Tag Archives: eu

Business/Economics, International

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.

Business/Economics, International

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.

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? United Nations says government cut backs making things worse

“Austerity measures in response to high government debt in some advanced economies, such as Greece and Spain, are not only threatening public sector employment and social expenditure, but also making the recovery more uncertain and fragile.”-UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs

The UN is warning that cuts in government spending will only make the global economy worse.  This comes a week after the International Monetary Fund said the economic crisis was now in the political phase, meaning the private sector had failed.

Interestingly the UN is also blaming the bad economy on global lenders like the IMF.

 

Business/Economics, International, Opinion

What Economic Recovery? Britain wants the European Union to collapse

Discussions within the U.K. Parliament reveal that British leaders are hoping for a quick end to the European Union via a Greek collapse.

Former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said, concerning the Euro: “…is going to collapse…” and “Is it not better that this happens quickly rather than a slow death?”

Current Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Mark Hoban said: “I am not going to comment on whether the eurozone will remain intact or not. Clearly, this crisis demonstrates the huge strain the eurozone in under. That is why it was right for us to stay out of the eurozone.”

Current Prime Minister, David Cameron said: “We were not involved in the first bailout of Greece; we don’t believe the European financial mechanism should be used in any way.”

Conservative Member of Parliament, Anne Main said Greece “…should be allowed to depart peacefully from the eurozone.”

Current Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, said the U.K. would not help Greece:  “The package for Greece that is already in place is a eurozone package with the IMF.  It’s the eurozone that is taking forward discussions now about the next stage of dealing with Greece’s substantial problems.  There’s simply no proposition on the table for the U.K. to contribute beyond that IMF involvement and I don’t expect there to be one.”

When you take what the British leaders are saying, along with the International Monetary Fund’s warnings that the default of Greece will lead to a collapse of European Union, then it definitely looks like the British want Greece to default.  Historically the British never really liked the concept of the European Union.

 

 

Business/Economics, International

What Economic Recovery? Greece threatens default if they don’t get second bailout, EU Finance Ministers say domino effect if Greece defaults

“If Greece was to be the first country to default, eyes would turn to other countries such as Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, maybe Belgium but also France, given its deficit and debt levels. We don’t know where the contagion would stop.”-Didier Reynders, Belgian Finance Minister

After the European Union announced they would hold back the second bailout loan for Greece, because they want Greece to make more spending cuts, Greece said pay up or we will default on the first loan.

Greece is supposed to make their first payment, on the first bailout, in July.  Greek officials say they need the second bailout before then, or they won’t be able to make the first payment.  Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, also warned of a “violent bankruptcy”.

The Belgian Finance Minister, Didier Reynders says there is evidence that the Greeks presented false economic statements prior to getting the first bailout loan.  This is one of many reasons the EU is now holding back on the second loan.

 

Business/Economics, International

What Economic Recovery? EU holds back on second Greek bailout, possible “catastrophic default”, wants Greece to make even more cuts

European Union finance ministers are holding back on another bailout loan for Greece.  They’ve decided that Greece to needs to make even more cuts to social services, and other government spending (which is called “austerity”, something that’s going on in the U.S., but U.S. officials and media have avoided using that term).

The EU decision came even after Greece announce it would sell off government properties, like airports.  In July, Greece is supposed to make a payment on the bailout loan they got last year.

EU finance ministers are worried that Greece will experience a “catastrophic default” if it does not make even harsher cuts in spending, and so are holding back on the second bailout loan.

Last week the International Monetary Fund warned that the global economic crisis had entered the “political phase”, meaning that only governments could save us now.  Not good when you see what’s happening in Europe.

 

Business/Economics, International

Deadly E Coli engineed in Lab, Russians asked to help

“If you look at it genetically…you have to come to the conclusion that this strain was exposed to eight different classes of antibiotics in its creation. This does not happen in the wild where you have a strain that is resistant. This looks like, genetically, that it had to be engineered.”-Mike Adams, NaturalNews.com

European Union scientists have sent the deadly e.coli samples to Russian labs.  At the same time the EU is complaining about Russia’s ban on EU vegetables.  Russia says it’ll lift the ban as soon as the EU can prove their  produce is safe.

 

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? The U.S. was lagging behind Europe even before the Credit Crisis

Before the 2007-08 Credit Crunch Crisis the United States was far behind the European Union, when it came to new job creation.

According to a Fortune article, from 1999 to 2008 the EU created 14 million new jobs, while the U.S. created 8 million.

On top of that, once the economy started down the drain the United States lost more jobs than were lost in the EU.  Percentage wise the EU and U.S. are around 9% unemployment (officially, unofficially the percentages are higher), but when you look at actual numbers the U.S. is leading the way down.  As of December 2010, the difference in job losses, between the EU and U.S., are about 7 million.