| Subcribe via RSS

The UK to See Drastic Financial Changes and Spending Cuts

October 21st, 2010 | 1 Comment | Posted in News

It appears, according to recently released statements from the Government of the United Kingdom, that there are big changes coming to Britain. Economists and political critics are calling the latest changes to hit the UK some of the most drastic in recent times, in terms of their ability to alter public finances. The changes are designed to reduce the deficit by shrinking the size of the UK Government, but the cuts to the armed forces and welfare alarm many. In addition, the idea of banks being taxed more heavily and the age at which a person is able to legally retire being raised is extremely distasteful to many British citizens who are already hitting the web to voice their outrage at the situation. While health care is not said to be affected by the coming cuts in spending, every other sector of the public sector is expected to experience significant changes over the next 4 years. In total, more than $128 billion is set to be sheared from the government’s budget.

From a political stand point, those who oppose the Conservatives that now rule the UK are not happy with the situation, but the ruling party has explained that unless the changes are made then public debt will crush the economy. Up until this point, a full 12 percent of the Gross Domestic Product of the UK each year had been sucked away by the deficit. Now, with 490,000 jobs being swept away from the state, there will be massive changes in the UK. The cuts have gone so far that the royal family itself will be affected and not given the same level of subsidies they once enjoyed.

Produce Price Index Up Slightly Now

October 17th, 2010 | 9 Comments | Posted in News

In what looks like potentially good news for the United States economy, the PPI which stands for the Producer Price Index that tracks finished goods shows a rise by a rate of 0.4% for the month of August 2010. Economic analysts had been hoping for a rise of 0.2% so this is a bit better than expected and it means that finished goods did better than food or energy. That over all ‘core inflations’ rose by just 0.1% and this includes all items produced in the US. Headline prices are what the PPI measures and it is tied to inflation which rose by 0.3% in July of 2010 – not good news for US consumers. This is a rise in PPI that is higher by a rate of 4% since 2009. Food prices shot up by 1.2% and energy rose by half a percent. Economists right now consider the level of inflation, which keeps falling and rising since June of 2010 at a fairly consistent rate of change, to be in what is nick named the Goldilocks Zone. This means, among economists, that the prices are not overly hot or overly cold. That is good news for producers who had been fearing serious price deflation and is also good for consumers who could be facing serious inflation, on the other hand.

Right now, say economic experts, the problem is that the further up the chain of production one goes, the more volatile the market gets. This means that wheat is far more volatile at this time than is a finished product such as flour, or even more stable, bread.

Economists Say Recession Ended in June 2009

September 21st, 2010 | No Comments | Posted in News

Word has come from the National Bureau of Economic Research in the United States that what many have been stating for the past year or so is, according to this study, not true. The recession, says the group, actually hit a key turning point in June of 2009. However, despite the turning point this was still the longest downturn in the US economy since the days following World War II. The group went on to say that the US economy is still not what it would term as vigorous in respect to growth levels. During the down turn, more than 8 million US workers lost their jobs and this makes this a recession that comes close to the record numbers seen during the nation’s historic Great Depression era. The panel of economic experts said that their model of the recession, which lasted 18 months according to their findings, stretched from December of 2007 until June of 2009. The group is a private non profit research body that is considered by some to be an official source of information regarding the cycles in the US economy.

Despite the shocking findings, the NBER made sure to note that despite the recession ending in terms of statistics, this does not mean that the group believes the suffering at the human level is quite over yet nor that growth is returning to previous levels. The US housing market continues to remain depressed and with unemployment at close to 10%, economists still believe that a relapse is quite possible in the near future.

Obama Seeks to Help Oil Spill Ravaged Economies Recover

August 15th, 2010 | No Comments | Posted in News

The recent British Petroleum related natural disaster, the oil spill of April 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico off the United States coast, has put a lot of pressure on the nation’s economy as it struggles to recover from the global recession. US President Barack Obama has been making the rounds as he gears up for his 2012 campaign and he and his family have been touring the Gulf states in an effort to come up with solutions to help the region come back from the brink, especially in the coastal border towns that have had their economies hit with a vicious one two punch from both the oil spill and the global economic credit crunch. The President’s administration has been working on plans to help the region get back on its feet, but with the fishing industry really crunched by the places that can no longer be fished and the hospitality industry suffering a similar blow due to several years of very low tourism, things do look a bit bleak. Obama and family have arrived in Florida this week and are touring the area to get an idea of what could be done to boost the region by taking a tour of the businesses that make up this part of the US.

BP is also being worked with to try and find a solution that can help fix what took place when their Macondo well burst and spilled nearly 5 million barrels of oil directly into the Gulf before a seal finally held in July 2010. The coastal areas have a heavy reliance on sea related industries, particularly seafood and tourism, so the President is hoping to find a way to really build this sector of the economy prior to the next elections.

US Treasury Secretary to Act Quick on New Financial Law

August 1st, 2010 | No Comments | Posted in News

Recent news has broke from the United States that Timothy Geithner, the Secretary of the US Treasury has pledged to move with great speed to finalize some of the biggest changes to the US financial system since the days of the legendary Great Depression. He has told the press that his first priority will be to simplify the complex forms that consumers are forced to fill out in order to receive a credit card, loan for a vehicle or a mortgage for a new home. The purpose of these latest changes is to make the process of these financial situations more simple for consumers in order to prevent the economic catastrophe that arose towards the end of the last decade in the US. Geithner had been speaking to a group of students from the Stern School of Business at the New York University who had gathered with executives from Wall Street to hear the Secretary’s talk. He said that rule changes have, in the past, taken far too long to implement and that this must change in order to speed up the recovery process in the US and get consumers back on solid ground and equal footing with those who do lending of any form.

Geithner also told the press that a number of officials from a variety of US government agencies are committed to pushing the reforms through, including bank industry regulatory organizations, the Federal Reserve and the Securities Exchange Commission. A new panel called the Financial Stability Oversight Council will oversee the changes and help create a road map for overhauling the financial system.

Newer Entries »