global economy

Good Economic News... If you're a Turk

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The Turkish people elected a new government in 2002. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became Prime Minister after his AK Party gained an absolute majority in the nation's unicameral legislature. Erdoğan and AK have governed continuously from 2002 through the present.

The annual change in gross national product (Graph, Turkish Review, January 2011) developed through Turkish management of the economy.

During the critical period that included the global recession, Turkey fared better than most industrial nations. (Trading Economics)

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Negative growth hit Turkey in only three quarters, with a solid rebound starting in 2009. Forth quarter 2010 economic growth was 9.2%. Only China led Turkey during that time with 9.8% growth.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced an end to its formal agreement with Turkey in 2010. In fact, the Turks ended IMF involvement with economic management in 2007 when they rejected IMF's "austerity" requirements for a stand by loan. Since that time, Turkey has paid off 75% of its IMF debt and managed the economy without IMF help.

Highlights - How they did it

How important is Greece?

In our current interconnected global economy nothing happens in a vacuum.

 

Fears mount over European debt: Markets worry that financial crises in Portugal, Greece could spread across euro zone and spill across borders

 Spooked investors worldwide were fleeing risky assets like stocks. And from Shanghai to Sao Paulo, people were awakening to the reality that what is happening in these European minnow states has vast implications for the fate of the fragile global economic recovery.

Oil Tanker Glut

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If you put all of the idle oil tankers in a row, it would stretch for 26 miles. Even worse, it might indicate a 25% rate decrease for shipping in 2010.

A 26-mile-long line of idled oil tankers, enough to blockade the English Channel, may signal a 25 percent slump in freight rates next year.

The ships will unload 26 percent of the crude and oil products they are storing in six months, adding to vessel supply and pushing rates for supertankers down to an average of $30,000 a day next year, compared with $40,212 now, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 15 analysts, traders and shipbrokers. That’s below what Frontline Ltd., the biggest operator of the ships, says it needs to break even.

Notice that the shippers won't break even at that price.

IMF: The U.S. Consumer cannot save the global economy, crisis not over

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The IMF Director gave an interview on the state of the financial crisis and global economy. Guess what? The crisis is not over.

The global economic crisis will continue and countries must do more to adopt financial market regulations, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn told a German magazine on Saturday.

"The global economic crisis will continue, even if Germany and France had some good figures in the second quarter," Strauss-Kahn was quoted as saying in an advance copy of an article to be published in Der Spiegel on Sunday.

Strauss-Kahn said he wanted to see more action from nations to curb bankers' pay and tighten capital requirements in the banking sector.

Maybe he's reading EP for we're saying that, most recently by this post.

IMF: The U.S. sees a "Diminishing Rate of Deterioration"

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The IMF has updated it's global economic projections and now claims the world will grow about 2.5% in 2010, with the caveat of > 10% unemployment into 2010 for the United States. (Folks, how can you call that a recovery if working people cannot find a job?)

This is in line with the World Banks recent estimates of 2% by removing China and India from their calculations.

Stabilization uneven, challenges remain