The story of economic sanctions as told by PMI

While the world is watching the civil war in Ukraine the European economics is sliding into oblivion. The Manufacturing PMI tells a story that should scare the hell out of the politicians of EU – so bad the business dynamics in manufacturing looks.

In August, out of 26 countries, only 9 reported improvement in the index, 15 recorded a slowdown in the two countries has not changed. In fairness it should be noted that 21 countries report PMI is still above the level of 50 points, and below only 5. But it is not so important, because the dynamics is still downward. There are those who are moving in the right direction: in Greece and Turkey business activity index in August was able to finally overcome the mark of 50 points. The rest of Europe presents a serious reason for concern, whether peripheral or central: everywhere there are signs of a serious recession.

United States, on the other hand, sports the best activity indicator in the world. PMI index has reached its highest level since April 2010 and reached 57.9 points. In case of U.S., the export orders component grew at the fastest pace in three years, and the employment …
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Greece and … IMF?

Graffiti on the wall in Athens says "I.M.F. GET OUT"

A very interesting thing has caught my eye in the photographs from the recent riots in Athens, Greece.

If you look at the pictures, it very definitely says “I.M.F. GET OUT“. Why would demonstrators talk of IMF in Greece? Would it be possible that Greece bought into one of those IMF backed plans? If so, it would be interesting to learn a bit more about what economic development “plan” was sold to Greece. It is also quite interesting to see that Reuters does not mention IMF in their articles on Greece for some reason. Did they not see their own pictures?

Eurozone troubles drove U.S. treasury debt prices higher as investors fled to havens including gold and the dollar.

Seek the one who benefits, right?

Did you see how much Euro went down recently? Do you think it is normal? Do you think if Greece went bankrupt it would really mean something apocalyptic for the Euro-zone? No, really? How much of the all-European economy is in Greece? Come on, be realistic, Greece is too small for the kind of impact pictured in those articles. But panic! yes, panic can hurt Euro-zone, oh, yes… I have seen …
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