Pivotfarm's blog

The 20th century could be categorized as THE century when communications took off and we started living in each other’s pockets. Lives had been ruined by war, trouble and strife. Wealth had been redistributed beyond belief. There were no longer just a few that were making the profits, but there were growing classes of people that wanted recognition.

President Barack Obama stated yesterday that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has stayed in his position “longer than he [Bernanke] wanted”. Some will be probably agreeing with Bernanke (and Obama) more than he might have expected after having said that. Although he should have stopped short of adding (for fear of hurting Helicopter Ben’s feelings?) that he has done an “outstanding job”.

China! Honestly, it comes to something when China jumps on the accusatory band-wagon asking the US administration to provide some comments about its monitoring programs and answer up to the international community.

Iran is a right old sorry state (of affairs).  Plunged into recession, inflationary pressure that Abenomics wouldn’t mind having a bit of and Bernanke might just be getting if he carries on printing the greenbacks at the rate they are churning out of the Federal Reserve faster than a Ford-T in 1908.

The summit opens today for two days of public display of back-slapping and hand holding, championing the things that the west does best. The summit was preceded yesterday by the parading of 8 life-size puppets with huge heads to draw attention to poverty levels in the world.

Stock-market crashes saw the light of day more and more as the world became industrialized. The 19th century saw a rapid increase in their numbers.

The International Monetary Fund analysts believe that if budgetary cuts are taken away, then it could trim a substantial slice off economic growth in the US. Forecasts could be lower by as much as 1.75%, meaning that growth prospects would be no better than 1.9% in total for this year. 

Demand isn’t there at the moment in the economy. Production isn’t being utilized. Any monetary policy will only be temporarily of benefit to the market and keep them happy (as it has done for six months).

Repossessions! Home repossessions in the USA increased by 11% in May. Foreclosure filings (default notices and scheduled auctions as well as repossessions) were also up by 2.3% (148, 054) according to a report just published today by RealtyTrac.

Paul Fisher Head of Markets at the Bank of England told the economic worriers of the UK that the BoE would not pull the stoppers out on the economic stimulus plan in the UK and that the “macroeconomic outlook here is not as bright as in the US, therefore we are some way behind them in terms of return to anything like trend growth”. Has Mr. Fisher been to the US recently?

Milton Friedman once said that “if you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand”. I think if he were around still, he would need to revise that.

Goldman Sachs has suggested that there may be up to 349 Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) taking place in China this year. But, it’s not the Chinese capital markets that those companies will be wanting. Chinese firms are still hell-bent on getting floated on the world’s biggest and best stock exchange, and rightly so.

Here are the worst IPO fails of all time in the world. The ones that we thought would be unfailingly good. The ones that we thought we could bet our bottom dollar on and still strike it rich.

• S&P Revises U.S. Credit Outlook To "Stable" From Negative

• Fed's Bullard Details How QE Can Be Cut

• Fed Retreat From Bond Buying Expected By Fourth Quarter - Poll

• U.S., Japan Leading Recovery In Major Economies - OECD

Privatization is back on the political stroke economic agenda this morning after a report commissioned by Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne in the UK looks like he will be set to return bailed out banks to the private sector.