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China’s plans to pump more money into its flagging economy (well, flagging by Chinese standards at least) sent many stock markets around the world higher yesterday.

But even as stocks jumped, the news from the “real” economy was becoming grimmer by the minute.

In Britain, surveys showed retail sales falling and house sales slowing even more. But that news paled into insignificance compared to the turmoil in the US…
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Banks have increased interest rates on tens of millions of debit and credit cardholders despite the cost of borrowing falling to a 50-year low.
The average annual percentage rate for credit cards has risen from 17.2 to 17.6 per cent since May. for more click here

As in 1933, the President-elect faces a disaster not of his making. Today, however, he may be able to stabilise the depression. for more click here

A really striking recession indicator came out last week.

It wasn’t the Bank of England’s massive rate cut. No, this was far worse. Sales of mince are rocketing as people stay in to cook more, said online grocer Ocado. At the same time, sales of little treats such as doughnuts and smoothies are plunging, as shoppers “return to frugality,” according to Ocado co-founder Jason Gissing.

The British consumer has started to cut back and make savings where they can. Faced with the massive debt burden we’re carrying as a country, it’s what we need to do.

Unfortunately, it’s also very bad news in the short-term for profits and jobs…
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Does the financial crisis make clear that capitalism, the free market and the classical liberal ideology are failing? Of course not, whatever social democrat ideological veterans might proclaim. Socialism and its derivatives have been morally discredited since the fall of the Berlin wall and there is no chance for them of getting back. People get a grasp that there is something wrong with the way the system works for now, but not with the system itself, as a recent poll by FT/Harris suggests.
What has been the ultimate source of the financial crisis hurting the world economy? To understand this, one has to consider on what the world economy is founded and that is still the U.S. Dollar. This rock of confidence has been originating from Western-European civilisation, deriving from mediaeval Bruges, the first financial center of its time, dubbed as “the cradle of capitalism”, where the Flemish van den Beurze family has borrowed its name for the “bourse” institutions emerging in the world’s later financial centers Antwerp, Amsterdam, London and New York. A protestant classical liberal culture has culminated in the founding of the new world, where nothing less than the absolute individual freedom was deemed sufficient for humanity and where without any doubt the highest level of civilisation has been reached, to the regret and envy of the less developed cultures outside the new world still suffering from oppression and jealousy. The American money has outcompeted all rivals in becoming the sure rock for the tired, the poor and the huddled masses, also those outside the new world, to rely on. for more click here

Developing countries are calling for a more coordinated and global action plan to fight the financial crisis.

The Royal Bank of Scotland has blown £300,000 on a secret champagne junket for executives - less than a month after being given a £20billion handout by the taxpayer.
Bankers and their partners enjoyed the lavish party to mark their ’success’ after a year in which the collapse of the banking industry led to global financial meltdown. for more click here

China pledged a 4 trillion yuan ($871 billion) stimulus plan to prop up growth in the fourth-largest economy as the world heads toward a recession. for more click here

GLOBAL sharemarkets are gripped with fresh panic amid official predictions the world’s advanced economies are sliding towards their first year-long recession since World War II.

The Australian sharemarket fell below 4000 yesterday after the Bank of England cut interest rates by an unprecedented 1.5 percentage points, fuelling fears of a deep and prolonged global recession. for more click here

Britain is spiralling into the deepest recession of any leading nation, the International Monetary Fund said last night.

Our economy will plunge into a downturn that is more than ten times steeper than it forecast a month ago, the fund warned. for more click here