It’s still a long, long summer #austerity #Merkel #Greece #Spain #Olympics

austerity (Photo credit: 401(K) 2012)

Some 5 months on from my original article, where are we now?
Heading downwards I’m afraid. The insistence by governments to pursue austerity measures and near zero interest rates has left many listed companies warning over future profit growth. GDP figures in the main Euro nations has been heading lower confirming the double dip recession. Interest rates are near zero, meaning that savings growth is stagnating and consumer spending is slowing in most areas.

Even our great leader of The Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King said that “cutting interest rates further…..might be counterproductive”

An astute observation by Mr King, although to be honest you can’t go much lower than 0.5%.

For the time being, nothing much has changed. Unemployment is still rising, jobs cuts are still progressing, the Economy is contracting, the tax payer is still bailing out the banks but hey, it’s The Olympics and everything is OK. Just wait until September.

Common sense, just common sense.

Related articles

• Bank of England to forecast zero growth in quarterly UK inflation report (guardian.co.uk)
• Italy stuck in downward austerity spiral (independent.co.uk)
• NatWest chaos blamed on ‘fat fingered newbie’ (thesun.co.uk)

Welcome to Greece, come and see us soon…PLEASE!!

CANOE Travel – News – Greek tourism revenues to shrink 5% in 2012.

It seems that German tourists may be fearful of a backlash if they holiday in Greece.

Pre-bookings are down from Germany but the Greeks are hopeful of attracting Russians. Unlikely however that they will see much growth from tourist rival Turkey (a non Euro country)

In the interest of tourism, which is some 15% of GDP, a default may be the best option?