January 08, 2003

Bush economic package lifts dollar

The US dollar has risen against other major world currencies following the announcement of a $674bn package of measures for the American economy.
[...]
Tuesday's dollar rise was also propelled by bad news for the euro, with a key German survey showing an unexpectedly sharp fall in consumer confidence in Europe's biggest economy.

The gloom in Europe was compounded by German think-tank DIW, which cut to 0.6% its forecast for German economic growth this year.

That ain't the half of it!
Check out another BBC story from early this morning also about that floundering German economy:
EU to chide Germany over deficit

The European Commission is expected to confirm on Wednesday that Germany has become only the second country to breach financial rules governing the euro.

Germany's struggling economy pushed its budget deficit last year well above the limit allowed for euro members.

The public dressing-down from Brussels comes at a critical time for the German Government, which is threatened with an all-out strike over pay by three million government workers.

The European Commission formally is expected to recommend that Berlin be set a tough deadline to introduce measures to cut its deficit.
[...]
For Germany, the process is the more humiliating because it was the principal architect of the rules designed to prevent the euro being undermined by spendthrift governments.

To rectify the situation, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has been forced to pursue a deeply unpopular austerity package of tax rises and spending cuts.

Against that background, public sector workers demanding a 3% pay rise have been given short shrift.

Employers and trade union representatives are to make a last-ditch effort on Wednesday to avert a nationwide strike. But the outlook is not promising.

If the strike by nurses, firefighters, bus drivers and others goes ahead, it will be the first in Germany for more than 10 years.

Mein Gott! Do they have problems or what?!
My sympathies go out to my kinder, saner German friends like Ralf G. who knows that all this EUro mess is a crock!
I predict, also--and not for the first time here either--that France will be right behind Germany with economic problems.
The EU is a Continental house of cards not unlike Enron which will begin to fall to pieces in not very long.
"Brussels" can "chide" and get Germany, Portugal and other "bad" member nations to pass "economic measures" all they want to, but it won't change the numbers and it won't fix their economies.
I hope our European friends enjoyed the glory days this summer when the EUro was riding high and the dollar was suffering by comparison, because the U.S. was being counted out by her enemies, foreign and domestic, but neither of those currency movements were based on reality or real productivity measures and I told them so, too!