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

To: arun gera who wrote (60742)	2/5/2010 8:55:31 PM
From: Cogito Ergo Sum	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217930

No never been... also on the list.. My only experience there is with Toronto's south Asian community and they're just as consumptive as anyone else :O)... I understand though that Indian consumers are still considerably under 60% of the their economy.. but yes much ahead of Chinese consumers who I think are still sub 40%.. I know from experience (visiting and talking) that lack of social services (health care for example) weighs on the Chinese so they are less likely to spend as much of their income.. Dunno about India social services though... TBS

To: arun gera who wrote (60742)	2/5/2010 9:43:31 PM
From: LoneClone	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 217930

I agree. India and China and the smaller countries like Indonesia and Brazil are rapidly becoming less reliant on the export markets. Both the Chinese and Indian middle classes already dwarf the American middle class in numbers and are rapidly growing; given the available supply of commodities it's hard to imagine how they can manage to even equal the Americans in consumption, even at their present size. This is not to say that their consumption patterns will be identical to Americans'; the lack of the social safety net and public health system means they will need to maintain larger savings. LC

To: arun gera who wrote (60742)	2/6/2010 3:20:14 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 217930

The “i” in the Pigs acronym stands for Ireland and not Italy, where higher private savings and better management of public finances put it “in a significantly stronger position” than Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain, UniCredit SpA said in a report. The ’I’ in ‘Pigs’ Stands for Ireland, Not Italy (Update2) By Lorenzo Totaro Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The “i” in the Pigs acronym stands for Ireland and not Italy, where higher private savings and better management of public finances put it “in a significantly stronger position” than Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain, UniCredit SpA said in a report. “When talking about Pigs, the ‘i’ stands for Ireland, not Italy,” UniCredit economists said in an e-mailed note today. Italy, “as investors have already recognized, is a different species, with problems of its own (anemic growth).” The nicknames Pigs and Piigs, the latter including both Ireland and Italy, have become popular as investors dump assets in the euro-zone’s smaller economies on concern that they will have trouble cutting their budget deficits. “The correct spelling is PIGS, not PIIGS,” economists at the Milan-based bank including Marco Annunziata wrote in the report. Italy, after emerging from its worst recession since World War II in the third quarter, will have a “weak recovery” this year, the Bank of Italy said on Jan. 15. While Italy has Europe’s second-highest debt, its 2009 budget gap of 5.3 percent of gross domestic product was about half the size of the shortfalls in Portugal, Ireland, Greece or Spain. Southern Europe Italy is a “less risky fiscal sinner” because of its lower deficit, higher private savings and “still apparently strong” fiscal policies, which all “limit the sovereign risk” to the country, Michael Saunders and other economists at Citigroup Inc. in London said today in an e-mailed note. “Italy is in a more comfortable position than the other Southern European countries because of a stronger balance sheet,” Eric Nielsen, chief European economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in London, said today in a research note to clients. While Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain “all have low Standard & Poor’s ratings coupled with a negative rating outlook, Italy is the only country with a stable outlook,” the UniCredit economists said in the report. Stocks in Spain, Portugal and Greece plunged today, with the Athens Stock Exchange Index falling to the lowest level since April. Yields on Greece’s 10-year bonds and Portugal’s 2- year securities have jumped to the highest levels against German bunds since the late 1990s. The yield on 10-year Irish bonds fell 3 basis points to 4.80 percent. The yield on Italian 10- years bonds slipped almost 1 basis point to 4.05 percent. Insurance Costs Credit-default swaps on the sovereign debt of Greece, Spain and Portugal rose to record levels, according to today’s CMA DataVision prices. The securities unit of London-based Barclays Plc told analysts yesterday not to use the Pigs acronym in notes to clients, according to a memo obtained by Bloomberg News. Mark Lane, a spokesman for Barclays in New York, declined to comment. “By denigrating a nation in the process of trying to describe a financial situation, it sort of puts the people in that country behind the eight ball,” said Peter Sorrentino, a senior money manager at Cincinnati-based Huntington Asset Advisors who is visiting Italy in March. His firm oversees $12.8 billion. “It serves no one’s interest. We’re all in the same boat together.” To contact the reporter responsible for this story: Lorenzo Totaro in Rome at ltotaro@bloomberg.net