It was the week of central banks announcements. But frankly speaking nothing new has happened. ECB let rates unchanged and so to say the Bank of England. Mario Draghi admitted that euro area growth is still under question and that we may expect prolonged period of low inflation. This brings us back to the question what kind of arms ECB will use in the future concerning inflation, support of economy and backing the back of some sovereign nations as Spain, Italy or Portugal which experiencing low rates on their sovereign bonds.
Unemployment of the Eurozone remains unchanged at 12.1 % as expected. The lowest rates are in Austria (4.8%), Germany (5.2%) and Luxembourg (6.1%), and the highest in Greece (27.4% in September 2013) and Spain (26.7%). The only surprise is that Spain youth unemployment is (probably because statistics from Greece are delayed) higher than Greece one and is at stunning 57.7%.
Thanks to God, José Barroso has declared victory again. The European Commission chief told that the eurozone crisis is finally over. Ireland has exited from rescue program and Latvia has joined the euro and is now the EU’s fastest growing country. Brisk future is before us.
This is not the case for France. Their attempt to introduce 75 % tax was approved by constitutional court. But country is facing many problems caused by very extensive social policies. One example. Two managers of Goodyear Tire Company were captured by unions’ workers for more than 30 hours because union workers did not agree with the closure of the ineffective company. French workers have a history of holding managers captive. Companies including, 3M, Sony and Caterpillar were affected in 2009 as well. Generally workers have not been prosecuted for holding their bosses captive and according to the CGT union, the “two managers have been given water and still have their mobile phones”.
It seems that China Banking Regulatory Commission is full aware of the threats of shadow banking system which is estimated as 69 % of GDP of the country in 2012. China’s banking regulator told lenders to publish data including off-balance-sheet assets and interbank liabilities. Lenders with total assets of $264 billion or more must publish 12 indicators within four months of the end of each financial year. To watch China in 2014 will be worth of your time. Why? Because the new crisis trigger could come from this country.
Venezuela is experiencing tough times. It is 56 % official inflation rate in the country and government has introduced fixed prices for some products. The consequence of it is lack of everything. The story of an ordinary taxi driver of border town Maracaibo is very informative. He has to drive to Columbia to buy rise because he haven´t seen it in the shops since July. President Maduro solves problems with no food very clever. Maduro has urged citizens to abstain from “nervous buying” of imports, saying on state television Jan. 6 that “consumerism is an addiction that destroys the human being.” To be addict on food is a problem.
The most important but widely expected event from US was election of Janet Yellen as the first women president of the FED. Good by Ben and welcome Jannet but from the point of view of the policy of the FED has nothing changed apart from the fact that Yellen could be more pro stimulus oriented person as Bernanke. The minutes reveled that many FOMC members favored QE tapering in `measured steps‘ and most participants were more confident in job market gains. Job market showed us decline in unemployment from 7 to 6.7 % but the economy creates only 75 k jobs pretty below 200 k expectations and labor force participation rate is the lowest since 1978.
Matúš Pošvanc