Personal Loan Blog

Berlin, Germany (AHN) – Signs of an economic contraction in Germany’s economy raised fears of a recession in Europe.

The news escalated concern that demand for oil might fall, causing oil futures prices to drop by as much as 1.1 percent. In addition, the euro weakened against the dollar.

Germany has long served as the engine for economic growth for the entire European Union. Therefore, news that the German economy likely shrank by 0.25 percent during the last three months of 2011 caused alarm and has observers worrying the European Union might slide back into a recession.

Official figures from the Federal Statistics Office show that the German economy only grew by 3 percent during 2011 and that was only achieved because of strong growth during the first half of the year.

Moreover, the Statistics Office said that most of the growth during the first six months was driven by domestic demand. The Statistics Office based the annual figure on an estimate of fourth quarter growth. However, the government won’t post the official data for the last quarter until Feb. 15.

In the meantime, Norbert Raeth from the Statistics Office announced at a press conference Wednesday that the economy likely shrank by “around a quarter of a percentage point” in the fourth quarter.

Although the 3 percent growth rate was down from the 3.7 percent in 2010, Germany still had a stronger figure than the United States or the EU.

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), among its member nations Germany showed better growth than the expected growth rate of the following nations:

• U.S. 1.7 percent
• France 1.6 percent
• United Kingdom 0.9 percent
• Italy and Spain 0.7 percent

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Troubling statistics released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday revealed that payrolls decreased in 27 states during May.

California showed the largest decrease in jobs with a drop of 29,200 followed by New York that shed 24,700 jobs, Pennsylvania with a drop of 1,4200, Michigan lost 13,400 and Maryland shed 13,300.

However, the jobless rate only fell in 24 states while it rose in 13.

Leading the pack of states that gained in the payroll department was Florida with 28,000 more jobs and Ohio with an additional 12,000.

This report comes on the heels of a report by the International Monetary Fund adjusting its forecast for economic growth in the US downard to 2.5 percent from the 2.8 percent it forecast in April.

Because 70 percent of economic growth comes from consumer spending in the US, until hiring picks up it is unlikely that the economy will grow much. A consumer is simply an American with a job and a paycheck that is sufficient to allow for discretionary spending.

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Worries over Europe’s sovereign debt crisis returned to the Treasury market with a vengeance Monday, sending prices higher as investors sought the familiar safety of U.S. government debt.

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London, England, United Kingdom (AHN) – British households have lost about $750 (GBP 500) in the past 12 months, according to a study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies released on Friday. It is considered the largest drop in household income since 1981, and is equal to what households made in 2004.

The think tank said that average take-home income actually went up despite the recent recession because of low inflation and higher social benefits, but the long-term effects of the recession and the threat of a higher consumer price index negated the income hike.

The institute blamed the decline on rising inflation and lower wage increases.

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King earlier warned that British households may suffer from a substantial reduction in their spending power and advised families to anticipate a two-digit increase in energy bills, which would push the inflation rate to 5 percent by the end of 2011.

The study was based on data from 2009-10 when Britain was still under a Labour-led government. At that time, average income was still going up faster than inflation, but the think tank said the trend appears to have reversed beginning last year. During this period, earnings dropped by 3.8 percent in real terms for the first 11 months.

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – Initial jobless claims remained above the 400,000 mark for the second week in a row with 403,000 Americans filing for benefits during the week ending April 16, the U.S. Department of Labor said Thursday.

That number was down 13,000 from the previous week’s filings of 416,000 first time claims for unemployment compensation insurance benefits.

Moreover, the number of jobless people covered by unemployment compensation insurance remained stable at 2.9 percent.

The less volatile 4-week moving average was 3,716,750, a drop of 17,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 3,734,250.

However, there were still 8,299,810 claiming jobless benefits in all programs for the week ending April 2.

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A GE hoax, caused the corporation’s share to temporarily drop 14 cents. Pranksters issued a press-like announcement that GE would return a $3.2 billion tax refund to the US Treasury.

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Fixed-rate agency issuance fell to $89 billion during March, according to data released by eMBS. February’s activity was $99 billion. The drop was the result of a more than a third drop in volume at Freddie Mac.

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – Both the number of Americans filing first time jobless claims and the number filing ongoing claims have dropped, the Department of Labor announced Thursday.

Initial unemployment claims filed during the week ending March 12 were 385,000, representing a decrease of 16,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 401,000.

The four-week moving average dropped to its lowest rate since July 2008. It was 386,250, a decrease of 7,000

Ongoing jobless benefits claims dropped by 80,000 to 3,706,000 during the week ending March 5, the most recent week for which data is available. That was below the 3,750,000 continuing claims economists had expected and it was the lowest number of continuing claims since September 2008.

Although the amount of time that individuals can claim jobless benefits varies by state, the maximum benefit period in 99 weeks. In addition, not every jobless American qualifies for unemployment benefits. The percentage of Americans covered by the unemployment insurance compensation program remained unchanged at 3.0 percent for the week ending March 5.

For the week ending Feb. 26, the number of people claiming benefits in all jobless programs was 8,953,610.

Extended benefits were available for the jobless in 35 states and the District of Columbia. Those states were Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke says the unemployment rate in the United States will not drop to pre-financial crisis levels for a number of years.

Bernanke made that statement Thursday in answer to questions about the economy from the Congressional Committee on the Budget.

In addition, he said that it was impossible to consider the economic recovery to be established until there is a strong and sustained creation of jobs.

The U.S. economy only created 36,000 net jobs in January. That was not sufficient to cover population growth and did little to help the millions of people who lost their jobs during the recession or in its aftermath. For example, the economy needs to create from 120,000 to 200,000 jobs monthly just to absorb new workers entering the labor force for the first time.

Moreover, Bernanke said that the long-term challenges presented by the high federal deficit were “daunting” and that the present high deficit was “unsustainable.”

The total government debt is now 60 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and forecast to rise to 150 percent of GDP by 2030. The total federal budget deficit is 9 percent of current GDP.

By contrast, European Union nations try to keep budget deficits to 3 percent of GDP.

GDP is the total amount of goods and services consumed in the nation. The budget deficit is the amount the government spends each year in excess of its income, expressed as a percentage of the national GDP.

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People who pay their credit early will no longer pay fees to the bank, according to amendments to the Bulgarian Credit Institutions Act. The amendments have been presented by MPs from Bulgaria’s ruling party GERB and are expected to be voted in the parliament. The relief concerns mortgage, business loans and other non-consumer credit, which have already dropped the fee. …

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