PPCC: Pisitófilos Creditófagos. Primavera 2024

[Derby]

Revisión de la Comisión Europea de la economía española para 2024, publicada ayer:

https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/document/download/b93bfdc1-176e-4f08-b649-d01f3dfedc46_en

[Derby]

https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2024/03/25/amanpour-josep-borrell.cnn

'Europeans have to take more responsibility for our defense,' says EU foreign policy chief

https://www.sb.by/en/borrell-admitted-eu-acting-not-out-of-love-for-ukrainians.html

Borrell admitted EU acting not out of love for Ukrainians

The European Union is supporting Ukraine based on its own interests rather than out of love for the Ukrainian people – as noted by top EU diplomat Josep Borrell, TASS reports

In an interview with CNN, Josep Borrell said, “We cannot afford for Russia to win this war. Otherwise, US and European interests will be damaged.” He stressed that it isn’t a matter of generosity alone, it isn’t a matter of support for Ukraine, ‘because we love the Ukrainian people’. According to Josep Borrell, this is in the interests of the EU and the US as a global player – someone who has to be perceived as a reliable partner, a security provider to the allies, and that’s the EU urged the US to open and approve the supplementary budget. At the same time, Borrell added that the EU was making every possible effort ‘to support Ukraine more and quicker’.

Earlier, following the results of the EU summit held on March 22nd, it was announced that the European Union intends to speed up and intensify its deliveries of military aid to the Kiev regime. The document underlines for the first time that the EU will help Ukraine as intensively as necessary.

[Cadavre Exquis]

Dell Reduces Workforce as Part of Broader Cost Cuts
Posted by msmash on Tuesday March 26, 2024 @12:54PM from the tough-luck dept.

Dell reduced its workforcereduced its workforce as part of a broader initiative to cut costs that included limiting external hiring and employee reorganizations, it said in a filing on Monday. From a report:

As of Feb. 2, 2024, it had nearly 120,000 employees, down from about 126,000 a year earlier. The layoffs come after sluggish demand for its personal computers for nearly two years partly contributed to a 11% drop in revenue in fourth-quarter earnings posted last month. Dell expects net revenue in its client solutions group (CSG) - home to PCs - to grow for the entire year, it said on Monday. The segment's revenue had fallen 12% in the fourth quarter.

Saludos.

[Derby]

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3256801/chinas-central-bank-head-dissuades-real-estate-woes-vanke-teeters-towards-default

China’s central bank head dissuades real estate woes as Vanke teeters towards default

*The head of China’s central bank has said the country’s property market has shown ‘positive signals’ despite uncertainty the worst has passed

*Vanke, a major developer, saw its credit rating demoted as other firms tangle with solvency questions

The governor of China’s central bank talked up the country’s property market and the resilience of its financial system on Monday, as the debt pressures weighing on a leading developer have spawned more worries the crisis in the sector has yet to reach its conclusion.

At a closed-door meeting with representatives of domestic and overseas financial institutions, Pan Gongsheng said real estate – long a bellwether for the economy at large – has shown “positive signals”.

“It has a solid foundation for long-term healthy and stable development,” he said during the China Development Forum, which drew dozens of executives from major multinationals including tech giant Apple.

“Property market volatility has a limited impact on China’s financial system,” he added, according to a statement posted on the website of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC).

His comments came as China Vanke battles rumours of default, with credit rating agencies Moody’s and Fitch demoting the company’s status to below investment grade.

The downgrade further darkened the shadow looming over the sector, initially precipitated by revelations of financial trouble for China Evergrande, Country Garden and many other developers.



Real estate, once a pillar industry contributing around a quarter to national economic output, has grappled with a liquidity crisis since 2021, when Beijing’s “three red lines” policy restricted borrowing in the highly leveraged field.

Several barriers to financing have been removed since last year, with a whitelist initiative launched in January to encourage municipal governments and banks to work together in providing credit for covered projects.

However, data show the housing market slump has largely continued unabated.

[Derby]

https://www.ft.com/content/c43cf841-174a-457f-92de-be2c44dbb440

US faces Liz Truss-style market shock as debt soars, warns watchdog

Fiscal burden on ‘unprecedented’ path, says independent Congressional Budget Office head


Phillip Swagel warned that the US economy risked a similar crisis of confidence that sparked a run on the pound and the collapse of Liz Truss’s UK government in 2022 © Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg


The US faces a Liz Truss-style market shock if the government ignores the country’s ballooning federal debt, the head of Congress’s independent fiscal watchdog has warned.

Phillip Swagel, director of the Congressional Budget Office, said the mounting US fiscal burden was on an “unprecedented” trajectory, risking a crisis of the kind that sparked a run on the pound and the collapse of Truss’s government in the UK in 2022.

“The danger, of course, is what the UK faced with former prime minister Truss, where policymakers tried to take an action, and then there’s a market reaction to that action,” Swagel said in an interview with the Financial Times.

The US was “not there yet”, he said, but as higher interest rates raise the cost of paying its creditors to $1tn in 2026, bond markets could “snap back”.

According to the CBO, the US’s federal debt pile amounted to $26.2tn, or 97 per cent of gross domestic product, at the end of last year.

It shot up after sweeping tax cuts by Donald Trump in 2017 and huge stimulus spending during the pandemic. Trump has pledged to renew the tax cuts, due to expire next year, if he defeats Joe Biden in this year’s presidential election.



“We have the potential for some changes that seem modest — or maybe start off modest and then get more serious — to have outsized effects on interest rates, and therefore on the fiscal trajectory,” Swagel said.

Truss quit after just 45 days as UK prime minister after her plan to pay for deep tax cuts with more debt backfired, sending the country’s borrowing costs sharply higher.

Swagel’s remarks to the FT came a day after the independent watchdog issued new longer-term economic projections, which showed debt levels rising to 166 per cent of GDP in 2054.

Fitch stripped the US of its triple A rating last year, citing concerns over “a high and growing general government debt burden”. Moody’s still rates the US triple A but said last November that it had changed its outlook from stable to negative.



The warnings from the CBO chief come amid fears among economists that years of fiscal profligacy by both Democrats and Republicans are storing up trouble for the US economy.

“It would behove policymakers to reduce deficits substantially in part because there are big demographic challenges coming down the pike,” said Kimberly Clausing, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute think-tank.

“Neither [candidate for president] is talking about fiscal rectitude, and one of them is actually talking about extending tax cuts,” said David Page, head of macroeconomic research at Axa Investment Managers.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a think-tank, said that if Trump renewed the tax cuts it would add another $5tn to the federal debt between 2026 and 2035.

The CBO’s forecasts show deficits hovering at about 6 per cent over the next 10 years — and are based on the planned expiry of the Trump tax cuts in 2025.



Swagel, who served in the US Treasury under Republican president George W Bush, acknowledged that next year would be important “for fiscal policy in particular”, given the debate over extending the tax cuts and Obama-era healthcare subsidies that are also due to expire.

The CBO projections issued this week showed debt-to-GDP levels surpassing their second world war high of 116 per cent in 2029 — a trajectory Swagel described as “unprecedented”.

“The debt that was run up during World War II was largely paid back within the generation of the people who fought the war,” Swagel said. “The fiscal burdens being generated today are not ones the current generation is going to bear the burden of.”

The dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency would not always insulate the US from market pressures as debt interest payments increased, Swagel warned.

“We need to borrow from foreigners, because foreign capital helps keep interest rates low in the US,” Swagel said. “But there’s two sides to it, in that the cash flowing overseas means us losing national income. On the other hand, not having the capital coming in for us to borrow — boy, that would be even worse.”

[Derby]

https://www.ft.com/content/38fcdd1f-481a-44b8-8f0d-e1c0a39cdc55

Larry Fink warns retirement crisis looms for ageing world population

BlackRock chief’s annual letter also embraces ‘energy pragmatism’ amid attacks over climate stance

The world faces a looming “retirement crisis” that requires a rethink of pensions and working patterns as medical breakthroughs boost longevity, BlackRock’s chief executive Larry Fink warned on Tuesday in his closely watched annual letter to chief executives and investors.

Fink, whose previous missives have helped boost interest in stakeholder capitalism and climate change, cited UN projections that one in six people globally would be older than 65 by 2050, up from one in 11 in 2019, as he called for increasing global use of capital markets to help workers save for old age.

The BlackRock chief also warned that the rise of defined contribution pension plans had combined with the growing strain on the social security government retirement programme to leave the US particularly unprepared for a huge increase in the retiree population.

“We focus a tremendous amount of energy on helping people live longer lives. But not even a fraction of that effort is spent helping people afford those extra years,” he wrote. “Today in America, the retirement message that the government and companies tell their workers is effectively: ‘You’re on your own.’”

Fink described the mismatch between what Americans were saving and what they would need as “a problem so big and urgent that government and corporate leaders [need to] stop business as usual [and] step out of their silos and sit around the same table to find a solution”.(...)

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.pressreader.com/spain/expansion-nacional/20240326/page/2/textview

El peligro de la cesión fiscal al separatismo

https://www.expansion.com/economia/2024/03/25/660186c7e5fdeadd128b459c.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/empresas/tecnologia/2024/03/26/6601eea7e5fdea2d5f8b458b.html

https://www.expansion.com/inmobiliario/mercado/2024/03/25/660173d7468aeb0f6b8b4580.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/empresas/inmobiliario/2024/03/25/66017825468aeb0f6b8b4588.html

https://www.expansion.com/inmobiliario/mercado/2024/03/25/6601677c468aeb1b748b4598.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/economia/2024/03/26/6601cd4b468aebab448b45b0.html

https://www.expansion.com/economia/funcion-publica/2024/03/25/66016682e5fdeadd128b4590.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/economia/2024/03/25/66018c3d468aeb104f8b4570.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.pressreader.com/spain/expansion-nacional/20240326/page/23/textview

La vivienda sube más del 40% desde 2014 en 11 capitales

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/juridico/actualidad-tendencias/2024/03/25/6601b401e5fdeaa3568b459a.html

Saludos.

[saturno]

El peligro de la cesión fiscal al separatismo

https://www.expansion.com/economia/2024/03/25/660186c7e5fdeadd128b459c.html

Saludos.

Café para todos-

(Apuesto que Euskadi está con la AEAT  

[uno]

Después de la apabullante cantidad de noticias que pronostican otra temporada récord, traigo una en otro sentido.

Alerta por sequía: los turistas miran con preocupación a España

Los medios internacionales se hacen eco de la crisis hídrica que sufre el país y advierten a sus ciudadanos de la situación
Algunos de ellos alertan a sus lectores de posibles enfrentamientos entre extranjeros y la población local por este motivo
Andalucía y Cataluña, los destinos más afectados

https://www.preferente.com/rss1/alerta-por-sequia-los-turistas-miran-con-preocupacion-a-espana-335615.html

Actualizado 25 marzo, 2024

La grave sequía que sufre parte de España amenaza con marcar la temporada alta turística. Aunque las lluvias que se esperan durante toda la Semana Santa previsiblemente permitirán mantener la mejora gradual de los embalses, ni mucho menos serán suficientes para acabar con una crisis hídrica que se ceba con especial crudeza con dos de las comunidades autónomas que más turistas internacionales reciben: Andalucía y Cataluña (Andalucía debate su modelo: Airbnb, tasa, piscinas y Qatar).

La situación que se vive en estos y otros destinos top del litoral español está provocando una creciente alarma en los principales mercados emisores, en los que se habla cada vez con mayor asiduidad de las restricciones previstas para combatir la alerta por una de las peores sequías de la historia de España (Costa del Sol mira de reojo a Cataluña y alerta del efecto de la sequía).

Basta con echar un simple vistazo a medios de comunicación de países como Francia, Reino Unido, Alemania y Estados Unidos, entre otros, para observar que la crisis hídrica de España no está pasando desapercibida. En algunas cabeceras pueden leerse artículos con títulos como “¿Adiós al turismo de sol y playa?” o “¿Cómo será España cuando se quede sin agua?”.

Pero la cosa va incluso más allá. Tanto medios estadounidenses como británicos advierten a sus lectores que la grave sequía que atraviesa España, unida a la corriente turismofóbica promovida por los partidos más inclinados a la izquierda, podría derivar en enfrentamientos de turistas extranjeros con la población local.

El principal motivo radica en que los visitantes internacionales, por norma general, tienen un consumo de agua mucho más elevado que los residentes. Un reportaje de El País confirma esta teoría. Son varios los expertos que coinciden en señalar que el gasto de agua de un viajero supera con creces al efectuado por un local. Según la Asociación Española de Abastecimientos de Agua y Saneamiento (AEAS), los ciudadanos consumen 131 litros diarios, mientras que los turistas podrían incluso cuadruplicar dicha cantidad.