[Bonjoy]

Re the euro break-up and global debt crisis more generally, this is a good (?!) read: http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/74335711 . I’d have to say Ru’s 50/50 on a euro break up is bordering on the wildly optimistic from what I can gather.
More good reasons why we aren't all going to get letters from the queen.
Maybe we should split off a euro crash/global financial meltdown/corpse munching thread all of its own...

[Jaspersharpe]

Agree with most of that. Peston is a cock who loves to build his part as much as possible and he's not the only one.

Also, is it just me who is dumbfounded that ratings agencies still seem to hold so much sway over everything? This latest announcement by S&P has been treated like a massive bombshell but I really don't understand why. These are the same people who rated lots of US subprime debt (or rather the mortgage related secuities based around the debt) as AAA before downgrading it all to junk once everyone realised it was...er....mostly junk.

What makes them experts on anything, let alone having the power over the markets (and therefore everything) that they seem to have?

Or, is this just another example of the media making a mountain out of a molehill? Perhaps Peston & Co are more interested in the S&P announcement than the people actually buying the bonds.......

 

[Jaspersharpe]

This one:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/12/06/uk-eurozone-france-idUKTRE7B50FK20111206

[Bonjoy]

Crystal ball time is it? Ok let’s have a stab, in 12 months:
•   Israel won’t have bombed Iran. If they did Iran would effectively close the gulf of Hormuz, causing major disruptions to western oil supplies and consequent economic mayhem. USA know this and will be leaning on Israel not to act. I expect lots of sabre rattling but no real action. That’s my guess.
•   Euro will fragment into two sub areas possibly with individual stricken nations going solo.
•   One way or another, regardless of what Germany says, the ECB (or some new permutation of it) will be printing money.
•             Some sort of Euro triggered credit crunch will have happened in the first half of the year.
•   Inflation will have got worse if not horrendous, partly as a result of the QE, partly due to continued high commodity costs (although these prices may dropped a bit due to demand destruction).
•   Interest rates in the UK will still be 0.5%
•   UK growth will be worse than government forecast (now there’s a safe bet).
•   The rest of the world will have noticed how screwed the UK finances are. Our bond yield will be up, we may not still be AAA
•   The rich will be richer the poor will be poorer (another safe bet)

Lets be honest though, the whole situation is hugely unpredictable and who know what events will arise and change things. We could all be munching corpse by next December, or the can might have been kicked a little further, the bubble blown up a little more and everyone talking trillions instead of billions.
I still think what I did last time we had a thread like this, that the underlying problem of the world economy today is resource constraint and that the mess we see now is but a complex set of symptoms of a system used to cheap inputs failing to cope with a lack thereof. I’m with those who think that from now on the world economy will keep bumping it’s head on these limits everytime it makes anything of a recovery.

[GraemeA]

•   The rich will be richer the poor will be poorer (another safe bet)

Can I bet my share of The Works on this? Ah fuck it can I bet the whole Works on this? Anyone give me odds?

[shark]

•   The rich will be richer the poor will be poorer (another safe bet)

Can I bet my share of The Works on this? Ah fuck it can I bet the whole Works on this? Anyone give me odds?

Can we agree on some sort of each way bet ? I'm fairly certain (though I don't subsribe to the Economist any more) that the long term global trend was for the rich to become richer and the poor to also become better off though at a slower rate rate hence inequality is still rising.  Toby can provide the facts one way or the other.

[tomtom]

I'm kind of interested into how the latest shitfest recession is going to affect different parts of the country. One of the most divisive parts of Thatchers regime (and the old tory lot) was how geographically disproportionate the effects of the old recession were - as well as the subsequent 'boom' years... Generally the North was shat on from a great height and the South wasnt..

This time round, the present Tory lot seem to have less of an ideological bent to destroy the North of the UK (and not forgetting the Welsh) with an empasis on trying to re-build manufacturing and a liberal sprinkling of development/enterprise zones being dished out pretty fast... I have no love for the present administration, but they do seem to be diverting some cash up from London and the SE. Mind you I might be wrong, and the North is due to fucked over more due to the geographic disparity in public sector workers distribution, 700k of who are due to be watching Coundown and bargain hunt by this time next year...

Here in Hull, all local development seems to be lined up along the renewables sector (offshore wind and tidal) with the promise of the golden egg of a Siemens plant being built here to assemble wind turbines for the North sea etc.. Though its all hanging in the balance as a memorandum of agreement with Siemens legally means jack shit... so it could all be OK (ish) or nothing could happen and there will be nothing to replace all the lost jobs in the public sector and BAE. Last wednesday, my road was full of cars at 8:30 when I left for work.. normally its half empty or more... says alot about what sector folk round here work in....

Still in a sick, twisted logic kind of way, working in a University, recession could be very good for punter numbers.. after all there are bugger all jobs for school leavers to go for at the moment (so we're told) so they have little choice to either join their recently laid off ex public sector parents watching Cash in the Attic, or borrow £30k+ and go to university for three years and hope theres light at the end of the tunnel by then.... We're already seeing  an increase in 3rd years enquiring about masters courses... which is good, but really reflects a grim situation for graduates....

*shrugs*

In the meantime I've taken all my £££ out of the bank and invested in Sovereign rings

[Bonjoy]

Ok let me be clearer about what I mean’t. I meant UK and the richest getting richer whilst everyone else (bar some at the very bottom for whom subsistence level income is maintained) gets poorer in purchasing power terms.
No IMF statistics will change the fact that most average working people in the UK (obviously these are not all poor) have had and will continue to have near frozen or even shrinking nominal incomes during a period of increasing inflation, whilst top end pay continues to grow at obscenely high rates.

[Johnny Brown]

I think there's a pretty clear point where the UK line starts its inexorable climb - 1979. Nowt to do with politics then?

[Oldmanmatt]

Well...

I'm sitting in Italy as I type...
After two days of talks and avoiding numbers (frankly, after two days of nothing but; it seems meaningless).

1.The company(s) I'm talking to, deal into a "Luxury" market.
2. All have seen difficult points of the last three years.
3. All have grown and increased profits and turn over (none thought they would twelve months ago, the lowest was a 50% increase; the best 120%).
4. All have full and expanding order books for 2012 and are already negotiating for 2013.
5. All have taken on extra staff, extra subies and all are expanding to overseas markets.
6. Everyone is very happy Burlesconi is gone.
7. The rich do not appear to be getting richer. There is a distinct drop in business at the higher end (actually, at the lower end too) and an unexpected and large increase in the mid-range orders.
8. Everyone felt very pessimistic, until (after a little vino last night), we realised we didn't need to be, the perception that our industry had "Collapsed" was entirely wrong; it has simply changed and in real terms grown.
9. Cash flow is a bugger, because the banks can't add up and appear to have their collective heads shoved in an innappropriate place.
10. Everyone is of the opinion that the only person in Italy who hasn't paid his tax is Burlesconi.

As for the poor getting poorer?

Well, I'm NOT one of the rich and I'd like to raise my fist in solidarity with my comrades, but...

The rich have to grow increasingly outlandish to display their wealth.

Not many people drive around in old bangers and I'm sure more people own cars now, than did when I was a child.

As a child, there were many people who did not own a TV (actually, I meant when I was a child; although there are now many children who have their own TV).

When we took the VW touring in France in the 70's, we were considered strange by the majority of our peers, some of whom had never traveled outside of Cornwall... Now my peers complain they can't afford to go skiing this winter...

I've witnessed a HUGE rise in the standard of living across eastern Europe over the last decade (and they started at a level best be described as "Peasant"), to something comparable with the west.

The changes I've seen in Turkey, defy description.

The disparity in personal wealth has not reduced, however, this belies the very real improvement in the standard of living for the poor.

The so called Third World has seen massive improvements in infrastructure and the pockets of genuine poverty grow smaller (the numbers go up as the population goes up, the % goes down).

We've got a long way to go, no child should be staving to death on this planet.

It's not the disparity that counts, it's the base line.

I've worked for some of the worlds richest, most of them are miserable, bad tempered and generally unpleasant.

I go with Roger Waters...

Enough to eat.

A place to stay.

Somewhere old Heros, shuffle safely down the street.

And no-one kills the children, anymore.

[slackline]

There are, it would seem, different ways of calculating the Gini coefficient.  Aside from the one described therein, the other approach I've come across (used in The Spirit Level : Why Equality is Better for Everyone was to divide the range of incomes into deciles and compare the ratio of the mean earnings between the lowest and highest deciles.  The number of deciles can drastically affect the resulting coefficient.

As always with statistics its important to know what methodology underpins the numbers being stated, as it can give very different pictures depending on how it is done.  Note the disadvantages listed in the Wikipedia article (which appears to be where the graph thesiger's used comes from) of using the Gini coefficient.

[Oldmanmatt]

Oh yes...

When some idiot spends $45M on a yacht, he (and it almost always is a "He") has spent $45M.
This has been distributed between several hundred people (well, thousands if you follow the chain far enough).
The largest single chunk, goes to the Gov (doesn't matter which Gov).

The assset has been created.

It retains value (OK, depreciating).

The cash has been distributed, no longer owned by an individual.

The world economy has grown by the value of the yacht (on that day).

Said idiot will continue to spend an obscene amount of money to crew, maintain, fuel and vittle the yacht for it's life time (or his, at least).

My Kids get to eat...

Peston et all, justify their salary, most of which comes out of the purse of the people...

The NHS continues to decline! (and yet, survival rates, treatment effectiveness and general health/life expectancy increases...)?

Sorry about the lack of graphs, in fact I think Toby is correct and Bonjoy has a point, but...

[slackline]

As always with statistics its important to know what methodology underpins the numbers being stated, as it can give very different pictures depending on how it is done. 

Yeah. Obviously. But that's only really important if other measures produce wildly different conclusions. As far as I know, most people's anecdotal-based feeling is that inequality is rising and the data mostly supports that. Do you think inequality may actually be falling?

No, thats not what I wrote, nor what I implied.  Merely that you can emphasise differences by the way in which you choose to analyse and present the data (the choice of whether to use deciles or percentiles I mentioned).

Reams of data analysed every which way here if you are interested.

Don't have time to read that in detail, but a very very quick scan suggests they use deciles to calculate the Gini coefficient, the picture may show the same trend but not such extremes (or possibly more extremes) if alternative methods for calculating it were used (thats the point I was making in originally writing).

See the main problem I have with categorising things such as income which is ultimately a continuous variable (bounded at zero on the left, and invariably positively skewed due to no upper limit) is that it completely disregards the variation that exists.  Is everyone in the lowest and highest decile on the same income?  Of course they're not, within each there will be variation.  Given the vast arrays of computers and sophisticated statistical methods (and minds) that exist it disappoints me that people still revert to simplifying the scale of measurement to make things "easy" to interpret.  There's a wealth of literature out there on why categorising continuous variables is a bad idea a brief summary (mainly with regression modelling in mind, but still applicable to many scenarios) is here.

Anyway as usual I'm waaaay  so will STFU and only contribute if I've something more constructive to write.

[Iesu]

I disagree that your comments are non-constructive.

It's always useful to understand the limitations inherent in the presentation of data, and the potential for information to be "spun" to suit a specific purpose while using spurious statistical arguments in support.

Disclaimer: A not insignificant part of my wage paying daily grind involves painting "not good" environmental situations in the best possible light on the behalf of polluters. And occasionally cleaning the bad stuff up.

[slackline]

Was I? 

I don't think Iesu was suggesting that you were the one spinning.

[shark]

To be honest, if I was spinning I'd try to spin the other way ... ie that inequality hasn't risen. Rising inequality is an uncomfortable reality to acknowledge for we pro-market pro-globalisation types.

Even if inequality is rising the fact that real poverty is reduced by globalisation is generally taking the world population in a better direction. It annoys me when people bang on about "losing" jobs to low cost economies as if it is self-evidently a bad thing when the other side of the coin is that it also re-distributes income to people who need it far more.

[fried]

To be honest, if I was spinning I'd try to spin the other way ... ie that inequality hasn't risen. Rising inequality is an uncomfortable reality to acknowledge for we pro-market pro-globalisation types.

globalisation is generally taking the world population in a better direction.

What if it should read as this:

globalisation generally took the world population in a better direction.

[shark]

To be honest, if I was spinning I'd try to spin the other way ... ie that inequality hasn't risen. Rising inequality is an uncomfortable reality to acknowledge for we pro-market pro-globalisation types.

globalisation is generally taking the world population in a better direction.

What if it should read as this:

globalisation generally took the world population in a better direction.

Until there are no longer any low cost economies left to exploit ! globalisation IMO hasn't run its course in terms of the generally positive impact of taking people off the subsistence or poverty traps.

Clearly there are some <cough> teething problems currently... 

[Oldmanmatt]

To be honest, if I was spinning I'd try to spin the other way ... ie that inequality hasn't risen. Rising inequality is an uncomfortable reality to acknowledge for we pro-market pro-globalisation types.

globalisation is generally taking the world population in a better direction.

What if it should read as this:

globalisation generally took the world population in a better direction.

Until there are no longer any low cost economies left to exploit ! globalisation IMO hasn't run its course in terms of the generally positive impact of taking people off the subsistence or poverty traps.

Clearly there are some <cough> teething problems currently...

Hallelujah!

So many companies I deal with moved production to eastern Europe 10-15 years ago...

Then the labour costs there rose.

The local economies settled into a more balanced position as some of those companies moved further east (this did not in my experience lead to local collapse, although everyone said it would and I agreed at the time).

Several of those companies (those that went to China for one) are now looking to relocate again as local demands change (in the case of China they are looking to less developed cantons).

The first and most critical resource to run out will likely be cheap labour...

In the wake of this globalisation are better developed/balanced local economies and a raised base line.

Paradise?

No.

Better?

A little.

It seems likely that one of the results of this will be a reduction in global population, if you look at the declining birth rates in developed nations...

If I look at my Chrystal ball, I fancy I see greater automation replacing the cheap labour at point X in the future and a generally raised base line, with decreased disparity.

This is one of the reasons why I feel the wellfare state is vital.

Absolutely vital.

Not all will be able to adapt and it is the duty of the strong to protect the weak (Oh! Ain't I the romantic?).

If I was a cynic (Me?), I'd say the current Eurozone crisis may have been/being a tad overblown; with the underlying intention of forcing a greater centralisation and tighter fiscal control of the zone as a whole. Entirely by accident (I'm sure) this will result in the more sensible (?) north reigning in the southern cousins.

If I was truly paranoid, I might think that glance between Mrs M and Mr S may have been prearranged (The question too? No, surely not).

[Bonjoy]

I was going to reply to Shark’s comment about globalisation not yet having run its course, but read this article instead which covers various things I was thinking better than I could put them:  http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-12-08/what-peak-oil-looks
Globalisation works by exploiting cost differentials between countries. This means pushing down wages for everyone over time and funnelling most of the benefits to the top. It exploits market inefficiencies serving to eliminate them over time. Unregulated i.e. truly free market globalisation, having ‘run its course’ would look like a few big players operating a world full of slave labour to the immense benefit of a tiny few. Part of this wage levelling comes via companies moving around to exploit competitive lowering of business taxes by governments forced to join in one giant race to the bottom. That is what globalisation gravitates towards, maximum exploitation and monopoly. Trickle down is a tolerated leakage when the system has surplus capacity. I’m not stating that out of ideological antipathy, it’s just the way it is.
But in my view it is not set to run its course in this way because resources are being revealed in their finitude and as such endless growth just isn’t going to happen. Offshoring only makes sense if transport costs are low and ‘onshore’ wages high, both of which are becoming less and less so. This is a process of differentials being flattened out, but where are the next lot of inefficiencies going to come from for the great growth machine to chomp through? This doesn’t spell the end of industry, but it’s hard to see how the growth demanded by a debt based fiat money system can be sustained in this new paradigm. I can see globalisation being replaced by a process of re-localisation (but not all in the cuddly green way the name implies) in the none too distant future.


Oh, seems I did write a long reply to Shark's post after all.

[Oldmanmatt]

Yep,
Refer to the end of Feudalism, brought about by the black death etc.
Cheap labour is a finite resource in its on right.
When I refered to "balanced local economies", I was refering to the surprising number of small businesses that spring up to serve local needs. In the instances of my experience, most seem to adapt to the changes as big business moves on.
Not all, but most.

[philo]

Give us a referendum.  Look at iceland, norway and switzeland.  They all have a free trade agreement without the EU.
When will they admit that the whole system is fucked.  We should all understand Austrian Economics, that is the only way we can get our way out of it.

[tomtom]

Yeah, Iceland did real well didn't they!

[Falling Down]

I was going to reply to Shark’s comment about globalisation not yet having run its course, but read this article instead which covers various things I was thinking better than I could put them:  http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-12-08/what-peak-oil-looks
 

Sorry Jon.  I like a good, rational peak oil debate as much as anyone, particularly as i work in the resources sector and have an insiders view.  But when the author is the proclaimed Grand Druid of the Ancient Order of Druids in North America (say that with a straight face) and has over twenty books gleefully heralding the demise of the world we live in, then my suspicions are raised as much as, if not higher than, when reading a lobbyists puff piece on "drill baby drill" in the Arctic.

[philo]

Yeah, Iceland did real well didn't they!

They are in a +GDP this year, so yeah, they did really well.  They did the right thing