Tag: Crisis

Sep 09

The mysterious bids on ALCOA’s plant in Sardinia

The Italian government has received only generic expressions of interest in Alcoa Inc’s loss-making aluminium plant on the island of Sardinia and there is no firm bid on the table, Industry Minister Corrado Passera told Reuters on Sunday. But Unions and Regione Sardegna disprove and say that Glencore and Klesch are interested and made their …

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Sep 08

China and Russia sound alarm on global economy

China sounded the alarm about the state of the global economy on Saturday at APEC summit, and Russian President Putin also expresses concern. Chinese leaders call for stronger integration in APEC Countries (Reuters), while promising they will work to provide a better policy environment to attract foreign investments in China (Reuters). Meanwhile, chinese companies keep …

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Sep 02

Bank lending slows in Brazil as loan delinquency climbs

Brazil’s banks abruptly slowed the pace of loan disbursements in July as caution took center stage among private sector lenders seeking to protect earnings from near record delinquencies and a drop in borrowing costs (Reuters).

Sep 01

Next winners in the global economy

Who is going to win the global competition between old and new economies? Dani Rodrik’s insight, professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, provides a three condition scenario for relative growth: “those that do relatively better will share three characteristics. First, they will not be weighed down by high levels of public debt. Second, …

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Aug 29

The ECB’s role against spread

Beyond the debate over the pros and cons of direct ECB’s actions to sustain the price of European bonds under attack, Andrew Bosomworth, managing director of the German office of Pimco, the world’s largest investor in government bonds, fears that the new program will mainly attract speculators rather than long-term lenders. “If interest rates for …

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Aug 28

Italy for sale #3

Bad news or a helping hand for those at work on the big sale of Italian assets? Martti Hetemäki, Vice-Minister of Finance and Kare Halonen, Secretary of the State Council of Finland are today in Rome for confidential meetings with members of the Italian government, to provide the Finnish recipe to drop the debt cake: …

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Aug 23

They see a light

The most influential members of the Italian government have been the leading actors of the annual convention of Comunione e Liberazione, the powerful catholic sect with a strong bias for business and many leaders convicted or prosecuted for bribing. Probably due to the mystic atmosphere in the “Meeting” and against any evidence and data (see …

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