We had an opinion piece on mortgages published in the Irish Examiner yesterday, you can see it by clicking on the image above or here.
When the truth comes out about arrears.
I often try to focus on ‘what is’ rather than ‘what is right’ (and sometimes still get it wrong!), but the idea is to look at something from as objective a standpoint as possible. I’ll take the National Geographic for instance (stick with me on this!), if you watch it objectively and see a lion kill a gazelle you realise that it is nature, the gazelle didn’t want to be torn apart, equally the lion doesn’t want to starve to death and if you accept that lions killing gazelles is a perfectly natural thing then you are seeing what ‘is’. On the other hand if you watch the same scene but the build up to it was following the life of that particular gazelle from birth and its a Bambi story then the killing scene becomes a sickening tragedy.
That is the difference sometimes between looking at what is ‘just’ or ‘right’ and what merely ‘is’, I don’t know about you but I certainly struggle with that at times. It is …
Good news: Rate drops and recovery indicators
Doom is the only thing selling lately, but today we will bring you some of the Sunny statistics that are being largely overlooked. This doesn’t mean we are well down the road to recovery but there is the distinct possibility that 2009 will be a turn around year for the global economy, that turn around might be a turn for the worse too though! However, the statistics we will show you now are all positive economic indicators.
1: The end of March saw the housing figures compiled for the previous month [USA]. In February the US Housing sales jumped , existing homes up 5.1% and new build was up 4.7% as buyers took foreclosure properties and others that were thought to be at ‘bargain basement’ pricing opportunities. This could be a hiccup or it could be the start of a trend, it is important to note however, that it took spectacular price drops for the renewed activity to occur. The economic stimulus package also provides tax relief to eligible first time …
What next for Europe?
The Euro rose against the dollar as the Fed introduced quantitative easing, this will be furthered by the new TARP programme due to be released later today, Bank of England are also engaging in quantitative easing along with a near zero interest rate policy – one matched by both the USA and Japan.
So what will be the outcome for Europe? Essentially we will be forced to follow suit, rates will have to drop further and we will need to pursue in quantitative easing – via bond/paper purchases or otherwise. Why? Simply put, we cannot stand as an island in the global economy, we can’t stand as a continent when every other major economy is going to zero and going through what amounts to devaluation with increased money supply.
If the Euro rises too far against the Dollar or Sterling it will make exporting difficult (we’ll leave Ireland’s plight with Sterling zone exporters out of this …