April 2008
You're watching the articles of Euribor for the month of April 2008.
Thomas Alva Edison was a pretty interesting subject, highlighting both as an inventor and businessman and is considered one of the best American minds of all time because he left a legacy of more than 1,000 patents (as can read reviews in zone , Tesla did not think the same thing as many of his inventions were misappropriated by Edison).
His inventions range from the refinement of the bulb (formerly melted in less than 48h) as the invention of the cinema (which ultimately won the patent Lumiere brothers) and established the foundations for electronics today.
As a businessman, his legacy was General Electric, founded in 1890 and in a variety of markets, including the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, light bulbs, industrial automation, engines, locomotives (trains), aircraft, jet engines, services Aviation and plastics, silicones, and abrasives. It is the only company that remains important in the Dow Jones after more than 100 years.
On Friday he played to present the results on Wall Street and are often considered a barometer of the U.S. economy (we talk about the second company by market capitalization in the world). Their accounts were decpecionantes and fell on the stock near a 13% dragging the rest of the world's stock exchanges.
Something strange happens when a company of this caliber what goes wrong and both the IMF and the G7 economic decision smell it, warning that the financial crisis has not come to an end and we must continue to respond with monetary and fiscal actions consistent globally . He also spoke of the weak dollar and the strength of the Euro.
The G7 is also concerned about the weakness of the dollar. 'There have been moments of harsh fluctuations and are concerned about the possible implications for economic and financial stability. " It is the first time you change the reference to currencies in the communique of the G7 since 2004. Johnson says, however, that the IMF believes that the value of the dollar 'is closer to its equilibrium since the nineties than ever', although he admitted that the euro is slightly overvalued.
As for the usual obituary of property companies have to Aisa, who is suspended on the stock exchange by doubts about whether it could cope with their debts.
Faced with an economic outlook as disturbing, many of us do the following question: What happens to our savings and debts when a bank bankruptcy?. Fortunately, we Invertia hacne a particular subject.
The guarantee fund covers as the current Spanish legislation (which is similar in the rest of the European Union) to 20,000 euros per person and entity. That means that if we take an imaginary bank called Private Bank for example an account with 4,000 euros and a fixed-term tax amounting to 30,000 euros in the FGD will return within three months (except that things will be complicated and emphasized and then live long periods indefinitely a total of 20,000 euros.
The rest, up to 34,000 euros, that is 14,000 euros, would not be covered by this special fund. This means that those customers who can not recover all their money then have to resort to an arrangement with creditors as a creditor and most expect to liquidate the assets of the bank. This process is simplified when the troubled bank is being acquired by another rival, since the buyer takes care of those customers with outstanding payments.
Therefore, if someone enters into a "paranoia" it is advisable to have your savings in several banks being € 20,000 each.
What happens with mortgages?
If we have contracted with the bank in the example above Private Bank for a mortgage amount of 100,000 euros and we only returned 50% when the bank is involved, the remaining 50,000 euros will have to pay them equally. Who? At the entity that manages the temporary suspension of payments of the bank, and ultimately to the bank in an eventual settlement is made with a credit portfolio of the entity or the entire bank.
Such is life, if things go wrong the only thing certain is that we will have to pay our debts ...
Written by Carlos Lopez on April 14, 2008 with 200 comments
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Trichet much we remember, especially on days like yesterday because he had to talk but who was the European Central Bank president before him?. His name was Willem Frederik Duisenberg, although friends call him simply Wim Duisenberg and the very Wim friends, to know you better, let's look at the obituary they did in El Pais 3 years ago, when he died of a heart attack in his pool.
Duisenberg was a monetarist in the strict sense and believed that monetary policy should be pursued as a primary objective of controlling inflation, leaving aside the economic growth, as suggested in the meetings of the Eurogroup. Defensor ultra Stability Plan in its first format, always kept their economic convictions, which gave credibility to the common European currency. As a monetarist, always wanted that the ECB's decisions were not influenced by public finance or public deficits of the governments of the European Union.
He lived a parallel stage with Alan Greenspan, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, as the two watchtowers in interest rates on both sides of the Atlantic. While Greenspan used to be a little more condescending to the request of the markets, Duisenberg was maintaining his thesis even against them if they required the monetary orthodoxy, although this farm Some criticized him for the short term. Worker, rigorous and serious, this political Dutchman, who was governor before the Bank of Holland, was a good gourmet and knew to appreciate the good Spanish wine. Of good treatment and great training, always thought that the euro had a great future. Recently gave a lecture at the Foundation Rafael del Pino in Madrid, in which he advocated the same ideas about the euro.
As you can see, our friend Trichet is a worthy successor to Wim the same obsession with "inflation, inflation and inflation." Subject to a European level may have been somewhat controlled, but at the national level is completely unbridled and we're talking about a price increase of 4.5%. Many times we take lightly this economic indicator, but it basically becomes a little thief who every year goes through your house and steals your pay you half a month. So the conclusion is obvious how Trichet is going to fall in rates, with inflation of 3.5%?
As for the apocalyptic day today it's up to Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, which ensures that the current financial crisis is the worst since 1929. Look how much is said about the supercrisis that we are living, but to be honest, as far as we are concerned, I hope that all crises are as bearable as this.
Today is Friday, which means that much of the work I do thank you "comment of the week" (the most voted by readers) that piece of invention that I did not write for Friday. There goes the cutandpaste rigor of this article, which will surely generate some controversy:
(more ...)
Written by Carlos Lopez on April 11, 2008 with 231 reviews
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¿Buy a book online?. The question seems a bit absurd today, but how it responded 10 years ago?. Now the question is how buy your house online? And if you save a percentage interesting?. I am not talking about searching the house in idealistic or fotocasa, I talk about committing to the purchase and pay for the signal.
In today's real estate, high rates and low liquidity, the only way to sell an apartment is to lower prices even if they dress differently (giving away a year's mortgage, or car storage for free, 4 rooms for the price of 3, etc. ) And the only way to lower prices without affecting the income statement, is to improve business processes. Posts to improve one without affecting the quality of the product, the trading process takes prominence Why not pass this saving on the one who makes all efforts via the Internet is costing me and not a euro sell?.
It seemed impossible for an industry as traditional and so "in a suit and tie" as the real estate it is taking practical Metrovacesa and "Welcome to optimism" with results that I was pleasantly surprised (they made a promotion to sell houses exclusively by Internet and sold 27, making 6 with the entire sales process entirely over the Internet). Perhaps it's time to complain less and further sharpen the wits. In SIMA, not least be able to see more imaginative proposals.
The downside of the real estate crisis is affecting many sectors not as obvious as it may be banking, for example, we read that sales of refrigerators and washing machines collapses more than 30% by the pricking of the 'brick'.
The numbers leave no room for controversy. The sale of refrigerators in March (the same month of previous year) has dropped by 39%. Similarly, the number of machines sold has dropped by 32%, but is that the amount of dryers delivered has sunk 40%, while the number of tops has plummeted by 33%. In quarterly terms, the results are somewhat better, but still falls are between 10% and 20%, indicating that the sector's situation worsens far from improving, though it may not be a solution in sight in the short term.
Hopefully, at least, we can continue filling out our old refrigerator. What is clear is that if you buy one, we will have to look that consumes little, as silly as the oil has again put us at historic highs, at $ 112 due to falling inventories. At this price, I temos you end up noticing, much as the dollar continues to fall.
Meanwhile, in Spain we handle some growth forecasts as if the crisis is not with us, comes the IMF and said that we expected a sharp slowdown in Spain: sitando its growth at 1.8%.
Already you can see we are moving in that situation, the real estate metidas on the Internet is almost as surealista as Yahoo! is combining with Google.
Written by Carlos Lopez on April 10, 2008 with 223 comments
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Those who are accustomed to the speeches of Trichet and Bernanke, estaréis agree on the importance of both their words and their breaks. So important is a coma, which can completely change the meaning of a sentence, let's see an example:
If the man really knew the value of women in andaría fours in his search.
What exactly did you understand? Surely, men have understood something completely different than women.
Let's see the same sentence, placing the comma in its place.
- If the man really knew the value of women, andaría on four legs in their search.
- If the man really knew the value of the woman andaría on four legs in their search.
In the investiture debate yesterday, we were also able to see it with many other nuances in language, for example, while some called the current economic situation of "crisis" others called it the "slow" and the same goes for housing, some called him "drop" and other "soft landing".
Some do not see that it appears that neither slowing nor crisis nor falls nor are the landings of BBVA with two flats that draws the young man with a mortgage interest rate of Euribor least 0.25.
BBVA announced today the launch of a new mortgage aimed at young people which offers an interest rate of 0.25% euribor least the first year and which aims to "strengthen its strategy of products in this segment 'to attract 500,000 customers in 2009 , Reported today the director of Innovation and Business Development, Javier Bernal.
It certainly is a bank optimistic and expects to grow more than 10% in loans despite the crisis.
From the outside do not see that optimism, we have the example of the British press that throws with bullet: Foreign banks are fleeing the Spanish real estate debt.
"We are in a very worrying situation. Simply can not refinance debt. Need to cut interest rates by two points, something that obviously is not going to happen, "he concludes by qualifying that the crash could be worse than that of the real estate crisis of the early nineties.
To all this, one wonders who will have gained from this crisis?. As told in the movie Wall Street, nor the money is created or destroyed, only changes hands (well, that that is not created ...). So this time, has passed into the hands of John Paulson, president of the firm Paulson & Co. that bagging about 3,000 dollars (1,900 million euros) to bet on the collapse of financial assets associated with these products.
It was not the only one who did see it coming. The second on the list, Phil Falcone, who pocket around 2,000 dollars (1,272 million euros), also received part of his salary through the crisis. In total, the 100 most successful traders earned about 30,000 dollars (19,095 million euros), 25% more than in 2006.
We must recognize that by then, nobody thought of a crisis of this size so we ran the risk, not the 17 executives of EADS won 20 million by selling shares before its collapse in the stock exchange.
So you know, to win pasta just have to gamble (and you can lose it) or have inside information, and I fear that what we have here for the second bit, at most some rumorcillo.
Written by Carlos Lopez on April 9, 2008 with 206 comments
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It is curious to see how affect certain measures of economic or political character in the customs of a country. A good example may be the next Why are often put in restaurants paella on Thursdays?
Fortunately, Wikipedia has the answer: It was shuffled several hypotheses concerning the tradition of making paella on Thursdays. Perhaps they are complementary.
Late division:
It is based on the fact that formerly fought the fishermen on Sunday and that Monday was the first day he could buy fresh fish, which were first sold on the coast. The surplus was shared by the interior, but as was delivered in cars did not reach the majority population until Thursday. This day was preparing the fish casserole with rice.
Therefore it is assumed that led to the fish paella.
Libranza day of the maids:
Narrate some of the maids Spanish-Franco era, the day that "free" was on Thursday. So the food of the family should make the Lady. So that was not too much hassle, the maid (or even the maids, since depending on the purchasing power, a family could have its service to several maids), prepared since left the night before all the ingredients, so that the Lady Just be prepared rice in paella, and finally add the remaining ingredients and let it rest.
Thus many women are bourgeois pointed somewhat inviting to eat in their house to another family, pretending to be good cooks, when in fact many of them hardly anything cooked in their affluent life, apart from rice to paella.
A third hypothesis says that Franco went incognito on Thursday to eat, and always called paella. So, if it flies by, more and more restaurants took to the custom of serving paella on Thursdays, they would not touch them the visit of the Generalissimo. Hence the custom.
Today, as you will have to check your pockets, there is a fairly strong speculation in commodities and food. Rice did not escape it, and I leave with you for ilustralo an article on the situation in the Philippines:
The weather, consumption and demand affect the price of rice. But is not the only one. The hand of speculators can sometimes tip the balance in prices. The Philippine government has decided to put a stop to the producers that account for rice in order to sell when the market offering higher prices. The authorities announced that they are bringing life imprisonment against those practices that contribute to these rising prices and shortages of grain in the country.
An interesting situation frankly: Life imprisonment for exercising an economic activity. But on the other hand, that economic activity can cause a famine.
Changing the subject, we return to the much Manida liquidity crisis. How does someone who does not have to ask for a loan and has paid half the mortgage? (although that appears to lie, we are talking about more than half of the population). One effect could be, for example to see how the rising fares by banking cards and overdrafts.
Banks have seized boxes and the beginning of the year to raise the commissions on products of both active and passive. Credit and debit cards, books and checking accounts, loans ... have been few tools or services that have not experienced a rebound in the first quarter of the year, according to published yesterday by the Bank of Spain.
Go grace, which has a pulp and finally we climb up the commissions from your checking account.
We talked a lot of boxes here and real estate at risk of bankruptcy, in Cotizalia can read an interesting article: The banks will not fail to fall to any great real estate because "no one".
The major Spanish banks are not going to let go of any of the major real estate because it would harm the entire world. That is the widely held view that the cream of the sector expressed at the conference of European bank Morgan Stanley held last week in London, according to a document of this investment bank that has had access to the Confidential.
This position of the banking and has been reflected in their willingness to refinance the debt of real estate with great distress as Habitat or Martins-Fadesa, which could have led to the suspension of payments. In fact, Fernando Martin, president of the latter, as Confidencial told The banks that could become the biggest real estate in Spain if executed guarantees of debt of various companies and stayed with their assets.
A clear example that "no one" is Marina D'or whose benefits were reduced in 2007 by nearly 50% over the previous year due to "the crisis in the housing market", which has resulted in the loss of about 1,000 jobs in the company.
Written by Carlos Lopez on April 8, 2008 with 155 comments
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It is curious as in the media, occasionally come to light we had never used words such as "chapapote" or "subprime". A term that sounds a lot lately is the "Contest of creditors" especially when talking about real estate with problemas.Hasta 2004, when a company could not take care of their debts could be declared in suspension of payments to take a breather and power situación.La out of the legislation was quite old and with loopholes, so from that year was renewed in the figure of "composition".
Casting a glance at Wikipedia, we can see the budgets for the start of proceedings concerning those in Spain are of two types:
- Budgets of the declaration of subjective contest.
- That the debtor is a natural or juridical person, or a heritage of those admitted as taxpayers of this procedure. It is no longer necessary to hold the status of trader.
- The heritage admitted is "inheritance", which may be declared until it has been accepted outright by the heirs. "
- Excluding the entities comprising the territorial organization of the state, government agencies and other entities of public law. This regulation is more restrictive than the previous one.
- Budgets objectives of the declaration of the competition.
- That the debtor is in a state of insolvency regarded as the inability to regularly meet its obligations due.
What is interesting about this new law is that now, families are eligible for this scheme. Is this the solution for families with problem? After reading quite a few articles on the subject, I stay with the conclusion of the previous mentioned:
That is, that for many illusions that we do mortgage just be suspended for one year and where the arrival date without having paid the sum, the bank will pursue the debtor in the manner it deems best for its own interests.
In reading the article "The number of personal bankruptcies soared among Americans who have jobs ..." I see that we provide data in Spain.
In the month of March, 86,165 individuals filed what they call in Spain composition, 13% more than the 76,120 cases that were recorded in February.
In the event that a person is paying a mortgage with a value greater than the value of the property, we would face the unpleasant obligation of mortgaging other assets. The most interesting of all is that the law limiting to 80% of the value of adjusting the amount of the loan can be granted under a house. If the value of the valuation is higher, the customer receives more money and the bank paid more interest. The legislation also leads to 95% as a ceiling, in case there are 'additional personal guarantees', ie a guarantee, or' insurance against default. " Stronger requirements are introduced because banks have provisions for more funds if exceeding the limit of 80%. Do we really banks have been serving the law during the housing boom.
Fortunately for many, sensed that the European Central Bank will lower interest rates, but not yet. Looking at data, I realize why Trichet is so hated by many:
Jean-Claude Trichet holds a remarkable record. Since he became president of the European Central Bank (ECB), and have already almost four and a half years since that Nov. 1, 2003, has never lowered interest rates. To date, look at his marker 45 and eight maintenance of the official price increases of existing money in the euro zone in the 53 meetings in which it has occupied the chair of the most important institution. However, the statistics are there to be broken. And will break. They believe at least 12 of the 13 experts consulted by The Economist, which predict that the monetary institution will end up trimming interest.
As you can see, today has touched a really thick in a day particularly thick.
Written by Carlos Lopez on April 7, 2008 with 234 comments
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Thomas Alva Edison was a pretty interesting subject, highlighting both as an inventor and businessman and is considered one of the best American minds of all time because he left a legacy of more than 1,000 patents (as can read reviews in zone , Tesla did not think the same thing as many of his inventions were misappropriated by Edison). 
