Bulls, Bears & Bucks #10: Consumentenvertrouwen VS laagste in 26 jaar

quote:

Op dinsdag 8 april 2008 09:35 schreef SeLang het volgende:
Er wordt hier ontzettend veel gekocht puur als speculatie om een paar maanden later met winst te verkopen. Die mensen zitten nu in de knoop.

Je hebt nu ook nog dat de Polen weer vertrekken omdat de pound zo is gedaald. Het is voor hen niet meer rendabel om in de UK te blijven. Daardoor krijg je een nog groter overschot aan huurwoningen en lagere huurprijzen en dat trekt de koopmarkt weer verder omlaag (veel is 'buy to let', maar als er geen huur binnenkomt is de hypotheek niet meer te betalen). In de stad waar ik woon is 10% van de bevolking Pools.

quote:

Op dinsdag 8 april 2008 18:04 schreef digitaLL het volgende:
Frankrijk aan top en Nederland een goede 2e aan de wereldtop belastingen en premies heffen

[ afbeelding ]

Forbes

Ik vind het droevig , maar dat is mijn mening
We staan zelf boven een communistisch land als China

quote:

Op dinsdag 8 april 2008 18:24 schreef Basp1 het volgende:

[..]

Wat een kul grafiek.

Leuk om te zien dat men in staat is om alle procentpunten op te tellen, maar dat zegt natuurlijk nog niet veel. Men impliceerd met deze grafiek dat de belastingdruk in sommige landen > 100% is wat natuurlijk niet het geval is. Het geld om een overheid draaiend te houden moet toch ergens vandaan komen.

Als we gewoon naar nederland kijken zou ik als werknemer hier dus 52% op al mijn inkomen betalen, terwijl dit al niet klopt zelfs al heb je een topsalaris dan haal je nog maar in de bovenste trap je 52% grens.

quote:

``The Federal Reserve has judged it necessary to take actions that extend to the very edge of its lawful and implied powers, transcending in the process certain long-embedded central banking principles and practices,'' Volcker said in a speech to the Economic Club of New York.
...
Volcker, the Fed chairman from 1979 to 1987, had implicit criticism for U.S. regulators and market participants who allowed ``excesses of subprime mortgages'' to spread into ``the mother of all crises.'' The Fed's Bear Stearns loan was unusual, he said.

``What appears to be in substance a direct transfer of mortgage and mortgage-backed securities of questionable pedigree from an investment bank to the Federal Reserve seems to test the time-honored central bank mantra in time of crisis: lend freely at high rates against good collateral; test it to the point of no return,'' he said.
...
Volcker said the modern financial system has ``failed the test'' of the marketplace. When asked whether he predicts a ``dollar crisis,'' he said, ``you don't have to predict it, you're in it.''

quote:

Op dinsdag 8 april 2008 18:24 schreef Basp1 het volgende:

[..]

Wat een kul grafiek.

Leuk om te zien dat men in staat is om alle procentpunten op te tellen, maar dat zegt natuurlijk nog niet veel. Men impliceerd met deze grafiek dat de belastingdruk in sommige landen > 100% is wat natuurlijk niet het geval is. Het geld om een overheid draaiend te houden moet toch ergens vandaan komen.

Als we gewoon naar nederland kijken zou ik als werknemer hier dus 52% op al mijn inkomen betalen, terwijl dit al niet klopt zelfs al heb je een topsalaris dan haal je nog maar in de bovenste trap je 52% grens.

quote:

2008 Tax Misery & Reform Index
The misery score is the sum of the taxes shown in the colored bars, at the highest marginal percentage in each locale. It is our best proxy for evaluating whether policy attracts or repels capital and talent. The countries at the top of the chart impose the harshest taxes while those at the bottom are the most tax friendly. The Reform column reflects a reduction in misery (a negative number highlighted in red) or an increase in misery since we began tracking. In most of the world local governments are usually funded from property taxes, which aren't part of the Misery Index.

quote:

105 Teletekst wo 09 apr
***************************************
Uitvoer naar VS toch weer gegroeid

***************************************
` Ondanks de val van de dollar is de
Nederlandse uitvoer naar de Verenigde
Staten vorig jaar weer toegenomen.Het
CBS meldt een toename van 8 procent.Dat
is weliswaar een halvering ten opzichte
van het cijfer in 2006,maar het loopt
wel in de pas met de totale stijging
van de Nederlandse uitvoer.

De Nederlandse export naar de VS groeit
veel harder dan in de vorige periode
van koersdalingen van de dollar,tussen
2002 en 2004.

Van de Nederlandse uitvoer blijft 80%
binnen de EU.Naar Duitsland gaat een
kwart van de producten.Vijf procent van
de Nederlandse uitvoer gaat naar de VS.
***************************************

quote:

Op woensdag 9 april 2008 10:02 schreef digitaLL het volgende:


Er staat xtra info bij de bron,

quote:

Op woensdag 9 april 2008 10:35 schreef Basp1 het volgende:

[..]

Dat het van de max tarieven uit gaat, waarom worden dan ook niet de extra belastingheffingen die je krijgt als je belastingen ontdoken hebt erbij opgeteld. Alleen al door de getrapte belastingschalen in nederland komt het niet voor dat je over al je inkomen die 52% betaald. Bij een niet getrapt belasting stelsel zonder aftrek posten betaald iedereen evenveel procentueel gezien en klopt de grafiek wel.

Normaal gesproken heb je wel heel intressante dingen te melden, maar deze grafiek gaat echt nergens over.

quote:

Op woensdag 9 april 2008 13:09 schreef Hertog_Martin het volgende:
Is de pond al door de 0.80 euro heen?

quote:

LONDEN - Het Britse pond sterling is woensdag naar een historisch dieptepunt gedaald tegenover de euro met een stand van 1,25 euro. Daarmee is de Britse munt bijna 9 procent in waarde gedaald tegenover de euro sinds begin dit jaar.

quote:

Op woensdag 9 april 2008 10:23 schreef digitaLL het volgende:

[..]

De enorme koersdaling van de dollar lijkt niet te leiden tot een grote daling in export naar de VS, ze stijgt zelfs nog met 8%. Het enige wat ik kan bedenken als verklaring is dat de VS zoveel geoutsourced heeft dat ondanks de voor hun hogere prijzen deze producten niet op de interne markt te verkrijgen zijn.

quote:

The bigger problem is that the now-finished boom was, for most Americans, nothing of the sort. In 2000, at the end of the previous economic expansion, the median American family made about $61,000, according to the Census Bureau’s inflation-adjusted numbers. In 2007, in what looks to have been the final year of the most recent expansion, the median family, amazingly, seems to have made less — about $60,500.

This has never happened before, at least not for as long as the government has been keeping records. In every other expansion since World War II, the buying power of most American families grew while the economy did. You can think of this as the most basic test of an economy’s health: does it produce ever-rising living standards for its citizens?

quote:

Op woensdag 9 april 2008 17:23 schreef Grumpey het volgende:
zijn de belastingverlagingen wel al meegeteld? Is van dat bedrag niet meer te besteden dan paar jaar geleden dankzij de verlagingen? (weliswaar voor rijken nog meer maar toch voor iedereen wel wat).

quote:

The tax code, meanwhile, has become far more favorable to high-income workers at the same time that they — and they alone — have received large pretax raises. That doesn’t make much sense, does it?

quote:

Fed Weighs Its Options in Easing Crunch
wsj

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Reserve is considering contingency plans for expanding its lending power in the event its recent steps to unfreeze credit markets fail.

Among the options: Having the Treasury borrow more money than it needs to fund the government and leave the proceeds on deposit at the Fed; issuing debt under the Fed's name rather than the Treasury's; and asking Congress for immediate authority for the Fed to pay interest on commercial-bank reserves instead of waiting until a previously enacted law permits it in 2011.
• The Issue: The Fed has sold or committed a lot of its Treasury portfolio to support markets. Some worry it will soon run out of room to do more.
• The News: The Fed is considering several contingency plans for getting more lending capacity so that won't happen.
• The Bottom Line: The Fed has lots of firepower left before it has to turn to these contingencies.

No moves are imminent because the Fed still has plenty of balance sheet room for additional lending now. The internal discussions are part of a continuing effort at the Fed, similar to what is under way at foreign central banks, to determine its options if the credit crunch becomes even more severe. Fed officials believe the availability of such options largely eliminates the risk of exhausting its stockpile of Treasury bonds and thus losing its ability to backstop the financial system, as some on Wall Street fear.

British and Swiss central banks also are contemplating contingency plans. For now, the European Central Bank is reluctant to consider options that require substantial modifications of its standard tools.

The Fed, like any central bank, could print unlimited amounts of money, but that would push short-term interest rates lower than it believes would be wise. The contingency planning seeks ways to relieve strains in credit markets and restore liquidity without pushing down rates.

The Fed is reluctant to heed calls from some Wall Street participants and foreign officials for the Fed to directly purchase mortgage-backed securities to help a market that still is not functioning normally.

Before the credit crunch began in August, the Fed had $790 billion in Treasury securities on its balance sheet, about 87% of its total assets. Since then, it has sold or lent about $300 billion. In their place, the Fed has made loans to banks and securities firms to assist them in financing holdings of mortgage-backed and other securities. Some on Wall Street say the potential for further declines in Fed treasury holdings could leave it out of ammunition.


The Fed holds assets to manage the nation's money supply and influence the federal-funds rate, which banks charge each other on overnight loans. When the Fed buys Treasurys or makes loans directly to banks, it supplies financial institutions with cash; in effect, it prints money. The cash ends up as currency in circulation or in banks' reserve accounts at the Fed.

Since reserves earn no interest, banks lend cash that exceeds their required minimum. That puts downward pressure on the federal funds rate, currently targeted by the Fed at 2.25%. The Fed could purchase securities and make loans almost without limit, expanding its balance sheet. That would cause excess reserves to skyrocket and the federal funds rate to fall to zero. The Fed would contemplate such "quantitative easing" only in dire circumstances. The Bank of Japan took this step this decade after years of economic stagnation.

Weighing the Possibilities

So the Fed is seeking ways to expand its balance sheet without causing the federal funds rate to drop. The likeliest option, one the Fed and Treasury have discussed, is for the Treasury to issue more debt than it needs to fund government operations. The extra cash would be left on deposit at the Fed, where it would be separate from bank reserves on deposit and thus would have no impact on interest rates. The Fed would use the cash to purchase an offsetting amount of Treasurys in the open market; for legal reasons, it generally cannot buy them directly from Treasury.

Treasury's principal constraint is the statutory limit debt. Treasury debt was $453 billion below the limit Monday. In the past, Congress always has responded to administration requests to raise the limit, sometimes only after political theatrics.

Fed officials also are investigating the feasibility of the Fed issuing its own debt and using the proceeds to purchase other assets or make loans. It has never done so; the legality is unclear. Some foreign central banks, such as the Bank of Japan, do so.

Another possibility is seeking congressional approval to pay interest on banks' reserves immediately instead of waiting until a 2006 law permits that in 2011. If the Fed paid, say, 2% interest on reserves, banks would have no incentive to lend out excess reserves once the federal funds rate fell to that level.

Congress put off the effective date because paying interest on reserves reduces the Fed profits that are turned over to the Treasury each year, widening the budget deficit. Although preliminary explorations suggest Congress would be open to accelerating the date, the Fed is leery of depending on action by Congress.

The Fed is inclined to use any additional maneuvering room to lend through its existing and recently expanded avenues. Officials are reluctant to buy mortgage-backed securities directly. They worry that such purchases would hurt the market for MBS that the Fed is not permitted to buy: those backed by jumbo and subprime and alt-A mortgages, which are under the greatest strain.

Moreover, the Fed is not operationally equipped to hold MBS and would probably have to outsource their management. Such holdings wouldn't help avert foreclosures much, since the Fed would have little control over the mortgages that comprise MBS.

quote:

Supreme Court Muni-Bond Delay Has Lawyers, Markets Puzzling

By Greg Stohr

April 9 (Bloomberg) -- Municipal-bond investors have a new question to ponder amid the turmoil in the $2.6 trillion market: What is taking the U.S. Supreme Court so long?

The court heard arguments Nov. 5 on the special tax breaks that 42 states provide to municipal bonds issued within their borders. At the time, many analysts and lawyers predicted a quick decision that would allow in-state exemptions and overturn a Kentucky court ruling that declared them unconstitutional.

Five months later, the bond market is still waiting -- and in some quarters wondering whether the holdup signals something other than a clear-cut victory for existing tax rules.

``The length of time to me means that there could be more subtlety to the decision, or that the decision itself might not be as cut-and-dried as we had expected,'' said Matt Fabian, managing director at Municipal Market Advisors, a Concord, Massachusetts-based research firm.

A ruling against Kentucky would force states to eliminate their tax exemptions for interest on in-state bonds -- or extend those breaks to out-of-state bonds. States would face billions of dollars in refund claims, and almost 500 single-state bond funds would lose much of their appeal.

Such a ruling might ripple through an already troubled bond market. Municipal bonds lost 0.82 percent in total return on average last quarter, their worst start since 1996, according to a Merrill Lynch & Co. index.

............