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bparksj28

Bulgarian government resigns amid growing protests - Yahoo! News - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/tional-protests-073220738.html

government growing protests bulgaria quits

shared by bparksj28 on 20 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Bulgaria's government resigned on Wednesday after violent nationwide protests against high power prices, joining a long list of European administrations felled by austerity during Europe's debt cri
  • raise living standards in the European Union's poorest member,
  • Wage and pension freezes and tax hikes have bitten deep in a country where living standards are less than half the EU average
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The spark for the protests was high electricity bills, after the government raised prices by 13 percent last July. But it quickly spilled over into wider frustration with Borisov's domineering manner and unpredictable decision making.
  • The prime minister made sacrifices in an attempt to cling on, sacking his finance minister, cutting power prices and risking a diplomatic row with the Czech Republic by punishing foreign-owned companies, a move that conflicted with EU norms on protection of investors and due process.
  • Unemployment in the country of 7.3 million is far from the highs hit in the decade after the end of communism but remains at 11.9 percent and average salaries are stuck at around 800 levs ($550) a month.
  • Millions have emigrated in search of a better life, leaving swathes of the country depopulated and little hope for those who remain.
  • The precedent is unlikely to encourage other foreign investors, who already have to navigate complicated bureaucracy and widespread corruption and organized crime if they want to take advantage of Bulgaria's 16-percent flat tax rate.
bparksj28

The fiscal cliff may be overblown - The Term Sheet: Fortune's deals blog Term Sheet - 0 views

finance.fortune.cnn.com/...fiscal-cliff-2

cliff term

shared by bparksj28 on 09 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • By not going off the cliff, the CBO estimates that deficits over the next decade would rise by a total of $7.7 trillion (that's "trillion" with a "T"). That would bring the total national debt somewhere to around $24 trillion by 2023 which is equal to 90% of GDP (that's pretty high). If we go off the cliff, don't expect a clean slate, though, as the nation would still have a significant budget deficit equal to 58% of GDP in 2023 due to all the mandatory spending associated with the impeding explosion in costs emanating from Social Security and Medicare.
  • The cuts in spending and the increased taxes will cause thousands of people to lose their jobs pretty much overnight (millions of Americans owe their jobs directly or indirectly to federal government spending). This would push unemployment up across the country from 7.9% to 9.1%. As a result, the CBO projects that real GDP would drop by 0.5% in 2013 after growing by 2.1% in 2012. Real GDP would fall at an annual rate of 2.9% in the first half of next year, tipping the nation into a recession that the CBO figures would be similar in magnitude to the one the nation experienced following the first Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s (for those who didn't live through that, it was bad)
  • Indeed, the fiscal cliff is about as real of a problem as the nation's burgeoning national debt – it's theoretically bad, but it isn't bad enough for Washington to risk making the short term any more economically unpleasant than it has to be. After all, there will be elections for the House in just two short years, so neither side wants to go into that election cycle trying to defend why the government instituted growth killing spending cuts while allowing taxes to shoot up to address some arbitrary debt load that investors continue to fund for next to nothing
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  • The increase in federal taxes and the reductions in federal spending would cut the budget deficit (the difference between how much revenue the government takes in how much it spends) from $1.1 trillion last year to $641 billion in fiscal 2013, roughly a $500 billion cut. That represents a reduction in the budget deficit (as a percentage share of GDP) not seen since 1969 when the conservative Richard Nixon booted the free-spending Lyndon Johnson out of the White House
  • The increase in federal taxes and the reductions in federal spending would cut the budget deficit (the difference between how much revenue the government takes in how much it spends) from $1.1 trillion last year to $641 billion in fiscal 2013, roughly a $500 billion cut. That represents a reduction in the budget deficit (as a percentage share of GDP) not seen since 1969 when the conservative Richard Nixon booted the free-spending Lyndon Johnson out of the White Hous
  • It is therefore hard for politicians to so brazenly throw the nation into a deep recession to reduce spending when the benefits of acting are so intangible. The fact is that the Budget Control Act of 2011 was political theater in which the Republicans tried to appease "Tea Party" voters – a constituency that has basically been wiped out as the economy has improved. Discussions around raising the marginal tax rate on the top 2% are simply just political fodder. Indeed, multiple studies, including ones by the CBO say that it would raise an insignificant amount of money (a negative for the Democratic view) but would also cause no real harm to the economy (a negative for the Republican view). In the end, if it takes changing the top 2% rate from 35% to 39.6% to end this whole fiscal cliff charade, you can bet it has already been agreed to
  • s it may sound, it is simply irrational for either side to address the deficit in any meaningful way given how cheaply it is for Washington to borrow money. As we have seen in Europe, nations won't swallow the bitter pill of austerity unless the markets force them to
  • As cynical
bparksj28

Chart of the Week: Where Does the Federal Government Get Its Revenue? - 0 views

blog.heritage.org/...ral-government-get-its-revenue

chart government federal revenue

shared by bparksj28 on 10 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • bparksj28 on 10 Oct 12
     
    federal revenue by source
bparksj28

India hit by national strike over economic reforms - Yahoo! News - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/reforms-074613172--sector.html

india hit national strike economist

shared by bparksj28 on 21 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • called the strike to protest against a 14 percent increase in heavily subsidized diesel prices, and a government decision that opens the door to foreign supermarket chains investing in India.
  • economic reforms aimed at boosting a sharply slowing economy
  • long demanded by Indian business leaders, were crucial for economic growth.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • "Good economics seldom makes for good politics,"
  • mom-and-pop "kirana" stores, who fear the retail reform will drive them out of business
  • "If we don't protest now, the central government will eliminate the poor and middle-class families,"
  • bparksj28 on 21 Sep 12
     
    India strike over market-oriented new policies
bparksj28

Is There Hope for High-Debt Economies? - Real Time Economics - WSJ - 0 views

blogs.wsj.com/...e-hope-for-high-debt-economies

shared by bparksj28 on 12 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • . Out of 22 advanced economies in the mix, 14 of them breached the 100% debt-to-GDP threshold at least once between 1875 and 1997. (The high debt came from nat
  • The good news: the nations that built up high debt still exist.
  • The bad news: working off heavy debt loads takes an incredibly long time. Fifteen years after breaching the 100% mark, the median debt-to-GDP ratio was only 10 percentage points lower, the IMF said in a new report released Thursday
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Among the countries in the 100% club: Japan, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Ireland and the U.S. (U.S policymakers and credit-rating firms tend to put the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio at 73%, based on marketable securities held by the public. Gross debt — the $16 trillion figure we see most often — includes money the government owes itself, like for Social Security. But the IMF uses the gross debt figure here.)
bparksj28

Federal Reserve details new round of stress tests - Nov. 16, 2012 - 0 views

money.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by bparksj28 on 16 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • The Federal Reserve, preparing to embark on its latest round of so-called stress tests, released the details Friday of three economic scenarios it will use to judge the health of the U.S.'s largest lenders.
  • 5% decline in gross domestic product, an unemployment rate of 12% and a volatile stock market which loses half its value.
  • The stress tests are mandated by Dodd-Frank, the financial reform law written in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis that brought down Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Last year, the Fed's tests showed a majority of the nation's largest banks would be able to weather another deep recession.
  • Ally Financial, Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) and SunTrust (STI, Fortune 500) -- would likely need new capital from either investors or the government in the Fed's adverse economic scenario
  • bparksj28 on 16 Nov 12
     
    Dodd-Frank Act - stress test 2012
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