Sunday 19 April 2009

The Eurovision of Media and Economical News


By reading the local and international press, it looks like that there has not been any financial crisis. All calling for a recovery and stating that the worse is behind us i.e now it's all fine.

Well, as usual, they think readers, the public or citizen at large, are simple fools. I suppose one can be fooled once but not twice, isn't it?

So in this flow of misinformation, distorting information, some have to sort out who is saying the truth?, who is doing "catch-the-fool" journalism? (to be polite, as I was thinking to write "rubbish economical journalism").

At least the economical oriented newspaper and website will try to lure people into thinking that we are in the same situation as in 2003 i.e stocks going north while housing price resuming their trend upward. How many can they fool?

Economist and politicians have been caught back in September, "fooling" in daylight...now they are more cautious as their credibility is at stakes (one I have in mind is the financial arm in the government lead by Katainen, and plenty of Nordic banks head...when they predicted their famous GDP of +0.5% to 1% i.e the economy will not contract...to comeback,3month after to announce a contraction of over 4%

But in this crowd of messages you can find glimpses of truth hidden under tons of nonsense news.

Here are some, and let's play the EuroVision type game and reward the one that are showing honesty and realism..:

1o points goes for China:

We must be sober and prepare for greater difficulties over a longer period of time,” Wen said. “The deterioration of world economies is worse than expected and a global recovery may be a long and winding road.

9 points goes for Israel:
"The report shows that we are coping relatively well with the economic crisis, but we still have not reached the end of the story," a statement from the president's office quoted Stanley Fischer, The Bank of Israel's governor, as saying.

8 points goes to the United States of America

"The damage from this turn in the credit cycle - in terms of lost wealth, lost homes, and blemished credit histories - is likely to be long-lasting,", Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke

7 points to Europe
"We are experiencing a market correction that is very large, very challenging and very turbulent. It is a process that is still under way.", 09 April 2009, Jean Claude Trichet, president of the ECB
1 point to Finland
"If you follow all the indicators, you see some stabilization, albeit at a low level," said European Central Bank Governing Council member Erkki Liikanen



Coming back to some statistics, it is interesting to note the sharp decline of student in Uusimaa (Capital region)

Uusimaa 6,023 in 2008 versus 7,683 in 2007 .

This are just year on year data, the trend need to be confirmed in 2009. If that continues, it will necessarly mean less stress for the rental of small appartment amid increadsing supply coming in 2009 and 2010. So you could easely expect a substantial drop in rent in small flat.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

As we have heard: "Customer is the king!" The journalists need to make their customer happy... If their customer wants them to send a message to the "fools," they will do what their customer have expected. It seems that nothing is wrong here. You know everyone works for pay.

Though, their skill to play the game becomes poorer and poorer. I am not sure if it is because the "fools" become more foolish or the other way around.

Anton said...

"Finnvera,the state-owned financing company, to provide EUR 320 million in financing and EUR 760 million in guarantees

The arrangement stacks a heavy responsibility on the shoulders of Finnish taxpayers.

In the American newspaper US Today, analyst Robin Farley from UBS regards the 95% guarantee as unusual and the 40% direct financing as unique."

After Fortum, the nonsense forecast and now this cruise, Have they gone mad?

Anton said...

Forgot that it is about the building of a Cruise Liner (Holiday for the Rich retirees)

Here is the full article:

http://www.hs.fi/english/article/State+takes+on+heavy+responsibility+for+new+giant+cruise+liner/1135245310229

Andrew said...

Anton

"the building of a Cruise Liner (Holiday for the Rich retirees)"

My widowed mum and her widowed sister liked to go on cruise holidays. Both worked as dental nurses and both had husbands who had ordinary white collar jobs.

Finland has apparantly a good record not in just construction of cruise ships but also in for example software for cruise ship management systems. Ordinary people work in these industries too. It is the nature of large industries like this that they employ a much larger number of people in nearby satellite organisations. One goes then they all go.

One day the crisis will be over.