mardi 16 novembre 2010

Euro and Portugal: The end of their Relationship?

Dear readers,

After reading a lot of article about this subject, I can tell you that the actual economic situation of the Portugal is not perfect.
Saturday, Luis Amado (Diplomat chief of Lisbon) had annunciate that government should take decisions to combated the financial crisis. He speaks about “Extreme situation”. If no decisions are taken, Portugal can say goodbye to the Euro…


Since the fragility of the Irish economy, investors pay a lot of attention in countries situations…
Investor’s confidence decreased a lot concerning the Portugal, and especially after the situation of the Irish economy.
These fears have pushed yields to the highest figures since the integration of Portugal to the Euro.
The minister explains:
"The country needs a broad coalition to enable it to cross the current situation. I think that government understand that the alternative to the current situation would ultimately leave the euro."

The actual government in Portugal decides to fix a deficit for the next year: 4,6% of the GDP.
We have to know that the deficit of this year and the last year was 7,3% and 9,3% of the GDP… It will be a real challenge for Portugal to succeed.

The budget is actually forecast by the parliament, the Portuguese government is not decides alone the budget of the country.

The actual policy is not really appreciated by Portuguese people… The majority of Portuguese really want to change the operation policy in Portugal.


Portugal seems known a real difficult period for the economy and the policy… It will be hard for us to combat these financial crisis consequences.
We also know that it is very complicated for European countries to maintain a good financial and economic level…
All countries are very different but they work with the same tax policy. It can be too much hard for some countries… as Portugal for example.
The decision to leave the Euro can be a help for Portugal because they maybe have to be more independent concerning taxes… Actually, the Euro can’t help Portuguese development, it causes problem on their policies and their economy.


Regards,

Pauline

Sources:

www.lefigaro.fr/international/
www.leblogfinance.com/
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/2_euro_Portugal.png
http://touch2give.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/luis-amado-150x150.jpg

mardi 9 novembre 2010

A royal way for Hermès and LVMH

Dear readers,


Many articles speak about the perfect growth of Hermès Group.  


In fact, their numbers increased a lot this year. The group already has a turnover of 590 millions Euros for the third semester (+30,5%) The family group had never been so confident about their luxury business: “ Probably the best year Hermès could works.”
In fact, the luxury area knows an important growth (+11%), it’s probably one of better area nowadays…
We have to know that Hermès is a family business, and they really want to maintain their family work. It’s really important for group members to keep their business image. 


Recently, LVMH had invests on their capital. This investment had caused a lot of discussions because Hermès analysed LVMH attentions. They justified themselves by saying that they pay attention about LVMH investment and they also want to keep their family image “ You can not prevent a family to reflect faced with an intrusion into its capital.”



In fact, Hermès group just wants to show that LVMH has only an investor role for the moment. They also pay attention on their actions because their growth is very important actually.
Hermès possess actually 73% of their own capital and LVMH had announced that they would invest in 14,2% of Hermès capital.
Side of LVMH, Bernard Arnault (LVMH president) wants to invest long term. He also wishes to maintain the image of Hermès. To conclude, their goals are quite the same but we can see a reluctant by Hermès, it’s quite hard to let a part of their capital to the biggest luxury group in the world!
In fact, LVMH knows an important growth too and I am interested about that. I have already written an article about LVMH and its new acquisition of the SMCP group. LVMH is the most important group in luxury area and Bernard Arnault research all intersting opportunities for the development of his group.
I think that strategies of these two groups are really good. On one side, Hermès group researched protection and growth, and on another side, LVMH wants to invest and also increase their presence in the luxury market.
It seems to be difficult to share business success history… but I think that it’s a real advantage for a company to maintain its history and its image.

Regards,

Pauline


Sources:


- http://www.leblogfinance.com/2010/10/lvmh-prise-de-participation-dans-hermes.html
- http://www.lesechos.fr/entreprises-secteurs/grande-consommation/actu/020920153475-hermes-en-route-pour-une-annee-historique.htm

mercredi 3 novembre 2010

About an interesting video...

Dear readers,


I have seen an interesting video about American economic situation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=eb1n1X0Oqdw&pop_ads=0#t=11





The makers of this video are members of NIA (National Inflation Association)
NIA is a preventive association about inflation for American people; they want to help Americans to survive with the actual economic crisis. In order to give some explanation and advises to people, they give us concrete examples as the amount of the American debt, the gravity of the economic situation (impossibility to pay off the debt).
They give some advices to invest. For example, they explain that the gold and silver market continue to succeed. They encourage and help American people to cope with the actual economic crisis in USA.

Concerning the video, it shows a lot of social and economic problem that the United States has known.
Nevertheless, the main subject in this video is the actual inflation in USA. They firstly detailed all the reasons for the actual debt. Why all taxes increase a lot?
To answer this heavy question, the makers of this video speak about Medicare and Medicaid costs, Irak war cost. In fact, costs that the government forecast for these three projects became too important; they increase during the realization of these projects.
For example, they projected as cost for the Irak war between 50 and 60 billion dollars but it costs actually around 710 billion dollars.
One other problem in USA is the decrease of the industrialization. In fact, since around ten years, the competitiveness between China and the United States had led the bankruptcy of American industry. For example, concerning the textile area American industry progressively disappear.
The unemployment increase a lot too and the retirement pay decrease… NIA explained that if this situation doesn’t change American people would have serious problem with their life conditions. Because of this crisis and all bad decisions of the government, American people send their home, eat poorly and less, stop their air conditioning and do so on…
The future of the United States is in danger because of the actual education. In the video, NIA compares American education system with Chinese education system. They also compared the price of the education in these two counties. American people pay actually around 25000 dollars per year for school and Chinese people pay between 400 and 2200 per year. The Chinese culture made a better system education and young Chinese succeed more than young American…  
So we can see here that NIA criticize American culture and mentality. They also criticize investors and politician mentality: They name us Power junkies because they only think about profit.
The video compares also two currencies evolution: Dollar and Euro. In spite of the Greek crisis, Dollar currency will have problem before Euro.
In another part, NIA explains in this video the stability of growth in gold and silver area. They also said that the gold increase a lot actually.
After explaining the real bad situation of the United States, they showed that one area is continuing to increase in USA. Their goal here is to advise people about their money. They show that it can be a good idea to invest in gold or silver.
NIA compares the amount of the American debt and the amount of the gold that American reserve possesses. The amount of the debt is less important.
We see that NIA want to help people cope with the actual American crisis. NIA published this video because they want to educate American people about the crisis and the actual economic situation in USA.
Concerning investments in Gold, it can be a financial solution for American people but for a very short term…  Even though the gold market is stable, this market is growing very slowly. We have to know that if all Americans invest in gold, the gold price will increase a lot and it will stop a lot of people in their investment: It’s the theory of supply and demand.

Regards,

Pauline