Top 10 Imports to USA

1. Oil: $389.3 billion (16.7% of total US imports)

2. Machines, engines, pumps: $311.2 billion (13.4%)

3. Electronic equipment: $303.5 billion (13%)

4. Vehicles: $253.3 billion (10.9%)

5. Medical, technical equipment: $72.1 billion (3.1%)

6. Gems, precious metals, coins: $67 billion (2.9%)

7. Pharmaceuticals: $63.4 billion (2.7%)

8. Organic chemicals: $54.7 billion (2.3%)

9. Furniture, lighting, signs: $51.4 billion (2.2%)

10. Plastics: $46.5 billion (2%)

In 2013, total U.S. trade with foreign countries was $5.02 trillion. This consisted of $2.272 trillion in exports and $2.744 trillion in imports of both goods and services. This makes the U.S. the world's third largest exporter, after the European Union (EU) and China, and the world's second largest importer, after the EU.

America is in the Global Economy. If cutoff, it would most likely collapse pretty quickly.

The markets are correct to worry about a slowdown, because the main reason for the fall in oil prices is simply a lack of demand, possibly supplemented by some geopolitical shenanigans.

Whilst the fall in the price of petrol and diesel is to be welcomed, these low crude oil prices are unlikely to last, and will depend on how much financial pain oil producing nations and energy companies can stand. Beyond 12 months or thereabouts too many energy companies will have, or be in the process of going bust. To delay bankruptcy, many energy companies are already cutting back on investment in newer more expensive sources of oil, especially for US oil shale where rig counts are already falling as US Rig Count Continues To Plunge To 10-Month Lows reveals. If this reduction in supply capacity goes too far it will result in future shortage and higher prices.

These low prices are a mixed blessing so make the most of them while they last.

Indeed...

Indeed ... A form of  dictatorship is the only way that the EU CAN work. Fascism - where the state comes before the individual - same with the EU - the EU project comes before EVERYTHING and EVERYBODY else. It must not fail !!!! People eating out of bins in Athens....50% youth unemployment.....convicted murderers roming Europe at will.....who cares, so long as the Eurocrats get their fat pension - all in the name of 'a democratic Europe' - apparently. Let's hope the EU gradually disappears up its own backside. Is it really such a big deal for Greece to leave the Eurozone? Yes, they will default on their debts, but this is only virtual money and the debtors (ie Germany) were not going to see very much of it back in any case. There will be some months of turbulance whilst they create a new currency and agree on an exchange rate ....the average person will be better off as he will suddenly have a load of New Drachma's in his pocket ...the rich will keep their Euros in their various non-Greek accounts...but then the country can start to benefit from an influx of holiday makers and increased competitiveness for their industry, which is responsible for 60% of their exports. They will still be in the European Union and benefit from the open market....as will the rest of the Union....That's the worse case scenario for the EU. Other countries would see that life is better outside euro. Some countries would also want to exit and some countries that are meant to join would refuse to do so.   I want to think that Berlin and Paris will not cause any more pain on Greece, but on the other hand, if Greece exits and it is a success, the Francogerman monetary union can seriously collapse. So, I suspect that Berlin and Paris would still try to make life difficult for Greece outside the euro.

The slump in business lending has deepened, it has emerged, further sharpening the contrast with a surging mortgage market.

Companies took £4.7bn less in loans in November, the biggest drop in more than two years and nearly five times the recent average monthly decline of £1bn, according to figures from the Bank of England. The slide was due to a fall in lending to large businesses, as loans to small and medium-sized companies actually edged up slightly.

Economists are split over whether the decline is due to weak demand for bank finance or lenders’ reluctance to grant loans to business.

Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS, said the data suggested that banks “have yet to become markedly more prepared to lend to businesses amid the improved economic situation and outlook”. But Blerina Uruçi, economist at Barclays, believes businesses are unlikely to be held back by weak bank finance as the corporate sector has amassed a large cash surplus in recent years. Businesses are also increasingly turning to the bond market as a cheaper alternative.

Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, has redoubled efforts to boost business lending by making it the sole beneficiary of the Funding for Lending Scheme, which allows lenders to borrow at rock-bottom rates in exchange for providing loans. Previously, the scheme applied to all loans.

Agreement among the WTO’s 159 member economies

Ministers meeting in Bali sealed agreement among the WTO’s 159 member economies for the pact, which eases barriers to trade by simplifying customs procedures, limiting agricultural subsidies, and promoting trade with least-developed nations. 

The deal could boost global trade by $1 trillion and create 20 million new jobs, keeps alive the WTO’s broader 12-year marathon Doha Round of trade negotiations designed to reduce international tariff barriers, well ...I've just found out that governments from the United States to Australia and from Canada to the EU are secretly negotiating trade deals that will give global corporations the right to sue our governments and overturn our laws.

Details have leaked out on what is called the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP) that will massively expand the power of corporations to sue our governments.

Thousands of corporate lobbyists are helping to write these secret pacts -- but we're not allowed to see them. Governments know that we won't like these corporate power grabs, so they're hoping to keep them under the radar until it's too late to stop them. But if we can raise our voices now, we can expose these corporate charters and kill the deals forever.

Two secret new global pacts- the TTIP and TPP -could massively increase the power of corporations to sue our governments when they pass laws to protect our environment or our health. Unsurprised, its just four companies talking to each other - 8 largest U.S. financial companies (JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, U.S. Bancorp, Bank of New York Mellon and Morgan Stanley) are 100% controlled by 10 shareholders and we have 4 companies always present i...n all decisions: BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard and Fidelity - who control the Federal Reserve. The same “big four” control the vast majority of European companies counted on the stock exchange. These same people run the IMF, the European Central Bank & the World Bank. The 10 largest US financial institutions hold 54% of US total financial assets. 90% of US media is owned by 6 corporations. We will tell you what the news is - the news is what we say it is - it turns out it is not illegal to falsify the news. 37 banks have merged to become just four since 1990. We are speaking of 6, 8 or maybe 12 families who truly dominate the world (perhaps Goldman Sachs, Rockefellers, Loebs Kuh and Lehmans in New York, the Rothschilds of Paris and London, the Warburgs of Hamburg, Paris and Lazards Israel Moses Seifs Rome). With Google accounting for over 65% of all web searches in the US and over 70% market share in most other countries, the top 10 owners of Google’s stock are Fidelity, BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard Group, Capital Research, T. Rowe Price, Capital World, Alliancebernstein, Marsico Capital. This is the world we live in.

Eurozone finance ministers agreed Monday to unlock billions of euros in fresh aid for Greece on condition it press ahead with urgently needed reforms. The Eurogroup ministers, holding their last meeting before the summer break which was also attended by IMF chief Christine Lagarde, agreed to pay out 6.8 billion euros in fresh aid to Athens. However, the funds would not be handed over in one lump sum, but in different instalments subject to certain conditions being met. "The Eurogroup commends the authorities for their continued commitment to implement the required reforms that have already led to a significant improvement of cost competitiveness, an impressive strengthening of the fiscal position and a more resilient banking sector," the group said in a statement read out by its chief, Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, at a news conference. "The Eurogroup therefore expresses its appreciation for the efforts made by the Greek citizens. "At the same time, significant further work is needed over the next weeks to fully implement all prior actions required for the next disbursement," Dijsselbloem added. In particular, the required reforms of the public administration -- Athens has pledged to axe 4,000 state jobs by the end of the year, as well as redeploy 25,000 civil servants across its vast bureaucracy -- needed to be carried out. And further efforts were needed to improve tax revenue collection. "It is time to step up momentum of reform in Greece," said EU economic and monetary affairs commissioner Olli Rehn.... the worst incompetent idiot . 

Under the terms of the deal, some 4.0 billion euros would be paid out "in the coming weeks," and a further 1.0 billion euros in October, both sums shared by the eurozone rescue fund EFSF and European central banks... The Economist Intelligence Unit's Martin Koehring notes that today's proposals on a common bank resolution mechanism are still quite some way off being implemented and could face further watering down in the meantime.
As with other elements of the evolving European banking union (such as the single supervisory authority and the European-wide bank deposit scheme), the proposals for a single resolution authority are testing governments' willingness to pool sovereignty. Germany and other creditor countries fear that their taxpayers may ultimately foot the bill when a major bank goes bust in the euro area. Unsurprisingly, debtor countries such as Spain are in favor of pooling sovereignty in banking matters. Each of the core elements of the suggested banking union has so far been watered down and/or delayed as the fundamental question about the extent of solidarity within the EU remains unresolved; the single resolution authority is unlikely to be an exception. The time frames involved in constructing the various elements of the banking union, such as the resolution authority and the recently-agreed "bail-in" regime, suggest that a banking union capable of making important decisions to boost financial stability is unlikely to be in place before 2018. Hence, the latest steps towards banking union are unlikely to have a major impact on solving the current crisis. They may, however, increase confidence in the medium-term viability of the euro zone, which has been severely shaken.

HABEMUS PAPAM

The White House has just released this statement from President Obama:

On behalf of the American people, Michelle and I offer our warm wishes to His Holiness Pope Francis as he ascends to the Chair of Saint Peter and begins his papacy. As a champion of the poor and the most vulnerable among us, he carries forth the message of love and compassion that has inspired the world for more than two thousand years—that in each other we see the face of God.

As the first pope from the Americas, his selection also speaks to the strength and vitality of a region that is increasingly shaping our world, and alongside millions of Hispanic Americans, those of us in the United States share the joy of this historic day.

Stocks are up big to start 2013 but Marc Faber, Editor & Publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, says it ends in tears.

"Either the market is going to correct more meaningfully now or we have a shallow correction and a continuously rising market until July or August," Faber told me via phone from Thailand. If stocks don't pullback soon, he says we risk a repeat of 1987 when stocks rallied 40% into summer only to collapse 41% in 2 months.

"In March of 2009 everything looked horrible, now nobody can find a reason why stocks could go down," Faber claims. "We ask that you should buy stocks when everything looks horrible, you shouldn't rush to buy them when everything looks perfect."

The problem is that it's hard to find anyone claiming the environment is perfect. Even the theme running under the reports of "the masses" buying stocks is that it's a cue to sell, not buy.

Analysts are looking for almost no corporate earnings growth in the current quarter and not much better than that for the balance of the year. The idea that Fed money printing is supporting assets may be true, but the FOMC has given clear guidelines on when the printing will stop. When inflation (as measured) rises past 2% or unemployment falls below 6.5% the Fed will raise rates.

Even if you think the Fed is wrong, there's no basis for calling them liars. A surprise end to Quantitative Easing isn't on the table. It's hard to make much of a case for ebullience beyond the fact of stocks much-hyped journey toward all-time highs.

So what's an investor to do? Faber says it's a matter of allocation and perspective. Stocks have gone very far in a relatively short amount of time. If you caught the rally, he says it's time to trim but not bail out entirely. If you're a Johnny-come-lately to stocks, you're too late as he sees it.

"If you have 100% of your money in equities and you just bought them now, maybe you should reassess your position," says Faber.

Russia's largest oil producer, state-controlled OAO Rosneft, ROSN.RS -0.31%said Monday it has raised $16.8 billion in bank loans and plans to sign a trade-finance package with two international oil traders to finance the buyout of TNK-BP BP.LN -0.01%. Rosneft is acquiring TNK-BP, Russia's number three oil producer, from BP PLC and the AAR consortium of Soviet-born billionaires in deals worth $55 billion in cash and shares that will create the world's largest listed crude producer. Under the deal, agreed to in October, the AAR tycoons will get more than $28 billion when the deal closes in the first half of 2013. BP will hold a 19.8% stake in Rosneft as part of its deal to sell out of TNK-BP.

To finance the purchase of BP's 50% stake in TNK-BP, Rosneft said it obtained a five-year loan of $4.1 billion and a two-year $12.7 billion loan from a group of international banks. Under the agreement, Rosneft said it plans to sign contracts to supply up to 67 million metric tons of crude oil in total for a period of five years, subject to a prepayment. Rosneft would use future oil exports as collateral for the trade financing from the traders. The supplies are expected to commence in 2013, the company said, but didn't provide any financial details of the deal.

Federal Reserve "coordinates" with ECB and Bank of England to allow banks cheaper access to dollar.

Everything is now starting to make sense to me at least. The Federal Reserve is trying to bail everyone out and this will produce a lot of downward pressure on the US dollar. Eventually the pressure will become too great leading to a collapse of the currency.An international reserve currency will be organised in the aftermath with an international Central Bank probably led by the IMF.This bank will 'prevent' the bank runs that are taking place at this very moment. The carbon tax scheme will then be the instituted worldwide with the proceeds going to the international bank. I may be wrong but it looks like this may happen....However : the next step in the "Hollywood script", soon the USA will own and control all of europe, and they will get us paying for their defense budget, but i said this almost a year ago, but i am simple. Another step towards the super dollar. ...IN REAL LFE : Greece will see another general strike tomorrow, with ferries and public transport disrupted, schools closed and state hospitals running with reduced staff. The cause, again, is the painful package of austerity measures that the state was forced to take on in return for bail-out cash. Just yesterday eurozone leaders approved the next €8bn payment. Ilias Iliopoulos, deputy leader of the civil servants' union AEDEDY, spoke to AP television: They are creating a situation that can no longer be tolerated, can no longer be endured. Unfortunately people are in a state of somewhere between poverty and despair. The measures are supposed to improve the country's financial situation, but the country is getting deeper into debt, unemployment is rising, and the recession - unprecedented in recent times - is worse than anywhere else in Europe. People are falling apart.

Whatever the outcome of this weekend's on - off, on again summit, it seems unlikely the 17 euro countries will get what's needed, given Germany's entrenched reluctance. As we predicted after the July 21 summit, Europe's leaders continue to fall behind the problem they're trying to solve. That's a constantly evolving debt crisis that gets bigger by the day. It doesn't stop and wait, its morbid momentum reflected in markets since early summer. What we'll see revealed in Brussels this weekend is that the euro zone is not just a flawed currency system, but it is also a flawed political system incapable of being led and incapable of making the difficult, often painful decisions required. Could it, for instance, ever impose the sort of fiscal discipline being attempted in the UK or the bank overcapitalization already complete here? I doubt it. That's not to be complacent about our own parlous position. We may be implementing fiscal and monetary policy decisions, but are they working? This crisis, whether elsewhere or in the euro zone, is like a virus mutating against a vaccine. Europe isn't using enough medicine while rest may have already administered what they can without any meaningful effect. The patient remains ill and the drugs aren't working.Markets slide on reports of deadlock between France and Germany in talks over how to expand the eurozone bailout fund, making a resolution by this weekend's crucial summit increasingly unlikely. Silvio Berlusconi has named Ignazio Visco as the new head of the Bank of Italy. He wasn't one of the favourites in the running for the job, which won't be an easy one at the moment. He's the existing deputy director general of the bank. Visco will take over from Mario Draghi, who is taking over from Jean-Claude Trichet as head of the European Central Bank.

Five cajas failed Europe-wide stress tests on banks last year. The Bank of Spain has forced them into a round of mergers, reducing their number from 45 to 17 last year. High levels of bad property loans at the cajas are seen as a major risk for Spain as it slashes its budget deficit to stave off fears it will need an Irish or Greek-style rescue from the European Union and International Monetary Fund. Estimates of the cost of recapitalising the savings banks range from €17bn (£14.4bn) to €120bn, with consensus falling in the €25bn to €50bn range, according to Reuters. Economists say Spain could afford that level of rescue without seeking outside aid.The banking sector has so far set aside €88bn to cover losses on total loans of €439bn to real estate and construction. Spain's borrowing costs have soared amid worries that the sovereign debt crisis that forced Greece and Ireland to seek bailouts will spread to Portugal and then Spain. A budget deficit of 9.3% of GDP in 2010 and stagnant growth have added to the worries, though the government is hitting deficit reduction targets and pledges pension and labour reform shortly. Analysts welcomed the promise of caja recapitalisation. "This underpins hopes that Spain is now on the right track," Commerzbank strategist David Schnautz told Reuters.

Fears of "currency wars"

Fears of "currency wars" characterized by competitive devaluations and protectionism continue to dominate headlines in the run–up to the G20 summit in November. In our lead article this week, we examine Brazil's latest policy response to the appreciation of its currency. By raising the tax on capital inflows again, however, the government is unlikely to slow the Real's rise for long. China, too, remains central to the global debate over exchange rates. We focus on the record rise in the country's foreign reserves, a development certain to fuel further calls for revaluation, even though abrupt change is neither likely nor desirable.Elsewhere, French strikers are on the warpath over proposed pension reforms. With more austerity on the way, tensions between the government and the public could drag on. Nor is France, of course, the only country grappling with the consequences of belt–tightening. From Risk Briefing we feature a webcast with our UK analyst, Neil Prothero, who expects the cuts announced in the British government's spending review to hit economic growth.Industry Briefing looks at the rise of micro finance in Europe, which suggests that micro loans are not just relevant to borrowers in poor countries. Finally, Executive Briefing examines a refreshingly counter–intuitive social networking strategy, the idea of which is to connect with fewer, not more, people as a means of deepening relationships with customers.How do these issues affect your business? Please let me know at: arbitraj@aol.com

Published articles, opinions, usefull informations about Eastern Europe and The European Union

is where my documents live!