“The global recession created an “export shock” for Germany as world trade fell by about a quarter.”

One reader submitted that prices have increased dramatically in the United Kingdom over the last 2 years, but since two months ago the price of bread, rice, flour and milk have increased to 35% (for rice). Things are not good. British government claims of low inflation, but this is not true at all. So far we have seen the price of bread rise a penny or two for the last 8 weeks. Bread increased by 20%, cheese, milk and even meat has increased. By my calculations all increased by 20% on average. So how do the governments claim inflation is at 2%?

20% is the minimum in the last six months (and not a whole year) Many people have been helping others to hold a budget for many people and many help to organize a bunch of people who have trouble saving money. I work for the council in the UK and my job is to teach some families how to spend and how to save. I keep tab on the exact prices of all the supermarkets and we know exactly how much they have increased. Government figures are completely false and there is no end right now with this price increase.

Poehl Says German Euro Rescue Would Be Pandora’s Box
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Richard Howard, a managing director for global markets at Dallas-based Hayman, said Germany may opt to shore up its own economy, Europe’s biggest, rather than bail out fellow euro nations such as Austria, Italy and Spain as their banks sag under the weight of bad debts. That might lead to defaults and compel Germany to renounce the euro, he said.

“A bailout of a debtor country from a surplus country like Germany would be like opening the box of Pandora,” former Bundesbank President Karl Otto Poehl said in London yesterday. “It’s a very dangerous course that we will enter” and “I’m very much against it, many people in Germany are against it, but the political pressure will increase,” Karl Otto Poehl said.

UK Still in Recession
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Official figures released today show that the UK economy shrank yet again in the last quarter killing off any hopes that the recession had ceased.

Statistics show that the UK economy shrank by 0.4% in the quarter last quarter (between July and September) making it a record sixth consecutive quarter of recession.

Experts had previous predicted that the economy would grow thus officially ending the recession although official figures now show the UK is still firmly in the grip of the longest period of decline/recession since official records (ONS) begin in 1955.

The UK economy shrank by 0.4 per cent between July and September – a record sixth successive quarter of recession, the Office for National Statistics said.

Experts predicted that the economy would grow by 0.2 per cent but today’s figures leave the UK in the grip of the longest period of continuous decline since ONS records began in 1955.

Adding insult to injury these statistics make a mockery of Gordon Brown’s claims that Britain is best placed to withstand a credit crunch after European countries including France and Germany officially exited recession earlier this year.

Recession: It’s not over
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By any account, the third quarter contraction of 0.4 per cent is bad, very bad. Britain’s recession is now the longest since demobilisation after the Second World War. The 1980s recession was marginally deeper. Compared with the return to growth in the second quarter in Japan, Germany and France, and the expectations of a strong US third quarter, the UK appears to be the G7 laggard.

Germany’s Recession vs. America’s: Doing Worse, but Feeling Better
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uly 28, 2009 —
The world recession that began in the U.S. is hitting Germany much harder than us, due to a collapse in world trade that has damaged an economy that Germans constantly refer to as “the World Export Champion.” Their economy will have shrunk by about 8% by the time it bottoms, whereas America’s GDP should fall less than 4% from its peak. Intriguingly, the German public and elites feel much better about their situation than Americans do about ours. The key question is whether this represents: a justified faith in a system that works well for them; government measures that delay the pain; German complacency; or some combination of these factors.

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