Política e economia internacional

[Orion]

Sinais dos tempos...

The American middle class, long the most affluent in the world, has lost that distinction.

While the wealthiest Americans are outpacing many of their global peers, a New York Times analysis shows that across the lower- and middle-income tiers, citizens of other advanced countries have received considerably larger raises over the last three decades.

After-tax middle-class incomes in Canada — substantially behind in 2000 — now appear to be higher than in the United States. The poor in much of Europe earn more than poor Americans.

...

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101602523

 

[Orion]

The Spanish government is using fines, harassment and excessive police force to limit the right to protest, Amnesty International warned in a new report released on Thursday.

Against a backdrop of chronic unemployment and shrinking public funds for education, health and social services, a growing number of Spaniards have taken to the streets in recent years. But "instead of listening to their demands, instead of starting a dialogue, authorities are doing everything they can to impede people from protesting", said the report's author, Virginia Álvarez.

Amnesty International tracked several protests in Madrid and Barcelona during the past year, gathering first-person accounts, interviewing journalists and lawyers and analysing videos and photographs.

The resulting report paints a stark picture of a heavy-handed government response to the country's growing social movements.

"With threats of fines or threats of being beaten, the government is trying to stigmatise and criminalise people who are just practising their rights."

(...)

Amnesty International found that although the vast majority of protesters were peaceful, police treated them in the same manner as those who incited violence. In many cases, said the report, police had used excessive force to confront protesters.

"The impunity of police in Spain is something we've been covering for many years," said Álvarez. "But now we're seeing it in the distinct context of social protest."

(...)

Many of those interviewed by Amnesty International had been detained by police during protests. They spoke of treatment that varied by gender, with men often subject to a higher degree of violence and women pelted with sexist insults. One 21-year-old shared her frustration at being called Snow White and taunted over whether she wanted sex or water while being taken into custody.

These actions are having a dissuasive effect on protesters, said the organisation. As one 49-year-old activist explained: "They say that the movements are losing force, but the reality is that people are scared."

Citing public disobedience, fines ranging from €300 to €1,500 (£250 to £1,245) have become commonplace for protesters, said Jezerca Tigani, deputy director for Europe at Amnesty International.

"Many of the people who are attending these protests face financial constraints. They are totally and completely unable to pay the fine," she added.

The members of the Mortgage Victims' Platform (PAH), in their fight to halt the number of home repossessions in Spain, have racked up more than €40,000 in fines.

...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ting-protest-fines-harassment-excessive-force

Será que os drones da democracia e dos direitos humanos vão para Espanha também?

 

[Orion]

Four major tech companies including Apple and Google have agreed to pay a total of $324 million to settle a lawsuit accusing them of conspiring to hold down salaries in Silicon Valley, sources familiar with the deal said, just weeks before a high profile trial had been scheduled to begin.

Tech workers filed a class action lawsuit against Apple Inc, Google Inc, Intel Inc and Adobe Systems Inc in 2011, alleging they conspired to refrain from soliciting one another's employees in order to avert a salary war. They planned to ask for $3 billion in damages at trial, according to court filings. That could have tripled to $9 billion under antitrust law.

The case has been closely watched due to the potentially high damages award and the opportunity to peek into the world of Silicon Valley's elite. The case was based largely on emails in which Apple's late co-founder Steve Jobs, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and some of their Silicon Valley rivals hatched plans to avoid poaching each other's prized engineers.

...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/24/us-apple-google-lawsuit-exclusive-idUSBREA3N28Z20140424

Free-market no seu melhor.

 

[Orion]

Artigo no Daily Mail de hoje. 40 anos depois, ainda há vítimas do agente laranja:







Deve ser o delírio dos anti-comunistas. As novas gerações vêm completamente estropiadas.

Por fim, a China vai começar a denominar os contratos de petróleo em Yuan (deixando o dólar):

The Shanghai Futures Exchange is ready to roll out the country's first yuan-denominated crude oil futures, which it hopes will become a benchmark in Asia before gaining global influence.

Yang Maijun, the bourse's chairman, said foreign investors will be allowed to trade in the contract without setting up a local subsidiary.

Similar contracts for non-ferrous metals, precious metals and natural rubber will follow suit.

The bourse has finished all "technical preparations", Yang said, and is awaiting regulatory approval from the government on the groundbreaking contract.

...

http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2014-03/12/content_17342137.htm

 

[Orion]

In May 2014, presidents of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus will sign an agreement on the establishment of the Eurasian Economic Union. Sections 9 and 11 the agreement, the draft of which is available on the official website of the Russian Ministry for Economic Development, are devoted to the joint monetary policy and financial markets. During the first stage, it is planned to set up an advisory board of the heads of central banks of participating states. The banks would be responsible for the rate of national currencies, regulation of banking and insurance activities and the harmonization of the securities market.

According to the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper that cited a source in the Eurasian Economic Commission, the document stipulates for the establishment of the Eurasian Central Bank - the supranational megaregulator of the joint currency. The Eurasian Central Bank will be subordinated to the council of presidents or prime ministers of the EEU.

The name of the new joint currency has been supposedly coordinated - altyn. The new currency is likely to be introduced not later than in 2025, although international economic sanctions against Russia may cut the process to 3-5 years.

The idea of ​​the new joint currency belongs to Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. In 2012, the idea found support with Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev. In Russia, altyn was the word to refer to three-kopeck coins.

The President of Kazakhstan is a longtime champion of the introduction of a new supranational reserve currency. He believes the dollar is an illegal and non-competitive means of payment. Nazarbayev said earlier that the "world currency was not de jure legitimate because it was never adopted by any communities or organizations." "There is no such international law," he said.

According to Nazarbayev, "the world currency market is not a civilized market, as the system of world currency issuance is not being controlled." The Kazakh president believes that the world is moving towards a new monetary system: from "defective capitalism" to "the new capitalism that would be based on a non-defective currency - self-growing global wealth.

...

http://english.pravda.ru/russia/eco...325-russia_kazakhstan_belarus_new_currency-0/

 

[Orion]

Para mostrar que as Agências de Rating são um logro monumental e arma política (Não admira, são pagas pelos mesmos bancos que avaliam):

A norte-americana Standard & Poor’s (S&P) baixou a nota da dívida soberana da Rússia de BBB para BBB-, mantendo a perspetiva negativa, dada a probabilidade do Ocidente reforçar as sanções contra Moscovo por causa da crise na Ucrânia.

O ‘rating’ da dívida russa em moeda estrangeira fica assim apenas um nível acima da categoria de “lixo”.

http://pt.euronews.com/2014/04/25/sp-coloca-rating-da-divida-russa-a-beira-de-lixo/

Ou seja, está ao mesmo nível de Chipre, que roubou o dinheiro dos depositantes...

A agência de notação financeira Standard&Poors subiu a notação de Chipre de 'B-' para 'B' e a Fitch melhorou a perspetiva de 'negativa' para 'estável', invocando os progressos do país mediterrâneo na aplicação do programa de ajustamento da troika.

Em comunicado, a Standard&Poor's (S&P) destaca que o Produto Interno Bruto (PIB) em Chipre se contraiu 5,4% em 2013, ou seja, "menos do que o esperado" face à estimativa inicial de uma contração de 8,7%, e considera que a aplicação das medidas exigidas pela troika «reduzem os riscos em torno do pagamento integral e atempado da dívida».

Além disso, a agência de rating acredita que Chipre poderá alcançar com sucesso os seus objetivos económicos para 2014 e não afasta a possibilidade de voltar a subir a notação do país nos próximos doze meses.

http://www.tvi24.iol.pt/503/economi...micas-crescimento-economico/1552446-6377.html

... e da Grécia que vai precisar de mais um resgate no Verão:

A Grécia está no bom caminho, a acreditar na Standard & Poor’s. A agência manteve o rating de longo prazo, em B-, com perspetiva estável. A nota de curto prazo também se mantém, em B.

Em comunicado, a agência refere o reequilíbrio gradual da economia grega, aposta na diminuição das tensões sociais e acrescenta mesmo, “a notável consolidação orçamental” do país.

No entanto, a Standard & Poor’s alerta para o nível elevado da dívida externa grega: 400% do PIB, bem longe dos 60% estipulados no Pacto de Estabilidade da União Europeia.

http://pt.euronews.com/2014/03/21/sp-mantem-nota-da-grecia/

(...)

Um eventual terceiro resgate deverá ser discutido no verão. Em contrapartida desse terceiro pacote, a Grécia pode negociar um novo acordo de redução de dívida com os credores.

http://www.jornaldenegocios.pt/econ...ai_atingir_maximo_de_177_do_pib_este_ano.html

Resta dizer que a dívida da Rússia (que deu calote em 98) em 2012 era de uns assombrosos...

(...)

While average public debt in advanced economies exceeds 110 percent of GDP, Russia's public debt is no more than 10 percent of GDP. Unemployment dropped to 5.4 percent in January 2012, a record low for the last two decades, and wages grew at a solid pace.

(...)

http://rbth.com/news/2013/02/26/wor..._gdp_growth_forecast_to_33_percent_23266.html

 

[Orion]

História pouco difundida mas o Vìrus MERS está de novo a contabilizar vítimas:

Saudi Arabia reported eight more deaths from Middle East Respiratory Syndrome as the number of cases in the outbreak climbed to 339.

(...)

Egypt reported its first case of MERS April 26 through state-run news agency Ahram Gate. It said an Egyptian man was admitted to hospital after arriving from Riyadh, where he had been living for four years.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...three-centers-to-deal-with-mers-outbreak.html

Saudi Arabia confirmed 26 more cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), which has killed nearly a third of sufferers, and said 10 more people have died from the disease.

The confirmations follow Egypt's announcement on Saturday that it had confirmed its first case of MERS in a man who had recently returned to the country from Riyadh, where he was working.

Saudi Arabia, where MERS was discovered around two years ago and which remains the country most affected, has now had 339 confirmed cases of MERS, of which 102 have been fatal.

The 143 cases announced since the start of April represent a 73 percent jump in total infections in Saudi Arabia this month.

...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/27/us-saudi-mers-idUSBREA3Q02F20140427

Também já chegou à Grécia:

A man in Athens, Greece was recently admitted to intensive care at a local hospital and diagnosed with the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, according to local health officials and the World Health Organization. The 69-year-old patient had recently traveled back to his home country from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he currently resides. This is the first known case of MERS in Greece.

...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...three-centers-to-deal-with-mers-outbreak.html

O Washington Post também fez alusão a esta epidemia:

On Thursday, the Saudi Arabian health ministry confirmed 13 more cases of patients contracting MERS-CoV, the acronym for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus, as well as two more deaths. MERS-CoV is an infectious disease with no known cure and is considered more deadly than SARS--which killed some 800 people during a 2002-2003 outbreak that first started in China. Since 2012, 83 people have died and 285 people have contracted the virus in the Kingdom alone. It has spread to the neighboring United Arab Emirates. Reports also suggest pilgrims from as far afield as Malaysia and the Philippines contracted the virus while on hajj in Mecca.

...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...mers-virus-is-spreading-at-a-terrifying-rate/

 

[Orion]

Outras duas notícias interessantes são:

1- A Bolha Imobiliária no Canadá:



http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...-canada-us-homes-hits-record/article18118369/


2 - Problemas na indústria dos transportes marítimos na Alemanha:

Reederei Heinrich, a 149-year-old German shipping company, risks losing two of its three vessels unless it repays loans as financial stress in the industry spreads to banks facing a European Central Bank review.

(...)

As it tries to clean up the region’s banks, the ECB is taking a closer look at whether they need more capital to absorb possible losses on loans like Robrahn’s. Shipping loans are among the riskiest assets on banks’ balance sheets and among those most prone to misstatement, an ECB spokeswoman said. German lenders including Hamburg-based HSH Nordbank, Commerzbank AG (CBK) and Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale controlled about one-third of the $475 billion global ship-finance market at the end of 2012, according to Swen Metzler, an analyst at Moody’s Investors Service in Frankfurt.

The three lenders set aside more than 3.6 billion euros in provisions for bad shipping debt in the past three years after dozens of firms in Germany’s 1,543-container-ship market, the world’s biggest, were hurt as overcapacity and an economic slump pushed down cargo prices the most since the 1970s.

(...)

“German shipping banks’ two biggest concerns at the moment are whether they get their money back and whether they need to boost capital to support their risk exposure,” Lars Heymann, partner at a unit of auditing and consulting firm PKF Fasselt Schlage, whose clients include shipping companies, said in an interview at his office in Hamburg.

HSH Nordbank reported 9 billion euros of bad shipping debt, or about 43 percent of its loans to the industry, in fourth-quarter earnings published April 10. Nonperforming shipping loans at Commerzbank, Germany’s second-biggest bank, amounted to about 3.9 billion euros at the end of 2013, or 27 percent of its lending to the maritime industry, according to the company.

...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...in-swamped-in-debt-underscores-bank-risk.html

 

[Orion]

Um pouco de história...

Supostamente a crise de Setembro de 2008 foi algo de inesperado não foi? Ora bem:

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson stepped off the elevator into the Third Avenue offices of hedge fund Eton Park Capital Management LP in Manhattan. It was July 21, 2008, and market fears were mounting. Four months earlier, Bear Stearns Cos. had sold itself for just $10 a share to JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)

Now, amid tumbling home prices and near-record foreclosures, attention was focused on a new source of contagion: Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac, which together had more than $5 trillion in mortgage-backed securities and other debt outstanding, Bloomberg Markets reports in its January issue.

(...)

At the Eton Park meeting, he sent a different message, according to a fund manager who attended. Over sandwiches and pasta salad, he delivered that information to a group of men capable of profiting from any disclosure.

Around the conference room table were a dozen or so hedge- fund managers and other Wall Street executives -- at least five of them alumni of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), of which Paulson was chief executive officer and chairman from 1999 to 2006. In addition to Eton Park founder Eric Mindich, they included such boldface names as Lone Pine Capital LLC founder Stephen Mandel, Dinakar Singh of TPG-Axon Capital Management LP and Daniel Och of Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC.

After a perfunctory discussion of the market turmoil, the fund manager says, the discussion turned to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Paulson said he had erred by not punishing Bear Stearns shareholders more severely. The secretary, then 62, went on to describe a possible scenario for placing Fannie and Freddie into “conservatorship” -- a government seizure designed to allow the firms to continue operations despite heavy losses in the mortgage markets.

(...)

Paulson explained that under this scenario, the common stock of the two government-sponsored enterprises, or GSEs, would be effectively wiped out. So too would the various classes of preferred stock, he said.

The fund manager says he was shocked that Paulson would furnish such specific information -- to his mind, leaving little doubt that the Treasury Department would carry out the plan. The managers attending the meeting were thus given a choice opportunity to trade on that information.

There’s no evidence that they did so after the meeting; tracking firm-specific short stock sales isn’t possible using public documents.

And law professors say that Paulson himself broke no law by disclosing what amounted to inside information.

...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...s-advance-word-of-2008-fannie-mae-rescue.html

Agora é imaginar a quantidade de pessoas que ficaram podre de ricas à custa da crise "inesperada".

 

[Orion]

Almost all Chinese provinces failed to meet their growth targets in the first quarter even after scaling back their ambitions as the government instructs officials to focus on reining in debt and curbing pollution.

Thirty of 31 provinces and municipalities reported missing their goals, with the biggest shortfall in northeastern Heilongjiang, where an expansion of 4.1 percent compared with an 8.5 percent target for the year. Most localities’ targets are lower than in 2013. The latest data were released by government websites and newspapers.

Premier Li Keqiang risks the nation sliding into a deeper slowdown as the government cracks down on overcapacity in the steel industry, wrestles with shadow banking risks and rolls out economic restructuring measures. While the government has supported expansion with measures such as reserve-ratio cuts for rural banks, it has so far avoided broader stimulus as Li chases a national growth target of about 7.5 percent.

“The central government will continue to refrain from all-out stimulus and the slowdown pressure may continue to rise,” said Zhu Haibin, the chief China economist with JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Hong Kong. After a 7.4 percent expansion in the first quarter, growth may sink closer to 7 percent during the second half of this year, Zhu said.

(...)

Six provinces missed their goals by more than 3 percentage points. In Hebei, where the government is cutting steel capacity, growth was 4.2 percent, compared with a target of 8 percent. The province surrounding Beijing is the country’s biggest steelmaker, accounting for about a quarter of national output last year, and its cities are shrouded in smog.

The world’s second-biggest economy is going through “a difficult period of adjustment,” former central bank adviser Li Daokui said in Beijing on April 27. The government will stabilize growth in the second half, including by speeding economic changes to allow more private investment, Li said.

...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...rowth-goals-even-after-ambitions-lowered.html

Os sintomas da China são o problema do mundo: Dívida em Excesso Reduzido consumo.

Noutras notícias também elas interessantes... Os EUA emprestam dinheiro à Ucrânia, já a Polícia de Detroit tem que pedir empréstimos para se equiparem. E as pessoas já preferem matar os assaltantes do que esperar pela polícia:

Even as bankrupt Detroit’s residents have resorted to gunning down neighborhood burglars, its police await money for patrol cars, radios, armored vests and modern computers.

Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr last month pledged $36.2 million for police from a $120 million loan from Barclays Plc approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Stephen Rhodes. Department officials wouldn’t discuss plans for the money, though Orr’s shopping list includes vehicles, station houses and a training facility for the city, which piled up $18 billion of debt by the time it filed for bankruptcy in July.

The money can’t come soon enough for a shrunken department that patrols 139 square miles (360 square kilometers) scarred by blight and poverty with decade-old cruisers. Although crime is down under new Police Chief James Craig, attacks in recent months have residents on edge and reinforced the city’s image as a danger zone.

...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...s-gun-down-burglars-as-police-await-cars.html

Um empréstimo de 120 milhões, bom, entre 2002 e 2004 o Bush gastou 65 milhões a ajudar "organizações políticas na Ucrânia"

The Bush administration has spent more than $65 million in the past two years to aid political organizations in Ukraine (search), paying to bring opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko (search) to meet U.S. leaders and helping to underwrite exit polls indicating he won last month's disputed runoff election.

U.S. officials say the activities don't amount to interference in Ukraine's election, a Russian President Vladimir Putin (search) alleges, but are part of the $1 billion the State Department spends each year trying to build democracy worldwide.

No U.S. money was sent directly to Ukrainian political parties, the officials say. In most cases, it was funneled through organizations like the Carnegie Foundation or through groups aligned with Republicans and Democrats that organized election training, with human rights forums or with independent news outlets.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2004/12/10/us-spent-65m-to-aid-ukrainian-groups/

Ou seja o dinheiro é usado através de terceiros, tipo aquelas ONG's que por fora parecem que só estão lá para ajudar mas na realidade... (ao estilo Cuba e as redes sociais). E são essas mesmas ONG's que depois são extremamente úteis na propaganda.

 

[Orion]

Como é hábito, de vez em quando os criminosos dizem a verdade. Cai sempre em saco roto. Ele posteriormente disfarçou a afirmação (como é óbvio):






Claro que as pessoas preferem o brainwashing do costume (aqui deixo):





Numa onda mais recente, é inacreditável como gente desta, para além de se afirmar religiosa ainda é apoiada por pessoas minimamente inteligentes:





E mesmo apesar de supostamente ser um jantar em que são normais as piadas, o humor é bem negro:

 

[Orion]

President Barack Obama warned North Korea on Saturday that the United States 'will not hesitate to use our military might' to defend allies, showcasing U.S. power in the region amid China's growing influence and Pyongyang's unpredictable nuclear threats.

Obama's visit to Seoul comes as North Korea has threatened to conduct its fourth nuclear test, leading Obama to raise the possibility of further sanctions.

(...)

Obama ridiculed North Korea's attempt to show force. 'Anybody can make threats,' he said. 'Anyone can move an army. Anyone can show off a missile. That doesn't make you strong.'

He said real strength comes from having an open participatory democracy, open markets and a society free to speak out against its government.

'We don't use our military might to impose these things on others, but we will not hesitate to use our military might to defend our allies and our way of life,' Obama said to cheers from the uniformed troops who filled a field house at Yongsan Garrison, headquarters for U.S. forces in South Korea.

...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...rce-against-North-Korea-visits-US-troops.html

 

[Orion]

China may overtake America as the world biggest economy earlier than expected, by the end of this year, rather than by 2019.

New data from the International Comparison Programme, a UN statistical database which compares purchasing power across borders and currencies, indicates China’s size may have been underestimated.

The Economist says China’s purchasing power parities (PPP) is now up to 20% higher than economists had previously estimated in the 2005 survey.

And, according to The Economist’s calculations, China will now take the crown as the world’s largest economy by the end of 2014.

Some estimates put China’s GDP at $7.5 trillion compared to America at $15 trillion.

However, China’s growth is, and has been for years, streaking ahead of the US and the rest of the world. The IMF currently shows real GDP (Gross Domestic Product) for the US in 2014 growing at 2.8% compared to China’s 7.5%.

Previous calculations using IMF numbers had China overtaking America in 2019. Other estimates using OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) numbers had the takeover point happening in 2016.

http://www.businessinsider.com/chin...lds-largest-economy-by-the-end-of-2014-2014-4

 

[Orion]

America’s war on drugs is failing in Afghanistan, with opium production at record levels, despite spending $7.5 billion to tackle the problem. Over 200 thousand hectares is used to grow opium, an increase of 36 percent, according to a US report.

The report, which was commissioned by SIGAR, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction makes grim reading, with opium poppy cultivation increasing by over a third, while the country now has about 1.3 million heroin users. This is a ten-fold increase compared to 2005, when around 130,000 people were using the drug.

Afghanistan is responsible for about three-quarters of the world’s heroin production, with much of it being cultivated in the Helmand and Kandahar provinces in the south of the country. However, the US has concentrated most of its efforts in the east of Afghanistan, which has relatively little poppy production, as it is safer than working in the south.

Attempts to limit production and seize heroin have not been helped due to a downscaling of operations by the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force). In 2013, coalition forces managed to seize 41,000 kilograms of opium out of the 5.5 million kilograms produced in Afghanistan.

“Drug labs, storage sites, and major trafficking networks are concentrated in rural areas that are increasingly off-limits to Afghan forces due the ISAF drawdown and declining security in these areas,” the report found.

Since NATO began its ‘War on Terror’ in 2001, heroin production in Afghanistan has increased 40-fold, according to the head of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service. “Afghan heroin has killed more than 1 million people worldwide since ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ began, and over $1 trillion has been invested in transnational organized crime from drug sales,” Viktor Ivanov said earlier at a conference on the Afghan drug problem in 2013.

Moscow has repeatedly pushed for the eradication of poppy fields in Afghanistan as the simplest solution. NATO, however, seems to have no intention of doing so.

In 2013, the Afghan Ministry of Counter Narcotics reported that just 7,300 hectares of poppy fields had been destroyed, which was only three percent of the total opium fields in the country. The US has spent $7.5 billion since 2002 trying to combat the problem of opium production. However, despite these vast sums very little impact has been made on the amount of heroin appearing on the world market.

http://rt.com/news/156128-afghanistan-drugs-usa-heroin/

Acho que ainda não pus este artigo. É da cocaína mas é transversal a todas as drogas:

Western banks 'reaping billions from Colombian cocaine trade'
While cocaine production ravages countries in Central America, consumers in the US and Europe are helping developed economies grow rich from the profits, a study claims

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/02/western-banks-colombian-cocaine-trade

 

[Orion]

Muitas notícias hoje para ilustrar a recuperação económica:

1ª:

The April jobs report beat expectations today. U.S. companies added 288,000 nonfarm payrolls, which was much stronger than the 218,000 expected by economists.

The unemployment rate tumbled to 6.3% from 6.7% a month ago.

But much of the change in the unemployment rate is due to labor force participation rate, which fell to 62.8% in April from 63.2% in March.

Bloomberg reports this matches the lowest level since 1978.

...

Business Insider

2ª:

Spain’s 10-year government bond yield fell to a record amid signs its economy is emerging from a six-year slump and as the European Central Bank ponders further monetary stimulus.

Italian and Irish 10-year yields also reached record lows as a report showed euro-area manufacturing grew in April at the fastest pace in three months. The rate of job creation in the U.S. picked up last month, according to economists in a Bloomberg News survey before the data today. The ECB will announce its decision next week as it weighs embracing policies ranging from negative interest rates to quantitative easing.

...

Bloomberg

Contudo:

3ª

The euro-area unemployment rate held near a record, even as manufacturing grew at the fastest pace in three months, adding to mixed signals about the 18-nation currency bloc’s recovery.

The jobless rate was 11.8 percent in March, a level reached in December and near the record of 12 percent last year, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today. Meanwhile, a Purchasing Managers’ Index rose to 53.4 in April from 53 a month earlier, Markit Economics said. The gauge has been above 50, indicating expansion, for 10 months.

“At the current pace, it will take years if not decades to reverse the increase in unemployment by 7.5 million since 2008,” said Christian Schulz, senior economist at Berenberg Bank in London. “But it is a start. We expect the labor market improvement to accelerate soon following stronger momentum in the economy since the beginning of the year.”

...

Bloomberg

4ª

Como é que a Espanha se financia com taxas de juro tão baixas se o desemprego está nos 25,3%? A França com 10,4%? E mesmo a Itália com 12,7%? Fora aqueles que não estão inscritos...

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/3-02052014-AP/EN/3-02052014-AP-EN.PDF