Greece and Portugal in the red

[martin]

it seems that both countries have not been prudent in their finances

see here for details
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs. ... /100119788

[Globetrotter]

It's pretty interesting that several countries in Central/Eastern Europe have surpassed Portugal in gdp/capita.

[shanagarry]

Hardly surprising since we have 'shored them up' since they joined the EU.

Cast your mind back to the 70's when Ireland became a full member and enjoyed the support from the stronger countries - only to succumb to the comfort zone of make-belief which suggested it would never end. You 'aint seen nothin yet - as the song goes

[cereza]

Martin - this situation has been widely reported - I am curious as to why you have picked it up in The Cape Cod News ??

[SAM SPARKLE]

Greece’s financial situtation will no doubt add to the problems for the Euro, this of course will benefit us as the pound will rise against it.

[shanagarry]

It would if the the German and French economies were not doing so well - all the time they are improving - they will pull the weaker ones along with them. Regretfully, I feel that Sterling will not improve very much this year. The lead up to the election will see to that - the outcome of the election might put the kibosh on it all together.

[SAM SPARKLE]

Hmm, it looks like the recovery of Euro-zone is running out of steam, with rising unemployment and the already mentioned problems with Greece have somewhat dampened optimism. There's definitely concern around the euro periphery in general. I agree that the exchange rates we enjoyed in the past have probably gone forever, but every little helps as they say.

[shanagarry]

It is easy to sound optimistic - just listen to the B... S... the politicians spout out. In the real world, there does not appear to be any optimism. You have to be concerned when the news is dominated by an affair by a politician's wife and I suspect they (politicians) were 'delighted' to have the Haiti earthquake take centre stage - to take the spotlights off them. Incidentally I am not making light of the dreadful events in Haiti. The Sunday papers suggested that mortgage lending has increased 2.6%, month on month over the past 6 months - what they haven't said is to whom.

The potential for the election to make matters a lot worse is a worrying prospect as most people don't believe a single word that comes from Brown's mouth - Cameron does not exude any confidence either - so where does that leave us? We are all bracing ourselves for the inevitable tax hike that must follow all of this - ramped up by the fallout from the banks and the unemployment increase when the bloated public sector is decimated (and not before time).

Interesting times ahead

[martin]

one german banks does not think too highly of portuguese bonds (its a bit hard to take any bankers advice these days since they cant even mange their own affairs)

anyway whatever..read here

http://news.ino.com/headlines/?newsid=12120101975

[cereza]

Portugal is going to have to introduce quite draconian cuts in order to reduce the deficits in much the same way as Ireland and Greece. The initial problem may be that the government is not strong enough whiich will mean a new General Election. This problem of a hung parliament is one of the main causes of jitters for the UK economy if that should be the result of this years election here - it would be the last thing that we would need.

[martin]

looks like it will all ok (famous last words?)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... P6zNsa2BbY

[shanagarry]

This is another case of 'You couldn't make it up' - Socrates is taking a sip out of Brown's cup - and believing his own BS. They (Portugal) don't have a pot to pee in - we're not too far behind and they come out with promises to cut deficits in three years - we all know what's coming next.

Apparently the UK is now 'officially' out of recession - how do you explain that to all the people who have lost their jobs over the past 18 months - have I missed something here

[EMM]

Being " out of recession " did not help sterling today, it fell as the growth figures were below expectations.

Do not expect real growth to return to the UK for at least 2 years , for employment 2010 could be worse than 2009 even though the economy appears to be doing better.

December saw highest monthly new mortages for 2 years.

[shanagarry]

It would be interesting to see those mortgage statistics in a lot more detail:

- How many were to first-time buyers?
- What was the average property price for the mortgages granted/approved?
- How many transactions required a 25%+ deposit?

It would make great reading if all this was genuinely good news - god knows we need it - but you can't help but feel this is all 'spin'.

Your point about growing unemployment is spot-on and is probably going to get a lot worse - never to recover to previous levels. I have cut my work-force from 27 to 8 in 26 months - not because of the difficult times - more to do with improving efficiency with greater dependency on IT. I know many others who are doing the very same - these are jobs that will never be recreated.

[EMM]

Ref Mortgages, a new development in St Albans was featured, it closed earlier this year due to lack of finance.

It reopened in September and has sold 70 properties since then. I think we can all see that some activity has returned to the housing market but the commercial building sector is bracing itself for 2 more bad years at least.