Reasons to be Impossible

According to the BBC: Chinese growth is falling. Now, you might say, wow, 7.6% growth (however much of that is real), but China has been growing much faster than that recently. Given it's scale, its importance to the world economy, China doesn't actually have to go into recession in order to cause a great deal of damage. Here's former Aussie PM Kevin Rudd explaining why. Couple this with warning squeaks from Germany and we may be seeing the world crisis move into a new phase: first the shock, then the slow down. Bob alone help us if China goes into negative growth (or, such negative growth that it can't massage the stats to look positive). I have my tins of beans and sacks of porridge ready.

Labels: 338.1(510), China, Economic crisis, Germany

Official: the Pope loves Fanta - so much, he splashes it around. Nasty accident there, could sink the Titanic.

Labels: 77.04, Caricature, Catholic Church, Germany, Low abuse, Satire, Titanic Magazine

The time may have come to start hoarding tins of baked beans, wearing furs and running around in a post apocalyptic landscape:

Germany has been considered a safe haven of financial stability amid the ongoing euro crisis -- but that may be changing. Growing mistrust from investors seems apparent after what has been described as a "disastrous" government bond auction on Wednesday. Just two-thirds of the German bonds sold, leaving analysts concerned but not panicked[Spiegel].

I suggest now is precisely the time to panic, while the analysts are being cautiously worried. If we leave panicking till everyone is doing it, we'll have to fight for those tins of beans with our teeth.

The fucking Germans cannot borrow money! the country that escaped recession, the one that is still growing, the one that has been bailing everyone else out. Now, the Spiegel article suggests this may be a lack of confidence in the Eurozone as a whole, and of some of the fundamentals in the German economy; but it also has an expert suggest:

"Because of the low rate of return in Germany, some investors are now cautiously going to countries that they had recently avoided," he added. "In France, or even in Ireland, chances for returns are certainly promising."

that's right, it's more profitable to lend to risky countries because you get more interest. There is the cause of this mess in the first place: it's more profitable to lend to people who a less able to pay back (until the day they actually default that is, at which point you own their soul).

More to the point, though, this seems to me to reflect that there may not be as much money floating around generally: surely, normally, someone, someone, would want to pick up safe, unprofitable low hanging fruit.

Start breaking out the old family blunderbus: the apocalypse is here.

Labels: 339.7, Bond markets, Debt, Economic crisis, Eurozone, Germany

First with the news as usual, much like here, it seems workers in Germany are getting a pay squeeze, and are doing something about it - read about today's train strike in Der Spiegel:

Rail unions Transnet and GDBA are calling for a 7 percent salary rise for about 134,000 employees. Deutsche Bahn has until now only offered two increases of 2 percent each, arguing that an excessive wage increase could put up to 9,000 jobs at risk. The strikes came after weekend talks between Deutsche Bahn and the two unions broke down.

I know whe we'rer striking we aren't winning, but solidarity demands some awareness: viel Gluck Gnossen!

Labels: Class struggle, Germany, Strikes, Trade unions