Signalpost

Vicious spiral

The Russian economy goes from bad to worse. Treasury now expects a decline in gross domestic product in 2009 to 2.2 percent. From an earlier forecast of 0.2 percent. in negative growth. It says Russia’s Deputy Economics Minister Andrei Klepach, according to Bloomberg News.

Had high hopes

In the autumn forecast was positive, with different expectations of up to 6 percent. in growth in 2009, but has only gone one way – downwards. Eventhough Russia fare from is hte only large economy in the world, that is experiencing the crisis coming closer, it is extra tough on this fragile economy read more aboute the Russian economy here

Harms the security

The global economic crisis is the biggest threat to American security, and a quarter of all countries have experienced at least a bit of instability because of the states in a new report from U.S. intelligence services.

Will al-Qaeda run free

In the annual report on the assessments of the threats to stability and security states also that al-Qaeda leadership has been weakened over a year ago. The retired Admiral Dennis Blair, who is Head of the national intelligence, says that Al Qaeda continues to plan attacks against the West and is believed to have special focus on Europe.

Can’t follow-up in Pakistan

Blair says that pressure from the U.S. and its allies against al-Qaeda leadership in Pakistan and the network’s setbacks in Iraq have resulted in an impairment. “But security has also deteriorated in Afghanistan and the situation may not improve until Pakistan win control over its border to the country,”.

North Korea

The report states that it will be difficult to persuade Iran to abandon its controversial nuclear program. About North Korea says that the communist state probably will only use nuclear bombs, if Kim Jong-ils regime threatened its survival.

One bad thing never comes alone!

Several different accidents have struck the american economy at the same time. The result; the world’s greatest economy is in “an exceptional difficult period”, if one aske  the OECD.

What happened?

All of a sudden the real estate market crashed, the finance cricis struck and combined with high foodcosts prices these factors have lead to that the financial activities abruptly slowed down during 2008. The bad times for the americans are fare from done. OSED predicts that 2009 will been at least just as bad. The BNP is expected to fall by 1 percent, the private spending by 1,2 % and the unemployment rate is expected to rise from 5,7 % to 7,3 %. read more aboute the financial crises here

Long-term liquidity crisis?

The crisis keeps setting new lows, and governments and central banks are desperately fighting back with everything they’ve got. But what are the long-term effects of US government interventions?

There have been a lot of different opinions about how the US government have handled the financial crisis, and how they should handle it moving forward – both among economic experts, but also, as we saw with the rescue package bill, among themselves. Many believe the government has done the right thing by interfering in the financial markets, providing liquidity, helping packages, etc. etc. And of course it seems as a satisfactory solution when the market bounce right up in the minutes following the announcements, but what will the medium or long-term effects of this be? Spitting too much money out in the banks and in the financial system will obviously have consequences on a long-term basis, and will probably cause the end of a number of planned government projects and goals. On the environment side, take for example the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), a project which the US government set in motion with a goal of achieving a 15% rate of alternative energy by the year of 2020. Not only is it unsure how they will finance the project after pumping liquidity into the markets and potentially raising taxes, but the financial crisis have also set it’s marks on the alternative energy providers that the US would be working with in order to achieve this goal, such as Siemens and Danish company Vestas, both of which have previously (even before the crisis) had trouble with meeting clients’ demands. Long-term finacial liquidity crisis and the Liquidity Solutions