iakttakelser (observations)

Seeing red numbers. Credit: thedaylimind.com While goverment reports names two reasons, here is a short article that names ten. A post from .com by has the whole story . Here is a part: Bill Thomas, Keith Hennessey, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin have a dissenting statement in response to the final report of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission: What Caused the Financial Crisis, by Bill Thomas, Keith Hennessey, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Commentary, WSJ : Today, six members of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission ... are releasing their final report. Although the three of us served on the commission, we were unable to support the majority's conclusions and have issued a dissenting statement. ... We recognize that ... other ... narratives have popular appeal:... Had the government not supported housing subsidies (the first narrative) or had policy makers implemented more restrictive financial regulations (the second) there would have been no calamity. Both of these views are ...

Jeg følger ordene startups og innovasjon på twitter, og antallet øker stadig. En post fra VG har hele historien . Her er en del: IKKE FRISKMELDT: Tor Steig, sjeføkonom i NHO, tror høy oljepris og en sterk krone gjør næringslivet mindre konkurransedyktig. Foto: Frode Hansen Antall nyetableringer er på vei opp i flere næringslivssektorer og øker over hele landet, skriver Nationen. Tallene kommer fra kredittinformasjons- og analyseselskapet Experian og viser en oppgang på 12,2 prosent fra siste kvartal 2009 til siste kvartal 2010. Hva tror du skal til for å friskmelde norsk næringsliv? Delta i debatten nederst i artikkelen! - Dette stemmer godt overens med våre egne analyser av hvordan det står til med bedriftene, sier sjeføkonom Tor Steig i NHO. Det er spesielt innen sektorene finansiering og forsikring, omsetning og drift av fast eiendom og informasjonsvirksomhet at antall nyetableringer har økt.

A post from ElPais.es by has the whole story . Here is a part: Estas seis personas habitan el único bloque levantado de una expansión de 2.300 casas en La Muela (Zaragoza). - GUILLERMO ABRIL 565.000 casas terminadas sin vender, 290.000 en construcción, 360.000 con las obras paradas. El parón inmobiliario ha trazado un mapa surrealista en España. Un urbanismo de solares vacíos, bloques desocupados y urbanizaciones a medias. Aunque allí vive gente. Muy poca. Esta es su historia. En la penumbra amarillenta de un aparcamiento subterráneo del centro de Madrid, Paula Márquez se encuentra con Pavel Gómez, o al revés, según quien salga primero del trabajo; suben al coche y entonces esta pareja treintañera comienza el viaje de vuelta al hogar. El vehículo deja atrás la ciudad, atraviesa el Corredor del Henares, centros comerciales, obras, polígonos, se aprieta a otros coches a mitad de camino, cuando se reducen los carriles de la autopista, y va así poco a poco trazando en paralelo el re...

Superstjernen Torres er også bekymret ;) Credit: http://spanishfootballsports.blogspot.com/ iFacturas har kontor i Spania og i Norge. Så vi er naturligvis opptatt av Spanias ve og vel. E24 har en god gjennomgang og forklaring på de økonomiske problemene Spania står ovenfor i de nærmeste månedene. Vi som har levd med Spania i mange år ser tilbake på tiden med pesetaen med lengsel. Da kunne Spania devaluere i situasjoner som denne. Og befolkningen aksepterer lettere en devaluering enn en reduksjon i lønninger. Se bare hvor illsinte grekerne er om dagen! En post fra e24.no har hele historien . Her er et utklipp: Det er Spanias behov for å låne penger i 2011 som gjør Moody's bekymret. Av de tre store kredittvurderingsbyråene Moody's, Standard & Poor's og Fitch er det Moody's som har det beste navnet, og eventuelle endringer fra Moody's veier tyngst. Må hente 157 mrd. Pål Ringholm Under et seminar i regi av First Securities tirsdag anslo analysesjef for kr...

Photo from Hotel Continental website 200 persons, mostly investors, joined to see what 20 startups could offer in Oslo after the finance crisis . I was astonished to see so many foreign investors, from US and from UK. There was in my opinion a lot of great projects . Since I also presented, I could only follow some: Yes Game : They have ingenuos  reduced the chess board from 8X8 to 5X6 by taking away all second officers. In that way they have create a Chess Attack, which can take you into the final stage of a chess party immediately. They have it for iPhone and very important, also as a physical board. uformia created software very well suited for 3D printing. The CEO Cherie Stamm was an American living in Norway. She softened every Norwegian heart when the said the reason was our beautiful nature. 3D Printing is in my opinion a possibility for the Western society to rebuild the manufacturing industry we lost to China. kikora presented a math editor, which evalua...

El crisis cuesta. Y cuesta tanto que  un puesto de El pais  cuenta: España cedió nueve posiciones -junto con Grecia, una de las mayores caídas del índice- y se colocó en cuadragésimo segundo puesto, con 4,49 puntos, empatada con Puerto Rico y precediendo a Barbados. "El descenso es atribuible en gran parte a una creciente gestión negativa de los mercados laborales y financieros, además del nivel de sofisticación de los negocios del país", se expone en el documento. El informe esta aqui .

In the light of the the crisis in Greece and the study which shows that Norways black economy is at 15,8%, which the double of the US numbers. The blog Economist´s View tells: Corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency act like the worst kind of tax – one that deters economy activity without raising any revenue. In the midst of the current crisis, cutting this tax would be a triple-win. In the long run, it will raise potential output. In the medium run, it will narrow the current-account deficit by reducing the cost of producing goods in Greece. In the short run, it will encourage investment by foreign firms and start-ups, which will bring the economy back toward full employment. Read the whole story here .

I got some information from a stewardess yesterday night. The ash-cloud is now at 7.500 meters above the European continent. The Spanish airports are expected to be closed from today to tuesday. The ash-cloud hinder the sun to warm up the continent and we can expect an unusual cold may in the whole Europe, but especially where the cloud is dense - as now in Spain. A black humoristic comment: drop the charges of the loss in the Iceland banks - this will help us all ;)

www.barackObama.com mailed me that US job loss is finally approaching zero. Please note the colors, which shows Obama (blue) vs. Bush (red).

Crugman has been working on this problem the last weeks. Today he came up with, as he says himself, a sort of a textbook. You should read the whole article  here . "Most press coverage of the eurozone troubles has focused on Greece, which is understandable: Greece is up against the wall to a greater extent than anyone else. But the Greek economy is also very small; in economic terms the heart of the crisis is in Spain, which is much bigger. And as I’ve tried to point out in a number of posts, Spain’s troubles are not, despite what you may have read, the result of fiscal irresponsibility. Instead, they reflect “asymmetric shocks” within the eurozone, which were always known to be a problem, but have turned out to be an even worse problem than the euroskeptics feared. So I thought it might be useful to lay out, in a handful of pictures, how Spain got into its current state. (All of the data come from the IMF World Economic Outlook Database). There’s a kind of classic simplicity a...

According to Paul Crugman this graph explains a lot!

Read Paul Krugman blogpost about the problems facing Spain

El Pais tiene un articulo sobre el crisis de Islandia : "'Mamuts'. El ministro de Finanzas islandés, Steingrimur Sigfusson, llamaba mamuts a los tres grandes bancos cuando estaba en la oposición y la economía volaba alto. Durante los años en los que la burbuja se fue hinchando denunció repetidamente que todo era una ilusión, que todo podía evaporarse a las primeras de cambio. Una vez en el poder ha pilotado el cambio de rumbo, se ha dedicado a poner en orden la banca y la economía. Se trata de un hombre afable pero firme, se le ve algo cansado pero también decidido. La situación es endemoniadamente peligrosa, pero Sigfusson asegura que Islandia saldrá de esta. Sólo teme dos cosas: 'La apatía y el desencanto, que pueden conducir a una estampida de cerebros'."

Paul Crugman , 2008 Nobel Prize of Economics lauderate, have just came with Crises , his "Mea Culpa". His view of the reasons that almost all economists, himself included, failed to see the financial crisis before it stuck us all. He ends the article like this: And despite the praise being handed out to those who helped us avoid the worst, we are not handling the crisis well: fiscal stimulus has been inadequate, financial support has contained the damage but not restored a healthy banking system. All indications are that we’re going to have seriously depressed output for years to come. ... Maybe policymakers will become wiser in the future. Maybe financial reform will rduce the occurrence of crises: major financial cises were much rarer between the end of Worl War II and the rise of fincancial deregulaiton after 1980 than they were before or since. Menwhile, however, the fact is that the economic world is a surprisingly dangerous place.

More on Dubai : " Click on graph for larger image in new window. First, since the markets closed early ... This graph is from Doug Short of dshort.com (financial planner): 'Four Bad Bears'. Note that the Great Depression crash is based on the DOW; the three others are for the S&P 500. Krugman suggests there are three views on the Dubai situation: 1) the beginning of a wave of sovereign defaults, 2) an extension of the CRE bust, and 3) Dubai as sui generis. Krugman believes it is some combination of two and three. I agree. Dubai seems like an extreme example of the CRE bust. 'Vegas on steroids' as Nanoo-Nanoo wrote in the comments to an earlier post. It is the state-controlled Dubai World that might delay payments - and both Moody's and Standard & Poor’s have said they may consider delaying payments a default - and it is unclear if oil rich Abu Dhabi will help out Dubai. So the situation is confusing ... but it does seem that Dubai is the...

NYT calls it "A Not-So-Guilty-Pleasure. Well I'm glad to read that this is all about female partners. How about you, do you still buy nice shoes? in reference to: Shoes, the Recession’s Not-So-Guilty Pleasure - NYTimes.com ( view on Google Sidewiki )

Alt går ikke dårlig i disse krisetider. Sko, særlig kule damesko, går som bare det. Og smartphones, slike vidundere som iPhone f.eks. in reference to: Smartphones beat recession, Nokia still on top - Ars Technica ( view on Google Sidewiki )

Det er snart ett år siden de dramatiske septemberdagene da den amerikanske investeringsbanken Lehman Brothers kollapset. I dagene og ukene etter fulgte en stresstest for verdens finansinstitusjoner, tøffere enn noen offentlig myndighet kunnet funnet på. Selv om mange banker var avhengig av hjelp for å klare seg, overlevde det finansielle systemet - såvidt. Den påfølgende økonomiske nedturen ble brutal, men den har ikke munnet ut i den langvarige depresjonen mange fryktet. Prognosemakere verden over har de siste månedene justert opp anslagene på den økonomiske veksten. Mens verdensøkonomien ligger an til å falle med 1,2 prosent i år, vil veksten allerede neste...

Avisen La Vanguardia har et interju med Santiago Niño Becerra fra Barcelona. Se "En 2010 empezará la crisis de verdad y será brutal, terrible" . Han har selv publisert her . Bruk Googles oversettelsetjeneste hvis du har vanskeligheter med spansk!

El Pais har en nydelig graf som viser at det verste kan være over i finanskrisen. Legg merke til at i Spania er bunnen i februar. I Frankrike allerede i januar. El Pais kommen-terer OECD rapport her . OECD rapporten har flere detaljer. OECD har bakgrunnstall for rapporten her . Indikatoren for Spania reflekterer svar i spørreundersøkelser om bedriftenes produksjon, ordrer og lager. I Spania teller også beleggsprosenten i hoteller og rentene på lån til offentlig sektor med. Her er graf over indikatorer i Norge (blå strek) hentet fra rapporten. Grafen viser en utflating av nedgangen. Men viser ikke noen bunn. For meg ser det ut som klare indikasjoner på at vi går mot lysere tider i økonomien. Det blir spennende å se om dette fortsetter i mai...