Category Archives: International

What Economic Recovery? China to raise interest rates, requires banks to hold more money in reserve

The Chinese government is contemplating another increase for interest rates, in an attempt to fight off inflation.

On top of that, the Chinese government has ordered banks to tighten their hold on cash.  Currently Chinese banks are required to hold back 21.5% of their cash. The increase in capital reserves, as it’s sometimes called, is intended to slowdown lending.  Lending is another way to drive up inflation.

However, the Bank of China issued a report that says increasing interest rates, and forcing banks to cut back on lending by increasing their capital reserves, is not having any immediate affect on inflation.  That’s because Chinese banks went on a huge lending spree, which flooded the economy with so much money that it will take some time before inflation is brought under control.

In a previous report, it was estimated by a Chinese government audit, that local governments (just local governments) are now in debt by $1.65 trillion.

 

What Economic Recovery? Inflation hits makeup, Cosmetics prices to go up, up

Estee Lauder Group announced they will be raising prices on their various makeup brands by 8% to 10%.

Corporate officials are blaming the price rise on the increased cost of labor, and resources.

Estee Lauder Group is not the first cosmetics company to raise their prices.  Earlier in the year Christian Dior, Lancome, Biotherm, Chanel and others announced prices increases.

What Economic Recovery? China reports slowdown in non-manufacturing

“We will continue to monitor the situation and evaluate whether this bodes a further slowdown for business activity and economic growth.”-Cai Jin, China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing

China continues to see evidence of economic slowdown, as the non-manufacturing sector shows slowed growth for second month in a row.

The slowdown in non-manufacturing (things like basic resources for bigger companies) is blamed on declining orders from the manufacturing sector.  Manufacturers are cutting back because of declining orders from their international customers.

China is the world’s second largest economy.  If the slowdown in their economy continues, it could be a sign that there is no global economic recovery.

I knew former IMF boss Strauss-Kahn was innocent, police now say hotel maid is a liar

In May, International Monetary Fund boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested just after he got on a plane for France.  He was charged with raping a hotel maid, and humiliated by the U.S. mainstream media who basically convicted him without waiting for a trial to be held.

Strauss-Kahn ended up resigning as IMF boss, and even had his hopes of running for President of France destroyed.  Now New York police and prosecutors say they were wrong!

When this first went down I speculated that this whole thing had something to do with his running for President of France.

Prosecutors are now working with Strauss-Kahn over the possibility of dropping all charges.  It turns out that the hotel worker is involved in drug running and money laundering.  Police investigators admit she constantly changed her story about what happened.  They also have a tape recording of the woman talking to a man in prison about how to fabricate a rape claim against Strauss-Kahn.

Isn’t it convenient that all this comes out after Strauss-Kahn’s career and political ambitions have been destroyed?  He must’ve been a threat to someone powerful.

What Economic Recovery? European Union jacks up import duties by 70%

“We are considering quitting the European market because the import duty is far beyond our ability to withstand.”-Wu Jianfeng, Hongyu Ceramics

Chinese media reporting that many small Chinese manufactures are in trouble, because they can no longer afford to send products to Europe.

In March the European Union jacked up its import duties on Chinese ceramics from just 3% to 73%!  If you study the world wide depression of the 1920-30s you’ll find that protectionist measures, like outrageous import duties, helped turn a recession into a depression.

What Economic Recovery? Chinese manufacturing stalls, not enough orders to fill, blames bad economy in United States

“Manufacturers are struggling with multiple difficulties including increased lending costs and fewer international orders.”-Zhang Shiqing, Nankai University

Chinese economics professors are warning that the Chinese economy will stall.  China has become a major exporter of products to the world, but most of the world is in financial trouble.  That is resulting in less orders to be filled.

Also, the recent revelation that local governments, in China, are in debt to the tune of $1.65 trillion, is making it difficult for Chinese companies to get loans to continue operating.  It’s now obvious that the Chinese have been running their economy just like the United States.

Surprisingly from January to May 2011, U.S. exports to China actually went up, by 31%.   “China’s industrial production has notably declined in the previous month, which is a good opportunity for U.S. enterprises to boost production to fill the gap.”-Fan Jishe, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Many Chinese industry analyst are now doing what analysts in the U.S. are doing; hoping the economy will pick up by the end of the year.

 

Communist China’s experiment with U.S. style capitalism a failure, only the rich got richer, created more poor

The Chinese government announced that they must revise their income tax laws, to account for the huge increase in poor people.  Their experiment with capitalism only created more poor people while a minority of people got rich.

Beginning in September the minimum income level for exemption from paying income tax will be raised, to the equivalent of $540.00 per month.  Currently it is $300.00 per month.  It will affect about 60 million workers.

Also, people making between $540.00 and $700.00 per month will see a decrease in the percentage they must pay; dropped to 3% from the current 5%.

This comes after riots by workers in several regions of China.  They are protesting low wages, no benefits, and they wanted to know where all the wealth was going, because after all these years most workers still aren’t seeing an improvement in their lives.

The Chinese government admits only a small portion of China’s people are benefiting from the U.S. style of doing business.

War on Terror will cost U.S. taxpayers $4 trillion, and that’s just for Iraq and Afghanistan

Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies “Costs of War” study says the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could hit $4.4 trillion and could last until 2020.

And for those that think war is good for the economy, the study said war spending makes up only a half a percent, per year of total GDP for the U.S.

The study also compared lives lost during the September 11, 2001 attacks, to the amount of lives lost in Iraq and Afghanistan.  2,995 people were killed on 9/11.   According to U.S. sources as many as 258,000 people have been killed, in the War on Terror, as a direct result of combat, even more have died indirectly, 365,000 have been wounded, 7.8 million people are refugees.

Realize that Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, and that most Afghans didn’t even know about 9/11, and you really have to question the motives of our leaders.  Now President Obama wants to refocus the War on Terror onto the United States itself!

 

 

Evita Peron’s crown jewels recovered

Former First Lady of Argentina, Evita Peron, died in 1952.  The Dutch Royal family gave Evita the jewels as a gift.  They’re worth about $9 million.

In 2009 her ‘crown jewels’ were sent to a Spanish jeweler, but were stolen by a Serbian base criminal organization.

Spanish and Italian police found the jewels in a Milan hotel.  The hotel was being staked out because police believed it was being run by the crime gang.  So far seven people have been arrested.

What Economic Recovery? Greece secretly defaults on bailout loans, on the verge of class war

“The measures that have been adopted are not to avoid the default, the default already took place, but it was not declared.”-Paolo Raffone, Secretary General of CIPI Foundation

Greece has cut even more social services and programs, and has jacked up taxes, in an effort to get more bailout loans approved.   The problem is that at least 16% of the Greek people are unemployed.

Analysts say most of the loans that Greece has gotten, have been going to pay previous loans.  Nothing is being used to try and build the Greek economy, like creating jobs.  The result is that the Greek government is just digging a deeper and deeper debt hole.

One analysts says what the Greek government is doing is called “virtual economics”, meaning the economy is based on loans, there is no true economy in Greece: “Economic specialists are trying to prop up an inherently unsustainable project, which is based on sometimes virtual economics.”-Sahara Ali, Green Party

Ali warns that continuing bailout loans will only make things worse for Greece, it’s really being done to save the European Union, and the Greek people know it: “That is what the general population has realized, that it’s increasing its indebtedness in order to prop up the Euro Zone.”

Ali suggested that part of the bailout loans require Greece to buy more products from other European countries, which actually works against building a Greek economy.

Paulo Raffone says the situation in Greece is heading towards a civil war based on class, rich vs poor: “The leadership in the country is always the same now for more than 40 years, and they’ve been profiteering on the People. There’re a few families that are sharing large shares of take in the national wealth.”

Raffone also says the control of Greece by the elites extends to the rest of Europe: “You have external European profiteers, which are the banks from Germany, France, Belgium and others, that have been profiteering on the Greek situation no matter what currency is there.” He says the elites don’t really want to change the current situation, because they’re making money off it.

Sahara Ali says the elites have revealed the “stupidity” of their economic reasoning: “Nobody’s actually able to eat the number of zeros, the negative zeros, in their bank balance.  What they actually are faced with, on a daily bases, is making ends meet.  Are we really thinking it’s reasonable to demand extra taxes from people in Greece who are on the minimum wage?”

Regarding the recent vote in the Greek Parliament, supporting their president’s latest efforts to get more loans,  analysts point out there is a huge gap growing between the People and their government officials.  The People do not want any more bailout loans.

More and more analysts are thinking that default, by many countries including the United States, is inevitable.  The problem is that the ruling elites of most countries are not being realistic, and are trying to pass the buck of responsibility of their bad choices onto the People/taxpayers.  This could result in class/civil wars on a global scale.