A little more than a week the German government proposed “Budget Commissioner” of the euro area to exercise direct control over the budget of Greece. With this proposal, Berlin, Athens asked to give up its sovereignty in the name of financial assistance, to prevent the bankruptcy of our southern neighbor. Although the European Commission (EC) rejected the proposal, it is not sunk into oblivion. Greece can not settle with its creditors, which leads to two outcomes for the country: either declare bankruptcy or to continue negotiations with the private sector, the European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF), says the CEO of American company Stratfor Strategic Analysis and reputed political scientist George Friedman. In his agreement with its creditors Greece will consist of three parts: the forgiveness of the debt, additional financial assistance from the EU and IMF agreement to limit government spending and raise taxes so as to avoid future sovereign crises or at least to be paid to the Greek debt. The Germans certainly do not believe the Greeks, as the latter have not met already made commitments to creditors. That lack of confidence led to the proposal for budget control, but it would be okay, if it is a corporation or a private person, says Friedman. Such a request from a nation state, however, is unacceptable according to the analyst. State is based on two premises. The first is that the nation state is unique legitimate community whose members share a common range of values ​​and interests. The second condition is related to the occurrence of the state. Friedman points out that this happens in people’s will and only has the right to determine state action.
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Fighting the inflation is a key economic priority for China this year because the government aims to limit the risk of social unrest, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in a speech to the country conditions.
“We can not afford the price increases to affect the normal life of people with low incomes,” said Wen in the report the annual meeting of The Chinese meeting of MPs in Beijing today. “This problem affects the welfare of the people has common interests and concerns social stability.”
The 64-year-old Wen confirmed targets 4 percent inflation for the whole year and 8% growth against attempts by the Communist Party to provide support for the 61-year rule. Over the past two weekends government sent hundreds of police in Beijing and Shanghai after the Internet calls for protests, inspired by bunks in the Middle East and North Africa.
“Inflation has the potential to trigger social unrest,” said Liu Li-Gang, an economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group in Hong Kong. The government should increase interest rates on loans and deposits by 0.75 percentage points by year’s end, and to raise wages and to grant aid the poor, he said.
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Mergers and acquisitions worldwide are gaining momentum in the first quarter of the year in the last three months were made over 2 thousand cross-border acquisitions and hostile takeovers 10. To contribute to this recovery in the global economy and stock market rally over the past 12 months. The value of takeovers increased by 5% annually during the first three months of this year to 498.24 billion dollars, cited by Bloomberg. Hostile acquisitions recorded growth of over 300 percent to 17.46 billion dollars. According to Mark Sharif, head of the Department of mergers and acquisitions for Citigroup, acquisitions may increase by 15-20% by the end of this year, provided that the global economy to shrink again. Last year, the realized value of acquisitions fell by 27 percent to 1.8 trillion. dollars, which is the lowest level for the past six years. Citigroup is one of the largest consultants in this field, she managed the sale of Asian life insurance unit of AIG, which was bought by Prudential of Britain’s 35.5 billion dollars earlier this year. It is the biggest deal in the market of mergers and acquisitions this year. Among the biggest deals this year and became hostile takeover of British chocolate maker Cadbury on the U.S. food manufacturer Kraft Foods. After four tense battle Cadbury has been absorbed by Kraft Foods for an amount of 21.4 billion dollars in February this year.
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The Swiss company Nestle lay a better than expected preliminary report, giving an argument of analysts who firmly pledged the company as a preferred investment in Europe. Revenues from sales of main products of the company rose by 4.1 percent in 2009, indicating stability amid the crisis. This is to bring Nestle revenue of 108 billion Swiss francs (99.91 billion dollars). Preliminary expectations of analysts was for sales growth of 3,9 percent to 105.9 billion francs, transmit CNBC. “The progress over the last year growth of 4,1 per cent against the backdrop of a complex environment shows that we are able to note an increase greater than that of the sector as a whole,” stated the CEO of Nestle Paul Balk. Operating profit of Nestle for the year 2009 amounted to 15.7 billion francs.
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JPMorgan Chase will launch its global branch banking, which will offer commercial banking multinational corporations transmit Financial Times. This will instruct the bank alongside Citigroup and HSBC. From JPMorgan plans to invest more than $ 100 million in commercial banking division, which will consist of 300 people. The activity will initially be focused on emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil reveals Financial Times. JPMorgan is the aim of reducing their dependence on the weak U.S. economy and to benefit from the problems of Citigroup, have shared the bank’s executives told the newspaper.
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The U.S. market analysts predict a new shock to the markets. After Obama’s intentions to repair the banking system radically, according to them, now it is time for China to throw bombs in markets. This time, however, no room for panic, because it is forecast that China will take once an increase in the value of its currency. This should give a strong impetus to the markets, as can be extremely useful for most economies in the world. At this stage, however, nothing is certain, so do not make the mistake to trust fully the hearing, Brian Kelly warns of Kanundrum. “Many foreign exchange traders talking about this for quite some time, but so far nothing like that has happened,” he said. Kelly himself believes that it is very likely to happen. “There are political and economic will in China to do so, he believes. “From an economic standpoint, if inflation continues to grow, they will be most useful to let the yuan to rise and to suppress growth in prices. Purely political, such a decision would simply make the situation of China to the world a favor, “he said.
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Disappointing data on the reduction of employment in the U.S. economy in December, however, failed to wipe out the economic optimism of investors. He was a driver of the rally on Wall Street over the past ten months, together with the measures of governments and central banks to combat the effects of financial and economic crisis. The next few weeks, will be much more dynamic with the beginning of the first corporation to the new year season. Three of the largest companies in the index of blue chip Dow Jones IA – Alcoa, Intel and JPMorgan Chase, will publish its financial results for the fourth quarter of last year over the next five days, police CNN. On the economic front, the most important will be data on retail sales in the U.S. in December, and those for consumer confidence, industrial output and trade balance. The indexes reached new 15-month highs earlier this year, their rally would depend largely on the financial performance of the stock companies that would be indicative of the actual state of the economy. For the last quarter of 2009 is expected to increase the profits of companies in the S & P 500 by over 200% yoy. However impressive forecast is due largely to the sharp deterioration in financial results over the last comparable quarter of 2008, when the crisis hit very companies most like those suffered from the automotive and financial sectors. Week, and corporate season will begin with reports of aluminum giant Alcoa, which is expected earnings per share of 6 cents to a loss of 28 cents a year ago. On Tuesday, after the end of the session and the results will come out of the technology company Intel, which is expected to more than seven times greater earnings per share from 30 cents.
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Expanding markets in Central and Eastern Europe will suffer relatively good shocks, created after the credit crunch in Dubai, says an analysis of the Italian UniCredit. The reason for this is that banks in the region are not directly affected, as in Western Europe. Another analysis of Credit Suisse predicts that financial institutions in Western Europe stand to lose nearly 13 billion dollars in the bankruptcy of the Dubai government investment fund Dubai World. According to UniCredit Central and Eastern Europe for short will be negatively affected by debt problems of Dubai as there is an increase in so-called Risk Aversion or willingness to invest in less risky assets. The bank argued that the presence of the IMF in some countries in the region has some stability. In conclusion the bank determines that Eastern Europe will be affected, but only in the short term, not long, and is not expected to have a serious debt problem in the region. Regarded as one of the most brilliant financial centers in the world until a year ago, Dubai is now among the most uncreditworthy countries on the planet. Again according to Credit Suisse analysis of the emirate to the obligations of European banks are more than 13 billion euros. Spark of hope given the solidarity shown by Abu Dhabi. Two banks of the emirate already unlocked $ 5 billion needed for the most urgent needs of Dubai, cited by BNR correspondent in Beirut.
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The European indexes closed in positive territory, trading, fell after concerns about the effect of the Dubai requested postponement of debt payments. Shares of Royal Bank of Scotland, which provided the greatest amount of loans of the Dubai government investment holding company Dubai World from January 2007 onwards, jumped 5.2 percent after yesterday fell to a seven-month minimum. Michelin and Volkswagen shares up led by the automotive sector yesterday after the industrial group of companies for cars and auto parts, included in the index Dow Jones Stoxx 600 slipped 4.3 percent. Stoxx 600 ended the session with an increase of 1,3 percent to 242.85 points, after earlier in the day lost 1.8 percent. Index yesterday reported the strongest decline since April because of the news from Dubai. Major national indexes rose in all 18 western European markets except Luxembourg and Iceland. The UK’s FTSE rose 1% to 5245.73 points, the French CAC 40 advanced by 1,2 per cent to 3721.45 points while the German DAX added 1.3 percent to 5685.61 points.
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