coffers thinning and an aging population, a recent piece of legislation would push the retirement age from 65 to 67.

Like most acolytes of the European social model, Shorto also focuses on the wonders of the Dutch system of universal health care, while neglecting to mention that in 2006 the government undertook a series of market-based reforms in an effort to save what was once a sclerotic and expensive system.

According to a 2007 World Health Organization report on the 2006 overhaul, the previous system of government mandates suffered from "a high level of government interference (supply side control) leading to inefficiencies and [the] hindering [of] innovation." As Swedish economist Johnny Munkhammar argues, the new system, which allows patients to shop for the best rates amongst private insurance companies, "provides a blueprint for successful, market-oriented healthcare reform."

But still, the system suffers from significant cost shortfalls. Last month, Radio Netherlands reported that, "To make the necessary savings, between 13,000 and 20,000 jobs in the healthcare sector would have to be cut—the equivalent of closing down between eight and 12 hospitals—by 2014." Health Minister Ab Klink, De Telegraaf reports, is "considering introducing a charge to people who visit hospital Accident and Emergency departments without a doctor's referral" to plug holes in the health budget.

While the Netherlands has introduced significant tax reform and market-oriented health care reform, the OECD nevertheless warns that the "economy is now facing labour shortages, related to the greying of the population and the continued weak labour market participation of several groups."

Still, Shorto isn't wrong. There are indeed lessons to be learned from countries like the Netherlands. Which means that supporters of the "European model" must acknowledge that most of these successes—as is the case in many other European countries—are the result of a significant overhaul of base social democratic assumptions about government control of labor markets and health care systems. In other words, as the U.S. moves towards them, they continue to move towards us.

One final thought for Shorto's readers: Netherlands' current prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, was elected on a platform of "Mee doen, Meer Werk, Minder Regels." Translation: Participation, more employment, less regulation.

[snowychap]

Except the guy isn't actually arguing that they ought to follow a Dutch model, is he?

He's trying to use it as an argument for decreased regulation in economies that already have less regulation than the Dutch economy.

[leviramsey]

Which guy?

[snowychap]

Mr Moynihan.

[leviramsey]

I wouldn't necessarily say that he's using it as an argument for less regulation, but more as an argument against the US adopting some of the social democratic assumptions that the Netherlands are moving away from.

[snowychap]

I wouldn't necessarily say that he's using it as an argument for less regulation, but more as an argument against the US adopting some of the social democratic assumptions that the Netherlands are moving away from.

Perhaps not as an argument for less regulation but he is using the journey that the Dutch are making as an argument against regulation, ignoring the differing starting points (in terms of regulation and ethos) of the two countries the movements of which he is comparing.

[leviramsey]

Interesting set of youtube videos from a real estate agent in San Diego

Running the pool to mask the sound of a nearby highway (house in question was bought out of foreclosure for $500k... owners are looking to flip it for $750k)

House formerly used for growing cannabis (why else would a normal-looking house have 200-amp electrics?)

"A million... a million-four... one-point-one... five-eighty-five (notice that everything worth stealing (and a lot that's probably not worth stealing))

Obvious fraud

The peak of 1970s decor

Part of why Washington Mutual went under

"I don't know whether this was a flophouse, a brothel, a retirement home, a prison, a frat house, but there's a lot of bedrooms, a lot of bathrooms, a lot of unpermitted stuff going on..."

One that he actually has the listing for

[trimandson]

Jobs to go in Retail at LBG :shock: Thankfully, retail is a big division, mind you, the way things are at the mo, I'd take VR if it was offered.

[tonyh29]

The British economy may have contracted at a much sharper rate than previously thought in the first three months of this year, official statisticians said, after major revisions to construction output figures.

New data from the Office for National Statistics on Friday showed construction output fell 9.0 percent in the first quarter, the steepest fall since 1963 and much worse than the 2.4 percent decline previously estimated.

(Reuters)

[villal]

The Federal Reserve's balance sheet is so out of whack that the central bank would be shut down if subjected to a conventional audit, Jim Grant, editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, told CNBC.

With $45 billion in capital and $2.1 trillion in assets, the central bank would not withstand the scrutiny normally afforded other institutions, Grant said in a live interview.

"If the Fed examiners were set upon the Fed's own documents—unlabeled documents—to pass judgment on the Fed's capacity to survive the difficulties it faces in credit, it would shut this institution down," he said. "The Fed is undercapitalized in a way that Citicorp is undercapitalized."

Grant said he would support legislation currently making its way through Congress calling for an audit of the Fed (Currently 207 Co-sponsors)

Moreover, he criticized the way the Fed has managed the financial crisis, saying the central bank's target rate should not be around zero.

"I think zero is the wrong rate for almost any economy," Grant said, adding the Fed has "embarked on a vast experiment in moral hazard. Interest rates are the traffic signals in a market economy, and everything's green. ... You have to wonder whether these interest rates are the right clearing rate or rather they are the imposition of a central bank."

Amid a disparity between analysts predicting there will be no rate hikes soon and the fed funds futures indicating tightening by the end of the year, Grant said he thinks the Fed indeed will begin raising rates as inflation creeps into the picture.

Fed funds futures have fully priced in as much as a half-point rise in the target rate from its current range of zero to 0.25 percent.

"If the hairs on the back of your neck stand up when there's too much unanimity of opinion, then one begins to worry about this," he said. "The Fed proverbially has been late."

here

[johnvillan]

japantoday

2 Japanese carrying $134 bil worth of U.S. bonds detained in Italy

Thursday 11th June, 06:18 AM JST

ROME —

Two Japanese nationals were detained by Italian financial police last week after trying to enter Switzerland with $134 billion worth of undeclared U.S. bonds, mostly Treasury bonds, an Italian daily said Wednesday. The Japanese consulate general in Milan confirmed that the detention had taken place and said it was trying to confirm with Italian authorities whether the two were indeed Japanese nationals and their identities.

According to the report in il Giornale, two unidentified Japanese in their 50s concealed the bonds, including 249 U.S. Treasury bonds each worth $500 million, in a suitcase with a false bottom that was searched by the Italian authorities June 3 when they were in Chiasso, at the border with Switzerland, about 50 kilometers north of Milan. The daily did not say on what charges they have been detained, but the two may have been detained on suspicion of attempting to take a large amount of securities out of Italy without declaring it because the paper said they had not declared the bonds.

link

I wonder if the Japanese were trying to offload their US Treasuries to the Bank for International Settlements in Basel. They could swap them for Gold Bullion without pissing the Americans off.The Brazilians, Russians and Chinese are all looking to sell US Treasuries to the IMF in return for bonds.

Incidentally $1 Billion notes are only sold to foreign governments & sovereign wealth funds.

It does not look good for the Dollar when everybody abandons ship. First hyper inflation then total collapse of the currency.The greatest bank job in history is in progress and is going according to plan.

[johnvillan]

Wall Street Journal

* MARCH 30, 2009

Treasury Has $134.5 Billion Left in TARP

* Article

* Comments (14)

more in Economy »

WASHINGTON -- The Treasury Department said it has about $134.5 billion left in its financial-rescue fund, giving the Obama administration a cushion as it implements expensive programs aimed at unlocking credit markets and boosting ailing industries.

The figure means that about 81% of the $700 billion in the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, has been committed. It also means that the Obama administration may not have to go to Congress to request additional funds, at least until well into the year. Many lawmakers who criticized the administration's bank-rescue efforts have vowed to oppose any requests for more money for ...

link

Well that's a coincidence TARP also has exactly the amount left $134.5 billion that was found being smuggled over the swiss border a couple of months later. Anybody smell a rat yet?