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90 seconds at 9 am: A whale of a tale; US household debt down; Eurozone in growth shock; China powers up; foreign scrutiny increases; TWI 75.72

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90 seconds at 9 am: A whale of a tale; US household debt down; Eurozone in growth shock; China powers up; foreign scrutiny increases; TWI 75.72
15th Aug 13, 8:39am by David Hargreaves

Here's our summary of key overnight news in 90 seconds at 9 am, led by news that two former JPMorgan Chase & Co employees have been charged relating to the so-called “London Whale” scandal last year.

It cost the bank US$6.2 billion.

Strangely the London Whale himself, Bruno Iksil is not one of those charged and he’s co-operating with federal prosecutors.

Elsewhere in the US, more encouraging economic news as household debt fell 0.7% during the second quarter mainly through a drop in mortgage balances.

But Wall Street stocks are down, mainly on the back of weak earnings from Macy's department store.

Europe

It’s finally out.

The beleaguered Eurozone has emerged from a year and a half of recession with 0.3% growth in the June quarter.

In fact the economies of Germany and France grew faster than expected, putting the much-hyped American recovery in the shade.

Even some of the more basket-case economies such as Portugal were showing better signs – though Spain and Italy are still struggling.

European shares jumped to two and a half month highs on the news.

China

China’s industrial power use in July rose to its highest level in a year.

This has been taken as a sign that the economy could be stabilising and that the targeted 7.5% economic growth this year might after all be achieved.

But in news that might be less encouraging in this part of the world in the wake of the Fonterra contamination scare, China's regulators are increasing their scrutiny of foreign companies.

In the latest development Chinese government officials are launching a three-month probe into possible bribery in the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries.

Back home

Looks like a quiet day locally.

In commodity news oil and gas prices are slightly higher while the price of gold is up about 0.8%.

The New Zealand dollar's up against the US and Australian currencies and also on the trade weighted index at 75.72 

No chart with that title exists.

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4 Comments

by  Mike B  |  15th Aug 13, 1:08pm 1376528928

Have you seen the documentary The Clinton Chronicles?

It first came out on VHS and i bought a copy from the Warehouse. Probably on Youtube now.

Boy what an eye opener

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by  Andrewj  |  15th Aug 13, 1:43pm 1376530985
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by  Anarkist  |  15th Aug 13, 3:40pm 1376538032

I'd look up the Wikipedia entry before you commit too much time on the Clinton Chronicles Andrewj, having said that however, the Clintons were implicated in some very questionable people that had immesurable suffering  for some of the world's most vulnerable people, while Bill Clinton was the American President. He was motivated by the same reason as all the other political aspirants in the sordid affair which is the U.S. Elections, the need to raise funding for his campaign bid from corporate donors.

"They're led by former U.S. President Bill Clinton – now U.N. special envoy to Haiti – who publicly apologized this month for championing policies that destroyed Haiti's rice production. Clinton in the mid-1990s encouraged the impoverished country to dramatically cut tariffs on imported U.S. rice.

"It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake," Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 10. "I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/20/with-cheap-food-imports-h_n_507228.html

 

"And it all began with an unpaid electricity bill. In 1998, Pakistan wouldn't pay up millions, and they owed billions, to British and American electricity companies. And for good reason: the contracts called for paying insanely high prices. It smelled of payola - and ultimately, the government of Pakistan filed charges against power combine executives and canceled the contracts. That's the rule under international law: companies can't collect on contracts they obtained by pay-offs.

But these weren't just any companies. One was a Tony Blair favorite, Britain's National Power. The other was Entergy International, a sudden big-time player in the international power market based out of, oddly, Little Rock, Arkansas. Despite the Clinton Administration's claim to fight foreign corruption, this was an exception. Clinton and Blair voted to cut off Pakistan's funding from the IMF. Pay-up the power pirates, they told Pakistan, or starve."

http://www.gregpalast.com/mrs-clintons-forgotten-fling-with-the-killer-of-karachi/

 

btw good book choice. I read it as soon as it was published. It overturns much of what we believe to be true about how our economy really works doesn't it?

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