Spending Still Up – But Clouds Loom
· 67% of industry respondents say water spending will increase for next 12 months – a 14-pt decline since June 2007
U.S. Water Spending Trends
· Slower spending growth is seen for the private sector, and for federal and local governments
· By better than a 2-to-1 margin, respondents believe a U.S. recession will lead to decreased water project spending – with local governments the hardest hit
Water Sectors Attracting the Most Spending…
· Wastewater Treatment (Net Diff. Score = +39; up 17-pts)
· Water Infrastructure Repair & Replacement (+68; up 10-pts)
…And The Least Spending
· Water Filtration (+2; down 8-pts)
· Desalination (-24; up 2-pts)
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Consumer Spending Continues to Fall
· 42% of U.S. respondents say they’ll spend Less over the next 90 days than they did a year ago – 3-pts worse than in Feb 2008 survey
· 25% say they’ll spend More – unchanged from previously
· 3rd consecutive survey during 2008 showing a recession in consumer spending
Where Has Spending Slowed the Most?
· Consumer Electronics (-8 pts) – weakest 90-day outlook for electronics ever recorded in a ChangeWave survey
· Durable Goods (-3 pts)
· Restaurants (-2 pts)
Inflation Worries Spiral
Top Reasons For Spending Less
· 46% say Inflation is the most important reason why they’re spending less – up 6-pts
· 43% say Higher Energy Costs – up 11-pts
Energy Costs Cutting into Discretionary Spending
· 65% report their discretionary spending will be lower due to increased energy costs – 6-pts higher than just two months ago (Feb 2008)
The Transformation in Retail Shopping
Large-Scale Movement to Discount Retailers and Wholesale Clubs
· Sharply lower spending and higher inflation – coupled with deteriorating housing values – have produced an increasingly beleaguered and worried shopper
Next 90 Days
– Retail Store Winners
· Costco (COST; +8)
· Wal-Mart (WMT; +1)
– Retail Store Losers
· Sears (SHLD; -10)
· Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY; -10)
· Linens N Things (-8)
· Macy’s (M; -8)
· JC Penney
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Tratfor - Strategic Intelligence
In terms of retirement planning in the year of 2008 - and retirement financial planning for baby boomers the implications are great for invesment capital sources that are emerging as well as growing in volume and number. Forex as a vehicle for these funds - both for investment and parking purposes abound.
Returns - which are the second part of the accumulation process are directly linked to the larger picture of a comprehsensive investment system as well as strategy. Forex can both be a means and a means to and end - in terms of diversities and flexibillity as well as overall capital growth options.
It may be easily said that in volatile time periods - such as we are now experiencing that it is easiest to sit on the sidelines or only concentrate on short term trends as opposed to the longer range viewpoints and strategies. The barn burns and they try to close the door. The value of the American dollar declines - and all that is seen and noticed is the cost of gas - priced in US dollars , not Euros or another financial currencies yardstick
Sphere: Related ContentThe quietly emerging reality that is influencing the traditional views of retirement is the fact of the greater longevity and lifespan of the average person. Gone are the days when 30′ish was considered over the hill and 50 was an old age. Generally the number of years that the person will spend after their retirement has indeed doubled in span. Not only that but when people retire they are no longer sedentary but indeed lead rather active lives. The age of retirement of 65 , that was arbitrarily chosen - used to be the average lifespan of the average male worker. Not so today. It is only a start on life.
From a purely financial perspective will mean that the average investor will have a greater need for retirement assets - both to draw and life of , plus their actual demands on that same pool , will generally be greater per year than estimated in previous determinations and planning.
From an investment point of view - planning an managing the investment pool requires an initial starting point. This starting point has changed. The basic inherent question is saving multiplied by return will yield the basic investment point of origin. What will be either in the equation. Obviously if either is increased the final pool of funds will be greater and enhanced.
Forex Forex Currency Economics
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This title now belongs to the emerging economies of the world, with China and India as the main players in the 21st-century economy.
While we may now be consuming about 1% less crude oil per day, emerging economies are more than compensating for this as oil consumption rises throughout the rest of the world. (Keep in mind that Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil producer, only has about 2 million spare barrels of oil available per day.)
: There are only 10 cars per 1,000 people in China and 12 cars per 1,000 people in India versus 765 cars per 1,000 people in the United States. Do the math!
The weighted average of vehicles per 1,000 people in the world is 164. This means that the number of automobiles in China and India is around 10 times lower than the world average. The trend line is on the major upswing.
Note that as well we in the “Wet” or specifically the United States -have not discovered a conventional oil field with a capacity of more than 1 million barrels per day in the past 30 years.
Forty percent of the world’s oil supply comes from fields that are more than 30 years old, and these older fields are declining fast.
* The output of Mexico’s Cantarell oil field, which peaked at 2 million barrels per day, is declining by about 24% each year.
* Production at Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar oil field is flat to declining. No wonder they didn’t step up production when President Bush asked them to. (What a great idea it was to beg for oil when he knew the answer would be “No!”)
* Kuwait’s Burgan field and China’s Daqing field are also in terminal decline.
And much of the new oil discoveries are simply replacing the declining production of older fields
Its getting a lot worse before it even can get better
And this is with time lines of logistics and practical time delays not in the mix
Sphere: Related ContentThe first thing an auto insurance company looks at when offering you a quote is your driving history. Have a spotless one, and you’ll definitely get a better rate than a guy who has a glovebox full of tickets.
The insurance companies also considers the sort of car you drive, including its sticker price, the cost to repair the vehicle, replacement value, safety features, and how well it will withstand an accident. The lower the cost of claims for a vehicle, the lower the rates, and therefore the easier it is to get insured.
Here is a list of the top ten least expensive vehicles to insure, that have a sticker price of less than $50k, according to the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI):
1. Oldsmobile Silhouette
2. Pontiac Montana
3. Saturn L Series Wagon
4. Chrysler PT Cruiser
5. Saturn L Series Sedan
6. Chevrolet Venture
7. Chevrolet Astro
8. Saturn Vue
9. Jeep Wrangler
10. Oldsmobile Bravada
As the boom in commodity prices stretches on , expectations are more than bullish than ever. China’s strong economic growth and a hunger for raw materials and commodities such as copper , iron ore and aluminum have produced the foundations for sharp rises in commodity prices over the past five to seven years. Prices have been driven higher by new mines taking longer than expected to develop, because both skilled workers and specialized equipment such as drills has been in particularly short supply. The growth of India will provide further growth in commodity prices and pricing resulting in ever greater amounts of foreign exchange currencies and currency trading. It can be argued that the growth in commodities is a “super cycle”- a long period of higher prices and pricing as was seen in the 1960’s , a time when Japan was industrializing.
The big western mining companies are waking up to the new dynamics in their industries. The landscape and earning of capital and foreign exchange currencies have changed . Firstly this is not a normal cycle - not a “normal cycle”. Secondly there are interlopers and competitors who do not have the same viewpoint or perspective of the financial cycle or cycles. The growing competition between western mining companies and emerging market producers reflect the facts that high quality mining assets are ever increasingly scarce. It all comes down to the income and the growth of the foreign currency and currencies earned in these periods by these producers.
Quotes for secured loans
For UK homeowners, secured loan quotes including bad credit records. Debt management and consolidation loans
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The Federal Reserve reported recently that consumer credit — basically everything we all owe money on except our houses — rose more than 7 percent last month to $2.5 trillion worth of revolving debt. And the price tag is mounting daily as interest charges accumulate even though most Americans are pulling in their belts and economizing.
For years, banks and the credit card companies that service them have been sending us greater and greater sounding offers. But they’ve been hiding how much interest they’ll be charging and how they calculate the outstanding balance. It’s not unusual for them to suddenly increase annual interest rates, impose high penalty fees, even shorten billing cycles to make it harder to pay on time. Sure, they disclose their right to do all this stuff when you sign up, but it’s in print so small as to give you a headache even if you understand it.
In other words, they’re offering what look like great deals, but the deals are becoming nightmares for millions of Americans. Sound familiar? It’s just like what mortgage lenders were doing before the bust.
But the housing bust has been something of a wakeup call, and now both Congress and the Fed are considering banning these practices. Yet the American Bankers Association is vowing to block these reforms. It argues that stopping credit card companies from bilking their customers who get behind on their payments will increase the costs of credit to those of us who pay on time.
If this sounds familiar, too, that’s because it’s much the same argument mortgage lenders are using for why their abusive lending practices should be allowed to continue.
Make no mistake, the Bankers Association is a powerful lobby, and it’s not just Republicans they control. Only 11 of 36 Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee have backed the bill so far, and the going is likely to be rougher in the Senate — which is why the Fed may be the only hope for protecting Americans while avoiding the kind of meltdown that hit the mortgage market.
It’s another reminder of how our democracy has drifted into the hands of non-democratic agencies like the Fed, because the political branches are answerable to money interests rather than to the public interest.
http://www.gototheboard.com/articles/Why_Credit_Cards_are_Getting_Away_With_It
Sphere: Related ContentTo date, fully 3.25% of Fed cuts have knocked only 1.5% points off 10-year
So while Ben Breanne’s big fix for the housing market has failed to squash longer-term mortgage rates, it’s also failed to reduce interest rates for the government, too. It also represents an ugly return of the Greenspan issue and issues
It can be said that “The broadly unanticipated behavior of world bond markets remains a conundrum”.
At that point for Greenspan and his era the staid bond market then was keeping rates cheap. Indeed, the yield on 10-year and longer-dated US Treasury bonds stayed near their multi-decade lows – first reached when Greenspan slashed the Fed funds rate to just 1% in the summer of 2003 – as he began “normalizing” short-term Fed rates from that record bottom.
Longer-term finance then cost less than shorter-term loans. And with US Treasury debt heading for $11 trillion and more it is no fire sale that any ones wants.
Once again, the Fed can’t move long-dated yields; but now the cost of paying for
is there a tumble in the works - or an adjustment coming forward ? Thirty-year US bonds now yield fully 5% more than short-term Treasuries. Last time this premium for long-term borrowing got so high, the
No one on Capitol Hill complained, therefore. Longer-term finance then cost less than shorter-term loans. And with US Treasury debt heading for $9 trillion and more, what politician didn’t want easier terms from the bond market?
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Remarkably in this environment , core inflation has remained quite muted. Nevertheless the Bank of Canada , resumed its expected tightening moves in the last years. Overnight rates may be hiked more than once in the next coming months.
Labour markets are tight and tight to the point that labor shortages may become evident in many sectors - especially in the booming Alberta and British Columbia economies. Wage inflation may well follow suit with surging energy and petroleum commodity prices and pricing.
Economic data continues to be strong. This is largely reflective of the recent trend and trendlines in energy as well as metal and raw material commodity prices. This has narrowed investment income defecits , which when coupled with continual strong trade surpluses especially in regards to oil - bode for a very strong underpinning of the Canadian dollar currency and currencies. In addition bond yields will continue to be strong despite the continued rise in short term interest rates. Long term interest rates will continue to be quite muted and demand for long term duration fixed income products by pensions and coming pensioners will remain more than strong in the financial and financial markets. Even the mildly inverted yield curve ( tow year bonds yields exceed 10 year bond yields by around 6 basis points) an outlook of solid growth and solid profits , low domestic inflation, rising incomes and strong trade balances appear to be in the offing.