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The International Monetary Fund cut its forecast for the global economy as Europe slips into a recession and growth cools in China and India.
The world economy will expand 3.3 percent this year and 3.9 percent in 2013, compared with September forecasts of 4 percent and 4.5 percent, the IMF said. The euro area may enter a “mild recession” this year and contract 0.5 percent compared with a previous estimate of a 1.1 percent expansion. The U.S. outlook was held at 1.8 percent growth.
“The near-term outlook has noticeably deteriorated,” the IMF said in an update of its World Economic Outlook report. “The global recovery is threatened by intensifying strains in the euro area and fragilities elsewhere.”
The forecasts hinge on increased efforts in the 17-country euro area to fight the financial turmoil, which the IMF calls the “most immediate policy challenge.” The report called on European policy makers to increase the size of the region’s rescue fund and for the European Central Bank to continue its support of the region to limit contagion to other countries.
“We need a larger firewall,” IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said in Berlin yesterday. “Without it, countries like Italy and Spain, that are fundamentally able to repay their debts, could potentially be forced into a solvency crisis by abnormal financing costs.”
Europe Confidence
Confidence in Europe’s strategy for coping with the crisis was dealt a setback late yesterday in Brussels when European finance ministers pushed bondholders to provide greater debt relief for Greece.
Euro governments sought to fill a deeper-than-expected hole in Greece’s finances by saddling investors with a lower interest rate on exchanged bonds, setting up a confrontation in the runup to a Jan. 30 European Union summit. At the same time, efforts to shore up Greece were flanked by headway on a German-inspired deficit-reduction treaty and indications that a cap on rescue lending might be boosted.
To avoid a 1930s-style worldwide depression, the IMF’s Lagarde yesterday also called on other countries to play their part. The IMF, which co-finances loans to Greece, Ireland and Portugal, identified a potential global financing need of $1 trillion in coming years and is seeking $500 billion in new lending resources from its member countries to address potential loan demand.
Developing Economies
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-24/imf-cuts-global-growth-forecast-to-3-9-from-4-5-sees-european-recession.html
I grabbed this link from Jesse's. It is a long video 56 minutes. I haven't even watched it all.
Moyers & Company Show 102: On Crony Capitalism from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.
I grabbed this link from Jesse's. It is a long video 56 minutes. I haven't even watched it all.
Moyers & Company Show 102: On Crony Capitalism from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.
26 comments:
Queenbee,
To find a product that was made in the USA you need to gither go to a thrift store or garage sale to find used items.
No domestic manufacturing - no jobs.
I got to agree with you Mammoth. I have searched the web and really the US doesn't make much of anything any more. I didn't know it was quite that grim.
I think the money and coins are made in the US, but I could be wrong.
This was supposed to go at the top, but I wanted to modify it.
Apple's Foreign Suppliers Demonstrate Widespread Scamming and Horrific Abuse of Employees
Nike does the same thing and I won't buy a Nike product either. Why is it American's cannot even make a shoe? The baseball cap I wear is made in viet nam. I am, still looking for something in the house that was made in the US Canada France UK or Germany.
Why doesn't our government do anything about these abuses? Because they can't. They cannot pass laws in other countries and they cannot enforce tariffs indiscriminately. We really have dug ourselves a hole that we cannot get out of based on profit and greed.
I have seen this same thing happen on the show "The Shark Tank." A woman had a great product, but she in an effort to convince the sharks there was money to be made that it would be cheaply made in China.
We still have the FIRE economy to fall back on. On the second video you only need to get through the first 15 minutes to see that the banksters run the government.
"Why doesn't our government do anything about these abuses? Because they can't. They cannot pass laws in other countries"
- - - - - -
Sorry Queenbee but I disagree. Government CAN do something; it's just that they wont.
As I have stated here before - all we need to do is pass a law stating that if a product is to be imported into the USA, it must be manufactured per the same environmental & safety standards which the USA requires of its domestic manufacturers.
Mammoth I remember, but how do we enforce that?
I still try to find New Balance Shoes that are made in the US, but to remain competitive they have moved overseas as well.
Oh come on, America still manufactures greed, lies, half-truths, wishful thinking, and corporate oligarchic kleptocracy - all massive growth sectors.
When criminal financial terrorist vermin like Wall St run your country, there is only one road for the rest of the citizens - poverty.
Mammoth is quite correct, but that will never happen when Washington is just a branch outlet of Banksters, the place where they drop bribe money and get laws passed that suit their needs.
Now there might be some traction to be had on fighting the Banksters if you can publicize the meme that their actions amount to financial terrorism that have done far more damage to the country than Al-Qaida ever could.
Call them Al-Wall St, and get patriotic citizens on board with the need to send these crony capitalist oligarchic terrorist kleptocrats to Guantanamo, as they are clearly traitors to the nation they claim to be citizens of.
IF they really had the long term welfare of their home at heart, they would not do the things they do - but they do. Death by firing squad is too lenient, bring back the noose or guillotine.
I see Stockton on another video over at the Big Picture with Dan Ratigan so I am thinking this is a book tour. Doesn't mean he isn't right about Crony Capitalistic society that we live in and how the top powers of governments are held by people from JPM Citi GS and other investment institutions.
LOL at the desperate spin:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/24/us-eurozone-ministers-idUSTRE80L10520120124
"Greek creditors urge quick deal after eurozone knockback"
(Reuters) - Greece's private creditors pleaded Tuesday with European officials who rejected their bond swap offer to hammer together a deal before Athens tumbles into a chaotic default...
"It's important that all parties recognize how much we have at stake and work together and cooperate to find a solution," said Charles Dallara, who negotiates in the name of private bondholders through the International Institute of Finance.
He declined to comment on whether his group would back down on the demand for a 4 percent coupon billed as their "final offer" and said the position was already clear. Greece says it is not prepared to pay a coupon of more than 3.5 percent which would impose steeper losses on its private creditors."
What a pack of lies. The hedge Funds who are in the drivers seat here are not interested in any deal, nor should they be. They want an "event of default" which will trigger CDS and then they get 100% of their principal back from the stooooopid Banksters who wrote the CDS contracts figuring they would never be called upon to pay.
The "IIoF" is the Banksters, who don't want to see that outcome, but are now not in control of the process.
Hard to say what % the hedge Funds own, but they must have enough of the Greek Bonds locked up now to be able to control the negotiations. Go, hedgies, go! Put an end to the lying EUroTrash politicians and the lies they tell.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/01/david-stockman-on-mitt-newt-and-crony-capitalism/
"Former Ronald Reagan OMB director David Stockman joined us on The Dylan Ratigan Show today to explain explicitly why both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are incredible offenders and beneficiaries of corporate communism or, as he likes to call it, “crony capitalism.”
He specifically laid out the atrocious track record that is displayed by Mitt Romney and Bain Capital’s ability to make hundreds of millions of dollars on leveraged buyouts (just to name one illustrative example: buying and selling the Yellow Pages from the Italian government.)
The most important thing about the Stockman indictment of Romney and Gingrich is that it also speaks to the Obama administration’s similar characteristics, through the lens of Geithner and Summers. He points specifically to the failure to reform our banking system, and the massive expansion in too big to fail financial institutions since the financial crisis as the single greatest risk to the Western economy, as well as the greatest cause of distorted incomes, poverty, and unemployment.
Stockman proves that it’s not about the identity of the politicians, it’s about understanding the distinction between aligned interests between investors, entrepreneurs and inventors working together to solve problems — this in contrast with the misaligned interests, crony capitalists and corporate communists who use use access to power to extract money for themselves at the expense of our nation and the world as a whole."
How about the way the Mafia did it. The didn't just kill you they took out the whole family. I think the Russian Mob does it that way. Boy I am wired up today. Reminds me of Al Capone in The Untouchables as he was pissed over the Eliot Ness taking his booze.
"I want you to get this f*** where he breathes! I want you to find this nancy-boy Eliot Ness, I want him DEAD! I want his family DEAD! I want his house burned to the GROUND! I wanna go there in the middle of the night and I wanna PISS ON HIS ASHES!"
That is how angry I am about what they have done to this country. On other days it is just que sera sera and nothing here to see move along.
ZH: "Deconstructing Gingrich"
"the best take down of the utter and complete hypocrisy that now reigns supreme in the GOP primary process. Thank you Jon Stewart for doing the thinking that so many other Americans seem utterly incapable of any longer. "
The social mood is changing, slowly, 'The Fourth Turning' (as described in the book) is rolling along - eventually being employed on Wall St will be something you keep secret, for fear of being torn to pieces by angry mobs of citizens. The Banksters may seem firmly entrenched in power, but the require a social contract that keeps them in that position, and that is crumbling by the day.
Sadly, corrupt crony cretins like Obama or his GOP opposites won't change anything, but events will pass them by anyway. In fact their inability to deal with reality will doom them in the end, and hasten that end.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/deconstructing-gingrich
linky
Take heart, you are not alone, the masses are slowly awakening, and the result will be the throwing down of existing power structures by mass action.
The Banksters, representing 0.1% of the population, cannot hope to remain in power when the rest of the citizenry is opposed to them. It will take a few more years, but their fate is sealed, they have pushed the bounds of their power so abusively that a natural reversion to the mean will end their corrupt regime.
Meanwhile, PM's appear to be holding their own on this recent price rise.
Last night I offered a private seller $28 for some silver dollars, $12 each for halves and $2.50 each for dimes, and was flatly turned down.
This was slightly above the spot price; moreso on the dollars. Apparently, the seller feels that he/she can get a better price. I believe this says something about silver prices - there is support at this level.
GAW my fear is I will be dead before that happens and what will replace them? Could it possibly be worse. I watched a movie called The Lost City a story about the revolution in Cuba. Good people were trying to overthrow an evil dictator Batista and go back to a republic dictated by laws and democracy. Instead it was replaced by an even worse dictator Castro and communism. It was a tiresome movie and I would not recommend it. "Havana" was a much better movie.
For those who think Apple is a good company:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/apples-mind-bogglingly-greedy-and-evil-license-agreement/4360
"Apple's mind-bogglingly greedy and evil license agreement"
"How Apple is sabotaging an open standard for digital books
I read EULAs so you don’t have to. I’ve spent years reading end user license agreements, EULAs, looking for little gotchas or just trying to figure out what the agreement allows and doesn’t allow.
I have never seen a EULA as mind-bogglingly greedy and evil as Apple’s EULA for its new ebook authoring program.
Dan Wineman calls it “unprecedented audacity” on Apple’s part. For people like me, who write and sell books, access to multiple markets is essential. But that’s prohibited:
Apple, in this EULA, is claiming a right not just to its software, but to its software’s output. It’s akin to Microsoft trying to restrict what people can do with Word documents, or Adobe declaring that if you use Photoshop to export a JPEG, you can’t freely sell it to Getty. As far as I know, in the consumer software industry, this practice is unprecedented.
Exactly: Imagine if Microsoft said you had to pay them 30% of your speaking fees if you used a PowerPoint deck in a speech."
Apple are the kind of corporate vermin who need to be eradicated.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/debt-crisis-live/9034436/Debt-crisis-live.html
"13.03 Investor George Soros has warned of financial collapse and class warfare in a chilling interview with Newsweek:
Quote At times like these, survival is the most important thing. I am not here to cheer you up. The situation is about as serious and difficult as I’ve experienced in my career. We are facing an extremely difficult time, comparable in many ways to the 1930s, the Great Depression. We are facing now a general retrenchment in the developed world, which threatens to put us in a decade of more stagnation, or worse. The best-case scenario is a deflationary environment. The worst-case scenario is a collapse of the financial system."
Help save the world economy! Kill and eat the rich!
hard to believe I agree with Soros, but he is one of the few 'elites' who does not have his head on totally backwards. He recognized the social contract does exist, that prevents him from being dragged from his mansion and killed by angry mobs - until it breaks down, as it is doing now.
Um, hate to sound cynical (okay, I don't cause I AM) but Soros is publicizing because HIS book will be released in February. Interesting that these 'experts' make 'waves' when they have something to sell, isn't it?
I spoke on Apple and its 'new' app yesterday. I know several romance writers. I know what they make. I know what they get in royalties. If you publish under this program by Apple you won't be able to sell to Amazon, B&N, etc. It would be foolish...BUT you have to understand PEOPLE. I spent years with people who write who WILL NOT or CAN NOT accept that their books are not of 'publishable' quality. So they will do what they want to be published. It makes no difference if they earn $.10 a download. Again, unless you hit the big time, writing is a losing proposition. Any person who wants to 'write a novel' better learn how to tend bar and wait tables.
From whence did this idea that your every thought, word, deed, etc. is, or should, be applauded? YouTube brings instant fame. Even so-called 'legit' news features this junk...like the kid who supposedly spread flour all over a room. It's like America's Home Videos or prozac. Who the bleeding heck CARES???
George Soros scares me as much as Newt scares me as much as Obama scares me. I see nothing behind the masks these men wear other than thirst for money and power. I see no LEADER. I see no PRINCIPLES. I see men who sway like a tree in the wind according to their audiences. And Soros states that he sees 'hope' for the Middle East and the new democracies there? I want what he's smoking. Notice how LITTLE we are reading/hearing about what is going on in Libya and Egypt? Or Nigeria. Take a look at what is happening there. When that erupts (and it WILL) oil is going to surge.
What REALLY scares me, however, is the little news story stating that students may have to hand over their DNA to take the SAT's.
I conclude that 1984 being is lived out before my very eyes.
I sometimes wonder if by even commenting on a blog am I also exhibiting the very narcissism of which I am writing? Is it worthy to sit and write? Does anybody care? Should anybody care? Or should we be out 'doing'. Perhaps it is because my father emphasized I should watch what people DO rather than what they SAY.
In any case, like Queen I will be faced with being a caregiver so I have my journey to face and face it I will.
thus ends my poor philosophy leaning of the day ;-)
more on SOPA. Good article over at Minyanville.
This all boils down to copyright infringement vs. censorship.
As in my above comment, if I spend time and money to write, market, and publish a book in print/online, how do I protect the content? Especially now when so many never attribute sources?
The article referenced about talks about innovation. Again, we are on the cusp of a new way of life and how to protect/guard a fine line between freedom and the right to profit.
Chicken Little, thank you for taking your time to comment here. Yes it matters, because your words make us THINK.
CL it is always important for The Hive to flourish that people comment.
It is not important that we agree.
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