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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (53584)	8/15/2009 3:51:19 AM
From: Elroy Jetson	1 Recommendation Respond to of 217750

The solution for wireline carriers is quite simple. File for bankruptcy to liquidate their bonds and other debt. A deflationary non-event. .

To: TobagoJack who wrote (53584)	8/15/2009 3:53:53 AM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 217750

not enough paper to print Money. West dying under the weight of unfunded pension liabilities! California's pension powder keg,. The state's obligations are outstripping its ability to pay. Now is a good time to put reforms back on the table. Pension deficits at Britain's biggest companies soar to £100bn record • FTSE 100 firms' shortfall is double previous estimate • 'Prognosis bleak' for final salary schemes BT: A blacker pension hole Robert Peston \| 11:23 UK time, Thursday, 30 July 2009 BT seems to me to have been a bit disingenuous this morning in the way it has presented its first quarter results. U.S. state pensions face overhaul in bad economy Fri Aug 7, 2009 3:34pm EDT By Karen Pierog and Jim Christie CHICAGO/SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 7 (Reuters) - When Illinois was facing at least $55 billion in unfunded pension liabilities back in March, Governor Pat Quinn outlined what he called "bold reform" for the state's retirement system Mercer: Unfunded pension liabilities increased in July Boston Business Journal - by Tim McLaughlin The funded status of pension plans sponsored by S&P 1500 companies deteriorated by $34 billion in July, despite an upturn in the stock market, according to estimates by Norwood-based consulting company Mercer.

To: TobagoJack who wrote (53584)	8/15/2009 4:06:43 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 217750

Nortel's Canadian pensioners fear U.S. asset-grab. They say they're worried that the U.S. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. will try to get Canadian assets of the insolvent company to cover a $514-million deficit in the U.S. pension plan. With the Nortel Networks pension plan in more trouble than previously believed, the U.S. government stepped in Friday to take control of the U.S. pension plan and guarantee the pensions of 23,000 employees and retirees in that country. vancouversun.com

To: TobagoJack who wrote (53584)	8/18/2009 8:02:39 AM
From: Elroy Jetson	3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217750

My discovery as a journalist is that deflation is a taboo subject. Those who came of age in the 1970s mostly refuse to accept that such an outcome is remotely possible, and that includes a few regional Fed governors and the German-led core of the European Central Bank. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard -- 15 Aug 2009 -- Telegraph.co.uk As a matter of strict fact, two- thirds of the global economy is already in “deflation-lite”. US prices fell 2.1pc in July year-on-year, the steepest drop since 1950. Import prices are down 7.3pc, even after stripping out energy. At almost every stage over the last year, in almost every country (except Britain), deflationary forces have proved stronger than expected. Elsewhere, the CPI figures are: Ireland (-5.9), Thailand (-4.4), Taiwan (-2.3), Japan (-1.8), China (-1.8), Belgium (-1.7), Spain (-1.4), Malaysia (-1.4), Switzerland (-1.2), France (-0.7), Germany (-0.6), Canada (-0.3). Even countries such as France and Germany eking out slight recoveries are seeing a contraction in “nominal” GDP. This is new outside Japan, and matters for debt dynamics. Ireland’s nominal GDP is shrinking 13pc annually: debt stays still. Global prices will rebound later this year as commodity costs feed through – though that may not last once China pricks its credit bubble after the 60th anniversary of the revolution in October. My fear – hopefully wrong – is that we are being boiled slowly like frogs, complacent until it is too late to jump out of the deflation pot. The sugar rush of fiscal stimulus in the West will subside within a few months. Those “cash-for-clunkers” schemes that have lifted France and Germany out of recession – just – change nothing. They draw forward spending, leading to a cliff-edge fall later. (This is not a criticism. Governments did the right thing given the emergency). The thaw in trade finance has led to a V-shaped rebound in East Asia as pent up exports are shipped. But again, nothing fundamental has changed. Deficit countries in the Anglo-Sphere, Club Med, and East Europe are all on diets. People talk too much about “liquidity” – a slippery term – and not enough about concrete demand. Professor James Livingston at Rutgers University says we have been blinded by Milton Friedman, who convinced our economic elites and above all Fed chair Ben Bernanke that the Depression was a “credit event” that could have been avoided by a monetary blast (helicopters/QE). Under that schema, we should be safely clear of trouble before long this time. Mr Livingston’s “Left-Keynesian” view is that a widening gap between rich and poor in the 1920s incubated the Slump. The profit share of GDP grew: the wage share fell – just as now, in today’s case because globalisation lets business exploit “labour arbitrage” by playing off Western workers against the Asian wages. The rich do not spend (much), they accumulate capital. Hence the investment bubble of the 1920s, even as consumption stagnated. There is one overwhelming fact about the world economy that cannot be wished away. Excess capacity in industry is hovering at levels not seen since the Great Depression. Justin Lin, the World Bank’s chief economist, warned last month that half-empty factories risk setting off a “deflationary spiral”. We are moving into a phase where the “real economy crisis” bites deeper – meaning mass lay-offs and drastic falls in investment as firms retrench. “Unless we deal with excess capacity, it will wreak havoc on all countries,” he said. Mr Lin said capacity use had fallen to 72pc in Germany, 69pc in the US, 65pc in Japan, and near 50pc in some poorer countries. These are post-War lows. Fresh data from the Federal Reserve is actually worse. Capacity use in US manufacturing fell to 65.4pc in July. telegraph.co.uk .