Factoid: India customs duty receipts up 64% so far this fiscal year

Trade is apparently booming, particularly imports.

Irish take money out of banks. Home safe sales up 80%

Ireland: Safe Sales Soar as Worried Bank Customers Keep Money at Home

December 14th, 2010
Via: Independent:
SAFE sales are soaring as more and more worried bank customers stash their cash at home.
AIB said last month that the amount of money on deposit at the bank has fallen by €13bn since the start of the year — although it blamed most of the reduction on withdrawals by companies and financial institutions.
Another reason for the increased use of home security safes is a growing fear of burglaries because of the recession.
The AllSafes.ie company, one of the largest suppliers in the country, said its sales of home safes had increased by 80pc over the past three months compared with the same period last year.

Quote of the Day: "Let them eat asparagus!"

From today's New York Times:

Judge Hudson, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, commented during the October hearing that the federal government’s position would give Congress “boundless” authority to force Americans “to buy an automobile, to join a gym, to eat asparagus.”

Obama Weighs Tax Overhaul in Bid to Address Debt

Obama has instructed Treasury to study the tax code to see if rates could be lowered, simplified to generate more revenue. This is a positive development since although our corporate rate is 35%, the typical company pays 9% by going through complicated and expensive contortions. A simplification would benefit everyone, particularly small businesses.

US bank assets/GDP only 82%, much lower than Europe

Significance: No further banking crisis in US.

Bank assets as a percentage of GDP

Luxembourg 2,461
Ireland 872
Switzerland 723
Denmark 477
Iceland 458
Netherlands 432
United Kingdom 389
Belgium 380
Sweden 340
France 338
Austria 299
Spain 251
Germany 246
Finland 205
Australia 205
Portugal 188
Canada 157
Italy 151
Greece 141

(For comparison, total banking assets in the U.S. are equal to approximately 82 percent of GDP.)

Dramatic food inflation in India. Prices are up double digits.

An Indian economist reports:

“While headline food inflation may have come down to single digits last week, prices on the streets do not seem to be cooling off proportionally. Adding to the woes are unseasonal rains in India’s western region and floods in the southern part. Shivram—a wholesale vegetable dealer in Chennai—says that the recent floods have devastated standing crops, including vegetables, and are sending prices up. Dealer checks in Nagpur too confirm similar trends: prices of most vegetables have increased by more than 40% in the last fortnight, with the commonly-used onion leading the charge with a ~100% increase in Mumbai and Chennai.
The recent surge in oil prices—of >10% over the last month—has lead to expectations of inflation spiraling up again and amplified concerns over government finances due to the higher oil subsidy bill. “

This is bound to be extremely disruptive in a country where the poor spend most of their income on food.

Southern countries in Euroland uncompetitive due to strong currency

From the NYT today:

"The World Economic Forum has issued competitiveness ratings for 20 years based on increasingly sophisticated measures, including government, law, ethics, infrastructure, technology, debt and education, said its lead economist, Jennifer Blanke. Germany ranks fifth in the world of 139 countries, just after the United States. The Netherlands is 8th, France 15th, Austria 18th, Belgium 19th. But the southern economies of the euro zone are a different story. Ireland comes in at 29, Spain at 42, Portugal at 46, Italy at 48 and Greece at 83."

In the same article, Roubini says Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece will have to reduce wages by 30% to regain competitiveness.

And the winner is? GERMANY!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/world/europe/03divide.html
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