Italian industrial data - New industrial orders data from Italy shows the deep damage caused to its manufacturing base in the last year. Italian industrial orders slumped 10% year-on-year in March, after 12 months of recession, austerity measures, and political uncertainty. But orders were actually 1.6% higher than in February, a somewhat encouraging sign for the future . Industrial sales (as opposed to future orders) tumbled 7.6% year-on-year, and were down 0.9% on a monthly basis. Steve Collins, global head of dealing at London & Capital Asset Management, dubbed the figures 'dire'....My take on what has been going on is that the "corporates" that have all the unelected people at the EU,ECB,IMF,WTO etc. on speed dial have decided that the social systems of the "West" are too expensive and bad for business. The unelected do not care - the revolving door means that after they have done their master's bidding they can look forwards to nice directorships to supplement their pensions. Big business spends billions on lobbyists and political donations - they do not do this other than to influence events. Rebalancing, restructuring, global race - words used by the elite as they re-order things in this "post democratic age"....How many democracies have been overthrown recently?National budgets are now subject to the Troika for several countries....This Troika is telling countries how many people to sack, and what state assets to sell off. "Post democratic age" has been mentioned by Barroso a few times, now Lagarde is saying the same (not sure about HVP). Draghi said he would do "anything it takes" to save the Euro (note - save a currency, nothing about saving the life chances of tens of millions of people).
Also - if you get bored you may want to look up what protections from prosecution the likes of Draghi enjoy, and who has the authority to stop him from doing whatever he wants to.
Anyway, I must go...I'm taking my close friends out to lunch before the zombie apocalypse starts.
3 comments:
Antonis Manitakis has the most thankless job in Greece. Tasked with slashing the grotesquely bloated public sector, he is hounded by troika officials, reviled by his countrymen and afraid of cutting too deep.
Forget environmental concerns: When it comes to fracking, Germans are worried about how it might affect beer quality. In a letter to several ministries in Berlin, brewers expressed concern that the exploitation of shale gas could contaminate water supplies and thus violate the beer purity law of 1516.
Youth in several Stockholm suburbs have rioted for four nights in a row, throwing stones at police and setting cars on fire. Leaders have appealed for calm, but the violence has spread to the southern city of Malmo.
Riots continued for the fourth straight night in Sweden Wednesday, as youth set fire to cars and threw stones at police in immigrant suburbs of Stockholm and the southern Swedish city of Malmo.
ANZEIGE
Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has appealed for calm in the wake of the violence, which appears to have been instigated by the police shooting of a machete-wielding 69-year-old man in the Stockholm suburb of Husby this month. Police said the shooting was an act of self-defense, but it has triggered accusations of police brutality.
Riots began in Husby, which has a large immigrant population, on Sunday night and have spread to other locations, including the southern suburb of Fittja.
Post a Comment