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Strategies & Market Trends : Currents of Currency -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ahda who wrote (76)	9/8/2003 3:01:42 PM
From: Ahda	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 594

chinaonline.com

To: Ahda who wrote (76)	9/17/2003 5:14:41 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 594

Re: The US UK Europe and Canada all fight inflation.... Euro-inflation?! Ma scherzi! Yet another chink in the USD/EURO parity peg (as if France & Germany flunking the Growth&Stability Pact was not enough...): Italian shoppers strike to protest prices Elisabetta Provoledo IHT Wednesday, September 17, 2003 ROME Many Italians did without their morning cornetto and cappuccino, said basta to pasta, and put off updating their designer wardrobes for at least a day on Tuesday, complying with a consumers' strike to protest rising prices. Fed up with price increases that many Italians say are the result of the introduction of euro banknotes more than 20 months ago, the boycott meant to send a strong message to retailers and the government that consumers could pull shut their purse strings at will. By late-afternoon, the Intesa dei Consumatori, a consortium of consumer advocacy groups that championed the strike, claimed that some 47 percent of Italians, or around 26.5 million people, had participated in the 24-hour boycott, by not buying at least one item they would commonly have purchased. Rosario Trefiletti, president of Federconsumatori, a pro-strike group, dismissed questions about the accuracy of the figures and instead focused on consumer attitudes. "We know that today 99.9 percent of all Italian families are worried about price increases," he said. "A year ago people were less aware" of the effect of the conversion to the euro, "but when fruit costs 50 percent more, it's easy to see that something's not right." Inflation figures released by the national statistics institute Istat on Monday were somewhat more conservative, with prices in August 2.8 percent higher than a year earlier. But consumers' groups have been increasingly questioning Istat's calculations. Figures compiled by various advocacy groups and published in national newspapers in recent weeks included a report of a 20 percent increase for cappuccini in Naples and a 12 percent increase for haircuts in Rome. The Rome daily La Repubblica on Tuesday ran pre-and post-euro prices, showing a doubling for many items, from beer to mineral water. Not all consumer-rights groups agreed with the boycott. Altroconsumo, whose 270,000 members make it the largest of the 14 advocacy groups recognized by the Italian government, did not support the strike. "Traditionally we have a more active approach and try to help consumers chose the best products, spurring market competition," said Altroconsumo's president, Paolo Martinello, who added that striking indiscriminately gave the message that everyone was to be blamed for the price increases. Taking it out on the euro was also simplistic, he said. "Certainly some people profited from the introduction of the euro, but the real problem is that accords were not adhered to and prices were not kept under control." Altroconsumo and some other consumer rights groups believe that disseminating widely distorted figures only gives some retailers an excuse to match them. "If you think inflation is high it becomes an alibi to increase prices," Martinello said. International Herald Tribune iht.com