RE and economic charts: FF - GLOBAL ECONOMY = Global food prices hit record high in December + Two-speed economic growth recovery extends into 2011 says IMF

Friday, January 7, 2011

FF - GLOBAL ECONOMY = Global food prices hit record high in December + Two-speed economic growth recovery extends into 2011 says IMF

[mEDITate-OR:

wonder why Ireland sees themselves as part of the world

while most of U.S. do not...

---------

However, when it comes to "food", this might effect U.S., too.

What FinFact shows U.S. is that since last summer the costs of food have risen, very steeply, and are still going up. That will affect all of U.S.

----------

What the data & table below show U.S. is somewhat surprising - Latin America is much more positive about life and business that the rest of the world. But, as the chart shows U.S., "stress" is a very different think and extremely variable.

What is clear though is that stress is high in the PIIGS, and lower in northern Europe.

---------

The last chart & story show us a decline in both world trade and production since the beginning of last year. So, when we wonder why we appear to be merely "treading water", everyone else is declining, slightly.

-----------

------------

Across Latin America, a balance of +75% of privately held business owners are optimistic about their region’s economic performance in 2011.
Elsewhere, optimism in the Asia Pacific region (excluding Japan) is at +50%
whilst in North America it is just +26%
with Europe the least optimistic region at +22%.
----------
Within Latin America, Chile (+95%) scored the highest optimism of any country surveyed followed by Brazil (+79%), Argentina (+70%) and Mexico (+64%).

-------