Fearfulness

The Economist, (via Quinn)

63% of people think the economic situation is a major cause of fearfulness in others, but only 12% of respondents confessed to feeling “quite” or “very” scared about it personally (see chart).

As Quinn says, this suggests that media scaremongering is working, and for those of us who think economic policy is more about expectations management than mechanistic policy design, very concerning.

Comments

[Jim]

Interesting. You tend to get a similar result in surveys about public services, ie a lot of people saying that their personal experience of the NHS is good but that it seems to be awful for everyone else. This suggests that a different kind of media scaremongering is working, and is just as concerning for those of us who think public services are important.

[raivo pommer-www.google.ee]

raivo pommer-www.google.ee

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BRITISH CHRISE

Equally, it may be true that British GDP will be lower than the government forecasts by the middle of the next decade - credit crunches are much harder to slip away from than the government forecasts. But after the stimulus the economy has received, there should be some growth, broadly corresponding to the shape the Treasury predicts.

The real issue is the evaporation of our economic and political pretensions. The Treasury has been forced to recognise that 5% of Britain's GDP has disappeared forever. Too many industries were dependent upon the crazy world of ever-rising house prices and easy credit; now gone for ever. This means that the path to sustainable public finances is going to be astonishingly painful. We can live with national debt doubling, but it cannot double again.

The numbers are terrifying. Budget deficits, even for Keynesian apostles of deficit finance like me, cannot stay at 12% of GDP, or £175bn, for very long, however justifiable in recession. The problem is that so much economic capacity has permanently disappeared, along with those parts of the economy that used to deliver rich tax revenues; the post-recession economy will only reduce the deficit by a quarter. The rest has got to be found by tax increases or reductions in planned spending.

[raivo pommer-www.google.fi.]

EURO TOT-EURO DEAD

EZB-Präsident Jean-Claude Trichet über die richtigen Maßnahmen in Zeiten der Krise, die Lage der Banken und die Bedeutung des Euro.

Aberhunderte Milliarden pumpen Staaten und Zentralbanken in die Wirtschaft. Bei vielen Bürgern schürt das die Angst vor der Inflation. Doch Jean-Claude Trichet, Präsident der Europäischen Zentralbank, beruhigt. Er verspricht stabile Preise trotz steigender Staatsschulden. Auch gegenüber den Geldhäusern macht der EZB-Chef im SZ-Interview klare Ansagen: Sie hätten mittlerweile genügend Hilfen erhalten; nun sollten sie den Unternehmen Geld leihen.

Die Krise ist ein andauerndes Phänomen. Deshalb müssen wir konstant wachsam bleiben. Im Sommer 2007 erlebten wir ungewöhnliche Vorgänge am Geldmarkt und reagierten als erste Notenbank. Seit September 2008 haben wir eine sehr schwere und noch anhaltende Krise. Erstmals wird die neue globalisierte Finanzwelt getestet, so wie sie über die letzten 10 bis 15 Jahren gewachsen ist. Sie erweist sich als sehr viel zerbrechlicher und weniger widerstandsfähig, als sie sein sollte.

[raivo pommer-www.google.fi]

THE Australian dollar

At the local close, it was trading at US72.45c, up from Thursday's close of US72.36c.

During the session, the unit traded between US73.24c and US72.24c.

It began the local session at a six-month high of US73.18-22c.

ICAP economist Adam Carr said risk appetite was boosted by the declining US dollar.

The safe-haven currency declined during the four-day Easter break after news that US bank Wells Fargo had posted a better-than-forecast guidance for its first-quarter earnings.

"The Aussie's tracked higher," Mr Carr said. "We've had a couple of bounces up a couple of hundred points.

"US dollar weakness has been the key thing over the Easter period. Today, we've given some of those gains back, but not a lot. Significantly, we've held over US72c."

According to Wells Fargo, it expects "record" net income, about $US3 billion ($4.1 billion) for the first three months of 2009.

Markets considered it another sign of improvement in credit and lending markets. But Mr Carr said the overnight offshore session could prove volatile for the Australian dollar.

[raivo pommer-www.google.fi]

BRITICH BILLIONARE

These women are the latest in a long line of billionaire offspring who have decided to work for mom or dad. The allure seems obvious: lots of responsibility at a young age, little chance of being fired by the boss and the opportunity to contribute to the family's legacy.

But how seriously do these women take these jobs, and how likely is it that they'll actually inherit the corner offices, eventually run billion-dollar enterprises and oversee thousands of employees?

To find the most promising progeny, we scoured the daughters of the world's 793 billionaires and found 25 worth watching. They range in age from 25 to 59, include a couple sets of sisters and hail from 12 countries and work in such diverse industries as cosmetics, media and shipping.

Not included are any heiresses who have already inherited the fortune as well as the business, thus eliminating someone like Margaret (Maggie) Magerko, 43, who now runs and owns 84 Lumber, founded by her father. Also left off are ones who are succeeding on their own, such as Ralph Lauren's daughter Dylan, who owns the popular Manhattan store Dylan's Candy Bar.

So who are the rising stars? One of the best known is Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka, who seems destined for the job. At 27, she has already become a fixture in her father's empire as an executive vice president for the Trump Organization and a star in her dad's primetime show Celebrity Apprentice. Enterprising as the Donald himself, Ivanka has also found time to be a fashion model and the face of Ivanka Trump Jewelry, her own luxury diamond line.

Others already sit on the boards of the world's largest public companies. Vanisha Mittal Bhatia, 28, is a board member of steel behemoth ArcelorMittal (market cap $37 billion), along with its chief executive, her father Lakshmi Mittal, and American billionaire Wilbur Ross. She is the only family member besides her dad on the board, though her brother Aditya Mittal is CFO and member of the Group Management Board.

Meanwhile, France's Delphine Arnault-Gancia, 34, became the first woman board member of luxury goods group LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, run by her father, at age 28 and was named deputy managing director of Christian Dior in April 2008.