An “Economic Analyst” Blog

The International Monetary Fund revised its prognosis for the world economy growth from 0.5% to 0%. Therefore, now they expect the economy to be stagnant in 2009. Well, I expect it to shrink a little and I think they will, at some moment, revise the prognosis again.

Moreover, they expect the economy of the developed countries to shrink by 2% and many countries will need help provided by IMF in order to pass this difficult period.

But, “someone important” said a short time ago that IMF no longer has enough money. In this case, what is the purpose of announcing something like we cannot help, but many need our help? Something like help us to help others?

The second largest economy in the world shrank 3.3% in the last quarter, the annually contraction rate being 12.7%. Most prognosis did not indicate such a deep contraction.

If this contraction continues, Japan will soon lose its status of world’s second largest economy.

But, the Nikkei index only fell 0.4%. This might only mean that a deeper fall will soon follow or that it starts recovering, but was pushed back by the announcement.

Microsoft decided it would be better for their business to open a chain of retail stores. When many companies close their stores, Microsoft does just the opposite.

Is this because they want to show that they are not affected by the crisis or is it because Apple did this for a while and obtained quite a nice profit from selling products in their own stores?

Swiss bank UBS reported a 13 billion euro (19.7 billion CHF) loss for 2008, announced that 15000 people will be fired, but decided that the employees will receive bonuses worth more than one billion euro (2.2 billion CHF). Again, something does not seem right

After saying that the peak of the current crisis will arrive after Obama’s Inauguration, it looks like George Soros did not guess it right.

Therefore, he now says that the crisis is bigger that he thought. Well, he got this one wrong! Life’s tough…

Now he tells us that we need a global anti-crisis plan. I guess we know that, don’t we?

The Pif Gadget magazine went bankrupt. A court decided this on January 15th.

It was a said day for French children and around the world.

But, maybe there is some hope. The weekly magazine Pif Gadget disappeared in 1993, but reappeared as a monthly magazine in 2004. Let’s hope it will be again reborn from its ashes!

The Moldovan people do not know whether the gas received by Moldova during the gas crisis must be payed to Ukraine or to Russia. Therefore, they did the logical thing: decided not to pay for the moment.

Note:
This is not filed under the Jokes category!

Note:
Comments are no longer allowed on this post. Looks like it is the only way to stop the spammers.

Intel decided to close five of their manufacturing facilities in Asia (one in Philippines, two in Malaysia) and US (Santa Clara, Oregon).

Does this mean people no longer buy enough computers or is this move supposed to stop the drop in processor prices?

Either way, the crisis starts to affect the hardware industry.

On Inauguration Day, the US market fell sharply, but recovered the next day. If we consider the fact that, on January 20th, the market was influenced by the announcement that Royal Bank of Scotland lost more than 20 billion pounds, we can say that the markets had a good start.

This was to be expected, the rally being caused by the euphoria created by the fact United States has a new president, and Obama’s presidency is an historic moment not only for U.S., but for the entire human race.

Now, Obama has to deal with it. There is much hope and there are high chances many people to be disappointed. Obama might be a symbol, but a symbol cannot solve the global economy problems.

1. The only available jobs are at the Unemployment Office.

2. In order to save France struggling economy, Nicolas Sarkozy decided to sell half of Carla Bruni’s cloths.

3. Barrack Obama is forced to take a second job to support his family.

(to be continued next year or when new jokes become available)