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Wednesday, February 11, 2009

ECONOMIC BRIEFS

Economists: U.S. trade deficit likely lowest in 6 years
Based on the median forecast of economists polled by Bloomberg News, the U.S. trade deficit probably fell in December to its lowest point since December 2002. The Commerce Department is expected to release official trade figures Wednesday. Bloomberg (11 Feb.)

China's import decline of 43.1% breaks record
China's customs bureau reported that imports plunged by a record-breaking 43.1% in January, while exports dropped 17.5%, the sharpest downturn in 13 years. The economic shifts in China are "really dramatic, underscoring plunging global demand," said Dariusz Kowalczyk, SJS Markets' chief investment strategist. Bloomberg (11 Feb.)

Personal bankruptcies up 50.6% in Canada
Personal bankruptcy filings in Canada surged 50.6% in December compared with a year earlier. In January, the nation saw its highest number of job losses per month in more than 30 years, driving the unemployment rate to 7.2% Forbes (09 Feb.)

Emerging economies turn to one another for trade
Suffering from falling demand from their traditional targets of the U.S. and Europe, developing nations are working to build trade with one another, the so-called South-South trade. The shift is a natural one, considering the International Monetary Fund projected a 2% contraction for advanced nations and a 3.3% growth for developing economies. Reuters (08 Feb.)

Saudi oil chief expects capacity to help balance market
Ali al-Naimi, Saudi Arabia's oil minister, said the huge Khurais project will double the country's spare capacity for oil. The nation's most effective tool for "achieving a balanced market" is maintaining extra capacity to moderate price volatility, he said at the Cambridge Energy Research Associates conference in Houston. Bloomberg (11 Feb.)

2 comments:

  1. Everyone keeps talking about cleaning up the banks' balance sheets by getting rid of their toxic assets so they can start lending again. But who are they gonna lend to? Each other? What about cleaning up the American public's balance sheet, too? When 70% of GDP is consumer spending and consumers are up beyond their eyeballs in debt, there's no recovery anytime soon regardless of what TARP, TALF, BARF, etc. do. It's the dirty little secret everyone knows about but few want to address.

    ReplyDelete
  2. so true so true. let them all eat cake

    ReplyDelete

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